Film ► The Little Mermaid Live Action Remake

[Lulcy]

Last weekend the teaser earned over 104 millonw views globally, teaser floated above those of all recent Disney live-action titles, including “Cruella” (68 million views), “Beauty and the Beast” (94 million views), “Alladin” (74 million views) and “Maleficent 2” (62 million views).

 

[Pandymint]

I haven't been here in years, and yet this entire thread is giving me flashbacks to several years ago. Are we really debating whether people are dumping on The Little Mermaid because Ariel's actress is black again?

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

The answer is 100% because the actress is black. There is no other answer here. There are other factors at play, sure, but those don’t matter.

I appreciate that people think this is something up for debate but history has shown time and time again that this always boils down to being about race. Borrowing examples from Taochan our resident forum ghost, look at LOTR/Rings of Power. Look at GOT/House of the Dragon. What is the common thread here?

I haven't been here in years, and yet this entire thread is giving me flashbacks to several years ago. Are we really debating whether people are dumping on The Little Mermaid because Ariel's actress is black again?

As you know things are just an endless cycle. I too came in here like “didn’t we have this convo a few years ago?”

 

[BufferAqua]

The answer is 100% because the actress is black. There is no other answer here. There are other factors at play, sure, but those don’t matter.

I appreciate that people think this is something up for debate but history has shown time and time again that this always boils down to being about race. Borrowing examples from Taochan our resident forum ghost, look at LOTR/Rings of Power. Look at GOT/House of the Dragon. What is the common thread here?


As you know things are just an endless cycle. I too came in here like “didn’t we have this convo a few years ago?”

Exactly.

This forum has had drama back when Zendaya was rumored to be Ariel. She's even lighter than Halle too, and yet it got drama because she's a biracial girl. I remember similar complaints on this forum back in 2015 where Zendaya was confirmed to be MJ. All because of her race, not much else.

This forum has had even more drama once a fully black woman was confirmed for the role. Almost all of it was because of her race and not much else. It was even one of the most active threads at the time, just like how it is now.

It's completely warranted for people on this forum, especially the staff, to feel tired of the consistent race complaints. As well as feel skeptical at the claim that many of the complaints aren't majorly race-related.

 

[Elysium]

Last weekend the teaser earned over 104 millonw views globally, teaser floated above those of all recent Disney live-action titles, including “Cruella” (68 million views), “Beauty and the Beast” (94 million views), “Alladin” (74 million views) and “Maleficent 2” (62 million views).

Very interesting that it's bigger than the others. I imagine Disney enjoys the fact that they're getting attention, they really don't care how.

 

[Face My Fears]

Disney remakes are all undersaturated. They're all, mostly, lacking the flair of their animated counterparts and Little Mermaid (so far) looks no worse than, say, Maleficent's initial shitty trailer or the whole of the Lion King.

You're already admitting that "a good chunk" is because of racism, so you must be cognizant of the issues here. I think you're sorely underestimating the depth of the racism this film's been dealing with.

Let me ask you a question, Face My Fears. You have valid criticisms of the trailer and an overall negative opinion of it. Did you click dislike on the video? (And if you have, was it upon watching it or did you do it recently)

Yes, I disliked the video after I watched the trailer. The whole point of the dislike button is to let whoever posted the video know that I DISLIKED it.

I don't care who they cast as Ariel or anybody (OK I did want Queen Latifah as Ursula, but aside from that...) all I care about is that they actually deliver a good film. I love anything to do with underwater, so I was kind of looking forward to this and then I see the dull, colourless trailer with the only saving grace being a potentially good cover of "Part of Your World". Why should I be criticized for disliking the video? Granted, some of the dislikes are probably people pissed off at Ariel being played by Halle, but that shouldn't invalidate all of the dislikes.

There's no way to accurately judge which dislikes are from people that just clicked the video, hit dislike, then left because they hate Halle as Ariel. My point is that the dislikes shouldn't all be ignored and treated as "racist", when a good portion of them could be from people that have valid criticisms of the film. Mulan had dislikes because of no music/Mushu, Aladdin had dislikes because Genie looked horrible, the list goes on and on. The amount of dislikes may not be on The Little Mermaid's level, but like I said before, The Little Mermaid is one of DISNEY's top IPs so obviously more people will be paying attention to it.

My point is really that DISNEY shouldn't discredit all the dislikes as "racist" and hopefully take into consideration people's criticisms of the film and make adjustments accordingly. One of my biggest issues, rewatching the trailer, is that it doesn't even LOOK/FEEL like Ariel is underwater. There's barely any particles floating around or bubbles.

 

[Dandelion]

Yes, I disliked the video after I watched the trailer. The whole point of the dislike button is to let whoever posted the video know that I DISLIKED it.

I don't care who they cast as Ariel or anybody (OK I did want Queen Latifah as Ursula, but aside from that...) all I care about is that they actually deliver a good film. I love anything to do with underwater, so I was kind of looking forward to this and then I see the dull, colourless trailer with the only saving grace being a potentially good cover of "Part of Your World". Why should I be criticized for disliking the video? Granted, some of the dislikes are probably people pissed off at Ariel being played by Halle, but that shouldn't invalidate all of the dislikes.

There's no way to accurately judge which dislikes are from people that just clicked the video, hit dislike, then left because they hate Halle as Ariel. My point is that the dislikes shouldn't all be ignored and treated as "racist", when a good portion of them could be from people that have valid criticisms of the film. Mulan had dislikes because of no music/Mushu, Aladdin had dislikes because Genie looked horrible, the list goes on and on. The amount of dislikes may not be on The Little Mermaid's level, but like I said before, The Little Mermaid is one of DISNEY's top IPs so obviously more people will be paying attention to it.

My point is really that DISNEY shouldn't discredit all the dislikes as "racist" and hopefully take into consideration people's criticisms of the film and make adjustments accordingly. One of my biggest issues, rewatching the trailer, is that it doesn't even LOOK/FEEL like Ariel is underwater. There's barely any particles floating around or bubbles.

Hey, I wasn't going to criticize you for pressing it. (Disney doesn't give a fuck, but that's not why I asked)

I asked because you're less than 0.001 percent of the people who disliked it. You're a drop in the bucket, and maybe there were a lot of drops that agree with you and aren't racist, but disliking the video is one of the easiest things a youtube account can do, something that people can massively organize, and something a bot/script can be made to do and there's just NO WAY that the controversy around the video isn't mostly because of racism and that this was all organic clicking because the video's desaturated.

Please understand, that reality doesn't impact your opinion's validity.

 

[Elysium]

(OK I did want Queen Latifah as Ursula, but aside from that...)

I would've wanted Bette Midler although I knew that was a long shot (since I assumed she'd rather be doing Broadway anyway). Then again, Disney is working with her right now on Hocus Pocus 2 again, so who knows. But after the Live show aired a couple of years back, I was sort of surprised they didn't just cast Queen Latifah after that, tbh.

I expect they might copy the version of "Poor Unfortunate Souls" from that show if you've seen it, since it connected the first and second halves of the song into one seamless, ongoing song. The song as it was in the original with fun dialogue between is probably too complex for the remakes to pull off, I think, lol.

 

[WaltK]

Halle Bailey's 'Little Mermaid' is part of a long history of mermaids of color

From Mami Wata in African mythology to Inuit folklore's Sedna, mermaids have existed in different cultures for millennia.

uk.news.yahoo.com

 

[Face My Fears]

Halle Bailey's 'Little Mermaid' is part of a long history of mermaids of color

From Mami Wata in African mythology to Inuit folklore's Sedna, mermaids have existed in different cultures for millennia.

uk.news.yahoo.com

People are taking this way too seriously. Mermaids are fictional. They can be whatever colour the person creating the fictional work wants them to be.

They should have just CGI'd her to be fully green and be done with it. Then you would be able to tell the true racists when Halle was hired because then it wouldn't matter what race was hired... although I guess it happened to the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio.

 

[Sonofjafar]

I’m just tired of Disney using social progress to avoid negative criticism. Let’s be real here. This movie is going to be just as much of a train wreck as Pinocchio and these recasts are just to deflect the real problems with making it at all

 

[BufferAqua]

Probably misunderstanding, but what do you mean by social progress? The movie isn't going to be exempt from criticism. Face My Fears had criticisms about the teaser that had nothing to do with her race.

 

[Sonofjafar]

Probably misunderstanding, but what do you mean by social progress? The movie isn't going to be exempt from criticism. Face My Fears had criticisms about the teaser that had nothing to do with her race.

What I mean is that people that criticize the movie’s actual weak points are going to be clumped in with the people that only hate it because of the casting and I don’t like the fact that this is becoming a pattern with the reboots in particular

 

[BufferAqua]

What I mean is that people that criticize the movie’s actual weak points are going to be clumped in with the people that only hate it because of the casting and I don’t like the fact that this is becoming a pattern with the reboots in particular

What do you mean a pattern? Ariel has been the only big race change out of all the live action adaptations.

I also think it's strange to assume that Disney is using a black female lead to avoid backlash. What about the young black girls who will watch this movie? Representing more black women and their talent?

Disney is greedy af but that could most likely be the intent.

 

[Sonofjafar]

I just find the idea of remaking Disney’s best animated films in live action as a concept to be wrong. The race swaps like Ariel and the blue fairy in Pinocchio just seem like Disney trying to make these remakes seems like Disney trying to make these films seem like a natural progression that should happen rather than the cash grab abominations they are

 

[BufferAqua]

Eh, you can hate live-action remakes, that's fine. I don't even like most of them.

I just don't think Ariel's race has anything to do with it. And if there is an issue with her, it's usually a racist one.

You can dislike the adaptation without bringing her race into it.

 

[Willow A113]

I don't really care for this remake because I've never liked underwater scenes in live-action where they're talking a moving like they're not underwater and this film looks like one of those. Wakanda Forever and the new Avatar (although that's barely live-action) look great in that department, I can actually believe they're underwater. Ariel, not as much. Another user said the remake didn't have much color and I can agree with that. Hopefully, in future trailers, we can see how beautiful it can be under the sea. If not, I can sympathize with ariel wanting to live on land. Either way, I don't have any expectations for this movie because after all, it's a Disney remake. Still, never say never. It could miraculously be good.

 

[BufferAqua]

Hopefully, in future trailers, we can see how beautiful it can be under the sea.

I do agree with this. Under the sea is a very important part of TLM and its aesthetic appeal, so messing that up would be a big deal.

 

[BufferAqua]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1625904284972855325

 

[KHRULER]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1625904284972855325

Interesting to me that this wasn’t released during the super bowl. Maybe that’d be the wrong audience? Perhaps at the Oscars instead.