• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The Little Mermaid Live Action (no politics)

Marvel14

Marvel14

Banned
Searched for the last thread on this but it looks likes its been totally nuked. I hope it' s possible to actually discuss the film and its artistic and entertainment merits on Gaf as with any other movie. If not then this thread won't last long.

Anyway here goes. Just watched the film (spoilers ahead) and my thoughts are:

Pros:
  1. Halle Bailey is excellent...she embodies the character and her singing is fantastic. She's supercute too.
  2. Bloke who plays Eric is great: believable and relatable.
  3. Love that they expanded the story both to show that Ariel and Eric are real kindred spirits and that Ariel isn't just desperately waiting for him to kiss her to save her from Ursula.
  4. Loved Javier Bardem's journey of paternal wisdom and how loss in the father daughter relationship is handled.
  5. Love how the film puts itself in the Carribbean which makes a lot of sense given the original music. Answers the Little Mermaid's race question beautifully as well and the fact that Triton has mixed race daughters covering the seven seas also makes perfect sense. Although does make him a bit of a naughty sailor.
  6. Also love that Eric is an Anglo Saxon adopted by a Caribbean mom...explains more of his attraction to Ariel and also makes him the minority in the movie. A refreshing twist!
  7. Ursula is fine and her alter ego at the end is good too.
  8. The aquatic supporting characters all are good..they look realistic but it doesn't detract from their likeability too much.
  9. Love the message of togetherness and cooperation between different worlds- its the kind of sentiment the world needs right now.
  10. Classic songs all very enjoyable updated takes.
  11. New rap between Scuttle and Sebastian is fun and works!
  12. Underwater world is believable and additional scenes in the surface world work fine too.
Cons:
  1. Immersion breaks...Bird chatting underwater for a long time is a bit far fetched...and objects underwater not behaving as if they are in water also not great. Good thing neither is less believable than a 100 ft seawitch.
  2. Eric's new song is ok and not good at the same time. I don't like this new trend of making musical movie songs into "blow by blow narratives with flashy endings a la Broadway". Far less appealing than the emotions based Disney songs of yore.
  3. Film drags a bit in places but nothing too onerous or off putting.
  4. Scuttle's famous punk rock contribution to Kiss the Girl RIP.
  5. They try to develop the Son mom relationship but it lacks the emotional heft of the daughter dad relationship.

All in all hugely enjoyable and one of the best Disney live action remakes that actually deepens on the original story.

One last note: to those who can't discuss the film as a piece of entertainment you know that Resetera censors topics to cater to woke outrage. Well your attitude is its mirror image turning GAF into a place that censors topics to nix outrage-at-woke. I can't imagine that anyone that enjoys GAF actually wants GAF to have that mirror reputation. But you do you I guess. I can't stop you.
 
Last edited:
DKehoe

DKehoe

Member
twin-peaks-its-happening-again.gif
 
AmuroChan

AmuroChan

Member
I brought my kids to see it because my daughter loved the original. I dozed off for a solid 10-15 min. So I may have missed some plot points. Overall, my impression is that the movie was entirely average. Pacing is all over the place and the movie was way too long at 2+ hours. The new songs are forgettable. The old songs are still good. Some of the plot changes just felt like change for change sake and didn't enhance the story in any way. Bailey has a great voice, though her acting is pretty average IMO. CGI looked a lot better than what they showed in the trailers.
 
S

SidViscous

Member
The only pro for me was the chemistry between the main two actually worked.

Cons are too long to list, the new songs were terrible and so generic it was like it was written by an AI trained on Lin-Manuel Miranda. CGI was rough in a lot of places, and the movie is just too damn long.
 
Happosai

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
Zelphyr said:
That last paragraph almost gave me an aneurysm.
When I read "Resetera".
Click to expand...
Film critics don't need to be 'leaning' to give this or any of Disney's live action movies a low score. It's directors, production corporates, actors, musical composers, writers et al; who appear to know nothing about filmmaking. For instance, marketing.

Who was the target audience and who is demanding these movies be made? Who asked for this and what justifies the budget put into these 'films?'
 
Husky

Husky

THE Prey 2 fanatic
Happosai said:
Who was the target audience and who is demanding these movies be made? Who asked for this and what justifies the budget put into these 'films?'
Click to expand...
I'm afraid this is the justification for the budget. Since Maleficent kickstarted this trend, the majority of their theatrical remakes have made at least 3x their budget at the box office. I'm not sure how much of the intended audience are kids, or the "Disney adults," or how much they intend to capitalize on audiences who don't expect to enjoy the movie, but still pay to see it out of curiosity. I've only recently dropped the habit of watching franchise dogshit that I know I won't enjoy.
jAC7VwL.png
 
Happosai

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
Zelphyr said:
Any chance I get for shitting on Reee I'll take.
Kind hearted people with common sense should avoid this place.

Now back to that mermaid movie thing.
Click to expand...
You pointed out OP's last paragraph and it is cringey. Why start comparing GAF to reset if folks here are going to call a spade a spade.

Anyone studying the CG should look at the work they put into Xeroxing the OG hand-drawn/painted film. Now, Xerox when done with the right team looked much better than the bubbly CAD-like CG of today.

There was barely any celebrity voice casting in the original and you need to historically recoginize that Disney was losing animation after Oliver & Company bombed to Bluth's Land Before Time. The original focused on soundtrack and visual effects. It's a kids movie and didn't need trivial social ideologies to sell it. Disney proved they could still make decent A-grade animated movies in 1989 and beat Bluth.

Had the original movie not been successful and All Dogs Go to Heaven topped it; they likely would have ended animated films by 1991. That one movie brought it back and started the Disney Renaissance.

That's my take. What has Disney made with their animation departments since 1996 that was truelly stunning, original and monumental for the future of animation?
 
Dr. Claus

Dr. Claus

Banned
Husky said:
I'm afraid this is the justification for the budget. Since Maleficent kickstarted this trend, the majority of their theatrical remakes have made at least 3x their budget at the box office. I'm not sure how much of the intended audience are kids, or the "Disney adults," or how much they intend to capitalize on audiences who don't expect to enjoy the movie, but still pay to see it out of curiosity. I've only recently dropped the habit of watching franchise dogshit that I know I won't enjoy.
jAC7VwL.png
Click to expand...

Sorcerer's Apprentice barely made its money back world wide. Same with Cruella and I think Mulan just outright failed to reach it?
That does my heart good.

I wouldn't mind if they were more like Christopher Robin and being their own thing instead of a blatantly worse version of the Animated films that have infinitely better writing, passion, and heart. The Lion King? Make it a film adaptation of the stage play, with similar aesthetics and costumes. Or hell, make it a full on documentary with no talking animals. Aladdin? Make it a full on bollywood film. Mulan? Make it a historical drama! So much potential that they squander.

Was given a free ticket to see Little Mermaid with my niece. She and I both hated it. Horrible writing looked ugly and bland, none of the musical moments felt fun or engaging. The acting was subpar and the singing felt really forced. Also she was not happy that Ariel went from being ginger (which is what she is) to dark haired. Easily one of the worst of the live action films and I would sooner watch their recent live action Pinnochio than this trash again.
 
Trogdor1123

Trogdor1123

Member
Talked to a couple folks and they spoke pretty well about Halle in it. Her singing skills were good to great. They were not to happy with the rest, specifically the length. It got boring
 
Lord Panda

Lord Panda

The Sea is Always Right
Happosai said:
Film critics don't need to be 'leaning' to give this or any of Disney's live action movies a low score. It's directors, production corporates, actors, musical composers, writers et al; who appear to know nothing about filmmaking. For instance, marketing.

Who was the target audience and who is demanding these movies be made? Who asked for this and what justifies the budget put into these 'films?'
Click to expand...

Shareholders and Disney accountants?

Dr. Claus Dr. Claus I thought Cruella was pretty entertaining. Mulan was utterly dreadful; I can't believe how much they fucked that up even when the decent cast they had.
 
Last edited:
Husky

Husky

THE Prey 2 fanatic
Dr. Claus said:
Sorcerer's Apprentice barely made its money back world wide. Same with Cruella and I think Mulan just outright failed to reach it?
That does my heart good.
Click to expand...
I don't think The Sorcerer's Apprentice falls within this wave of remakes, it's more of a separate Jerry Bruckheimer joint that was very loosely inspired by a section from Fantasia (in the same way his Pirates of the Caribbean movies were loosely inspired by a ride). It's definitely a very different sort of movie, which I wouldn't expect to impact Disney's decision to make more live-action remakes.
Because of COVID, Mulan was a Disney+ $30 rental (not counted in box office figures), and was only released in theaters in certain overseas territories, and Cruella was both a COVID theatrical release and a day-one Disney+ rental. I don't think we can reliably use those to gauge the potential box office gross for future movies. A Cruella sequel's in development, so Disney must be pleased with its performance under the circumstances.

I agree that this is very unfortunate.
 
Happosai

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
Lord Panda said:
Shareholders and Disney accountants?

Dr. Claus Dr. Claus I thought Cruella was pretty entertaining. Mulan was utterly dreadful; I can't believe how much they fucked that up even when the decent cast they had.
Click to expand...
For the target? Investors on the international market should inquire wisely?

Not going to dox my CFO but the guy worked with Disney in the past for over a decade in the latter. Their projections rode the train on some of these atrocious releases. However, they were well separated from the overall film producer side of things. They could whisper capital to CEOs but only seldom convince them to push these releases.

I was driving at them generally shooting darts in the dark as a target. International market will eat this up 5-times over compared to domestic.

So, if it's shareholders...they're taking a gamble.
 
Marvel14

Marvel14

Banned
Happosai said:
You pointed out OP's last paragraph and it is cringey
Click to expand...
Sorry but all the Little Mermaid threads have been either nuked or shut. I had to put in a disclaimer to stop people reverting to their usual woke/ anti woke talking points.

Also I hate all the bloody outrage from both woke folk and the anti-woke. It's a shitty mindset to be in and they mirror one another. If that's cringy then try talking some sense to all of the outrage merchants. Don't shoot the messenger.
 
Last edited:
Happosai

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
Marvel14 said:
Sorry but all the Little Mermaid threads have been either nuked or shut. I had to put in a disclaimer to stop people reverting to their usual woke/ anti woke talking points.

Also I hate all the bloody outrage from both woke folk and the anti-woke. It's a shitty mindset to be in and they mirror one another. If that's cringy then try talking some sense to all of the outrage merchants. Don't shoot the messenger.
Click to expand...
Fair. It can easily be discussed without politics. We're not Twitter.

From a cinematic perspective, I have to be fair in evaluating it. My views come from those of someone who still wishes all animation was hand-drawn/painted. That'd be my bias. I'm not political and I guess those folks ought better to be compared with the Twitter crowd.

Thanks for outlining that for discussion. The previous OPs were getting off the rails.
 
natjjohn

natjjohn

Member
Not gonna watch this but saw some
Complaints of the length.

Again, having never seen it and won’t, it’s hard to come up with the reasons with the Little Mermaid, a kid’s movie remake, needed to be two hours and fifteen minutes. I love long movies too, but can’t see the why on this. The original was an hour and 23. Almost an additional hour…. Can’t see there being that much more story to extract. I could be wrong though!
 
Last edited:
BadBurger

BadBurger

Banned
$185.8 million in its first weekend worldwide, conservative estimates. I knew it would do good but that's pretty wild. There's still streaming and licensing deals.

This will probably fizzle out before it hits a billion like Aladdin. But still serious numbers.
 
Kiwicha

Kiwicha

Member
Where the hell is the "Where the hell is The little Mermaid OT" thread? Gone too soon. Hope this one last longer (that's what she said)
My girlfriend (21) is not interested at all in this movie, I asked my female friends, none of them. I was trying to find an excuse to go see this movie but it was not meant to be. I watched some clips online and for the little I've seen they sure know how to suck out the magic of certain key moments.
But I haven't seen the whole movie, nor finish the original so I'll shut up.
 
Madflavor

Madflavor

Member
BadBurger said:
$185.8 million in its first weekend worldwide, conservative estimates. I knew it would do good but that's pretty wild. There's still streaming and licensing deals.

This will probably fizzle out before it hits a billion like Aladdin. But still serious numbers.
Click to expand...
Doom85 said:
Internationally, yes, but funny enough, Mermaid’s domestic box office is already surpassing Fast X’s domestic box office despite the latter being in theaters for a week longer.
Click to expand...

Read these and felt encouraged to shed light on the box office performance of TLM.

TLM is NOT doing well. Quite the opposite. $185 million world wide (looking closer to $165 million) during Memorial Day Weekend, with a budget that sets a break even point of roughly $650 million, is pretty bad news for TLM. That's flop territory. There's no reason to believe the film will have good legs. Even if we're very generous and give it's legs a 3x multiplier, that's still sub $560 million WW for it's total run, which falls short of breaking even. At this point TLM would need to have unbelievable holds the next few weeks to have a prayer of not flopping, and with films like Transformers: RotB, Spiderman Across the Spiderverse, Elemental (which might also flop), and The Flash on the horizon, that is not likely to happen at all.

TLM ain't coming anywhere close to a billion. It may not even hit half a billion.
 
Last edited:
StreetsofBeige

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Madflavor said:
Read these and felt encouraged to shed light on the box office performance of TLM lol.

TLM is NOT doing well. Quite the opposite. $185 million world wide (looking closer to $165 million) during Memorial Day Weekend, with a budget that sets a break even point of roughly $650 million, is pretty bad news for TLM. That's flop territory. There's no reason to believe the film will have good legs. Even if we're very generous and give it's legs a 3x multiplier, that's still sub $560 million WW for it's total run, which falls short of breaking even. At this point TLM would need to have unbelievable holds the next few weeks to have a prayer of not flopping, and with films like Transformers: RotB, Spiderman Across the Spiderverse, Elemental (which might also flop), and The Flash on the horizon, that is not likely to happen at all.

TLM ain't coming anywhere close to a billion. It may not even hit half a billion.
Click to expand...
At a $250M budget, wouldnt that require $500M to breakeven (assuming gate receipts are 50/50 between theatre/movie studio)?

Maybe I'm missing something.
 
Happosai

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
Madflavor said:
Read these and felt encouraged to shed light on the box office performance of TLM lol.

TLM is NOT doing well. Quite the opposite. $185 million world wide (looking closer to $165 million) during Memorial Day Weekend, with a budget that sets a break even point of roughly $650 million, is pretty bad news for TLM. That's flop territory. There's no reason to believe the film will have good legs.
Click to expand...
Now we're discrimnating against mermen and mermaids with that commentary
 
Madflavor

Madflavor

Member
StreetsofBeige said:
At a $250M budget, wouldnt that require $500M to breakeven (assuming gate receipts are 50/50 between theatre/movie studio)?

Maybe I'm missing something.
Click to expand...

The break even multiplier is typically 2.5x a film's budget. There's a lot of variables involved depending on the region. For example the studio gets somewhere between 50-55% of the revenue from Domestic ticket sales, whereas they get 25% from a country like China. In other countries it differs, but they're typically not as much as domestic. It was assumed for a while that a film needs to make twice it's budget to cross that break even threshold and start to become profitable, but Box Office discussion forums and the subreddit eventually figured out it's more than that, especially if it's a big Hollywood film. The 2.5x multiplier is the new formula used to get a decent estimate on a film's break even point. But like I said at first, there a lot of variable at play. Marketing costs, how many domestic tickets sales vs international, etc. So if a film sold faaaar more domestic tickets than international, then something closer to a 2x multiplier as oppose to 2.5x is probably going to be more accurate.

With that in mind you can see the predicament The Little Mermaid is in right now. One of the more respectable and knowledgeable users on Box Office Theory (Charlie Jatinder) is thinking $250-275 million domestic total is the likely scenario right now. So if Disney gets 50-55% of revenue from those domestic ticket sales, then do the math on how much money they'd need to make internationally to get them to break even, remembering that overseas the studios get roughly 25-40% from international ticket revenues.
 
Last edited:
Marvel14

Marvel14

Banned
It's done just shy of $200m US Domestic over the memorial day weekend (though weekend figures dont reconcile with dailies yet). Super Mario Bros movie did $227m over Easter weekend.

It's doing fine and if it keeps its second weekend fall off to 20% ish it may well hit close to $1bn.

So for those asking "who asked for this"..enough of these movies have done well to encourage Disney to make more. If they'd all tanked I'm pretty sure Disney would have stopped by now.

And on the film itself , I am not a Disney super fan. Mulan was completely forgettable, Jungle Book was meh, Lion King was an almost scene for scene remake with almost none of the charm, Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast were watchable, Cinderella was yawn, because the pacing was bad and all the animal companions were lifeless. Dumbo went off the rails and a centre...I forgot it existed and had to edit this comment in.

This one actually has a reason to exist (a deeper story better connecting the two protagonists) and is a good film. Not great, not without its faults but good and intelligently made....

Those seeking satisfaction and gratification out of this film bombing better look away now:

www.forbes.com

There’s Something Fishy About ‘The Little Mermaid’ Audience Review Scores — Update — The Critics Must Be Crazy

Something fishy is going on with The Little Mermaid’s Rotten Tomato user reviews.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com

edit: got all the numbers wrong above. Ignore them.
 
Last edited:
gow3isben

gow3isben

Member
BadBurger said:
$185.8 million in its first weekend worldwide, conservative estimates. I knew it would do good but that's pretty wild. There's still streaming and licensing deals.

This will probably fizzle out before it hits a billion like Aladdin. But still serious numbers.
Click to expand...

Lol you guys are out of your mind with a billion? it likely won’t reach 500 mill worldwide


I plan to see it next week with tempered expectations
 
Last edited:
JonSnowball

JonSnowball

Member
When I was 16 I lost my virginity. I thought as a prelude to the night her and I should watch a film, she chose The Little Mermaid - the original as this was many years ago. We left it playing as we took each others innocence and came of age, then came again. To this day I'm unable to achieve orgasm without hearing Sebastian singing "Under the Sea".
 
Tams

Tams

Member
Pretty much everything about this film is mediocre to bad.

But of your negative critiques, the birdsong is only partially wrong. Fish are noisy fuckers, we mere humans just can't hear them.

 
mcjmetroid

mcjmetroid

Member
I just flat out don't like remakes of movies especially when the original was so good and doesn't require it.

I know WHY they do it but doesn't mean I have to go to it. The last one I saw was Mulan and Mulan was better reviewed than this movie and was SHITE so I'm not trusting reviews of this one.
 
Madflavor

Madflavor

Member
Marvel14 said:
It's done just shy of $200m US Domestic over the memorial day weekend (though weekend figures dont reconcile with dailies yet). Super Mario Bros movie did $227m over Easter weekend.

It's doing fine and if it keeps its second weekend fall off to 20% ish it may well hit close to $1bn.
Click to expand...

It did not make just shy of $200m domestic. It’s tracking for $115 - $120m domestic OW right now. What are you talking about?

Falls off to 20%? Are your trolling or are you really that clueless? Please say you’re trolling. I’ll have my chuckle, say “silly me”, and move on.
 
Marvel14

Marvel14

Banned
Madflavor said:
It did not make just shy of $200m domestic. It’s tracking for $115 - $120m domestic OW right now. What are you talking about?

Falls off to 20%? Are your trolling or are you really that clueless? Please say you’re trolling. I’ll have my chuckle, say “silly me”, and move on.
Click to expand...
Misread the stats...it's at $185m worldwide. Probably will hit $500m ish or somewhere a bit north of that.

Why are some people soo triggered by this movie...it's incredible.
 
Last edited:
Dr. Claus

Dr. Claus

Banned
Marvel14 said:
Misread the stats...it's at $185m worldwide. Probably will hit $500m ish or somewhere a bit north of that.

Why are some people soo triggered by this movie...it's incredible.
Click to expand...

Out of everyone in this thread, you seem the most triggered by other people's opinions. Learn to handle different opinions that don't coincide with yours and stop whining about people being "Triggered". Your projection is kind of sad at this point, Marvel.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

The Crow | Rotten Watch
News Cringe 2
76
4K
Kraz replied
  • Locked
Disney demanded edits on Inside Out 2 to make Riley appear "less gay"
40
3K
Doom85 replied
Alien Romulus | Rotten Watch
News Community 9 10 11 12 13
638
34K
Melon Husk replied
Ridley Scott interview - sharks in the colosseum, Maximus returning from the afterlife to kill Jesus Christ, asleep at the wheel for Prometheus
45
2K
dem replied
Deadpool & Wolverine | Rotten Watch
Community
29
3K
Durien replied
Top Bottom