The Little Nostalgic Mermaid

For my first review I'll tackle my favorite childhood movie. Trust me I can be objective.

The Little Mermaid as told by Disney. Growing up I wanted to be a mermaid, I practically breathed The Little Mermaid. I still know the whole movie almost by heart.

I shouldn't have to lay out the whole plot of the story, but here it is breafly. Ariel is a mermaid princess and is facinated with the human world. After sneaking up to the surface she spies a human prince and falls for him. She ends up rescueing him and making a deal with a sea witch, but is tricked by the witch. It all ends okay though (come on it is Disney.)

First because I have to mention it, the soundtrack is AMAZING. I am actually listening to it right now, and I kid you not the movie is playing in my head. Not just the songs with singing, but the whole thing is amazing and really brings the story to life. Onto the actually story though.

Don't worry this won't be just fangirl gushing, though I will indulge from time to time.

This is one major problem that this movie suffers from and I'll be honest nearly every Disney story does too, it is Princess Syndrome. Now it is true the original little mermaid was a princess too, but Disney has a thing for making every (important) girl character a princess. Either by birth or marriage. Now it does work in this story and is relevant to the plot, but the problem still stands. Why do only real princesses matter? The desire to wait for a "prince" to come along and sweep us girls off our feet is not a healthy one. (Beyond my standard fantasies ;p) Honestly though I do applaud Ariel for being the first princess who actually went out and chased down her prince and did something.

No matter her flaws I love Ariel. She has such a spunky attitude but is also just so likable.

Speaking of flaws though, the major concern I hear brought up against this movie is what Ariel does to get her guy. Namely give up EVERYTHING to be with him and even risk eternal imprisonment/slavery/turned into a worm thing. Eric (the prince) on the other hand doesn't have to give up anything to get the girl in the end. Ariel has to leave her home, her family and in fact everything she has ever known to be with Eric. Now this is a little bit related to reality though, and I can respect that. First at the time period when a girl married she did leave everything behind to live with her husband, and for modern times it does represent the change of growing up. Not to mention that part at the end always gets me teary.

Eric himself was actually fairly well done, especially considering he was the first prince to actually have a personality. I did like how at a certain point he gives up on the "fantasy" girl he isn't sure even exists, and allows himself to fall for Ariel. It showed that he fell for Ariel the person, not the fantasy.

Though, yes, falling in love in that short period of time is a bit much. I'm not overly fond of any "love at first sight" stories. Real relationships take a bit more work then, "hey I looked you in the eyes lets be in love forever."

The character that I think is the most loved though (next to Ariel) is the sea witch Ursula. Which is kinda funny if you think about it. It just seems Disney is so much better at creating interesting villains then regular characters.

Ursula wants to take over the underwater kingdom, and uses Ariel to try and achieve those ends. One thing that drives me nuts about these kind of villains though is how many want to "rule the kingdom/world" or what-not. One simple question, why? Like with Ursula, why is she so interested in ruling the ocean? This is never answered in the movie, but in the Broadway play Ursula is King Triton's sister. That of course makes a lot more sense than a random sea witch randomly wanting to rule the ocean. In fact that itself sounds like a really interesting story, one I'd love to hear. Moving on though. Ursula's character has a lot of charisma, and is just a lot of fun, even if her motives are never explained in the movie. She is just enjoyable as she is.

Last there of course is the visuals. The animation for this story is stunning and over 20 years later holds up really well, and if I'll be honest is often better then more recent movies. The world that was created was also beautiful, with bubbles constantly swirling around underwater, and all the little details that went into it.

My final thoughts: I can understand why others might dislike this movie, but for me all the flaws cannot dampen the beauty and energy this movie has. Every time I watch this movie I fall in love with it again.