Disney's Live Action The Little Mermaid

[BlakeW39]

The topic of this thread is the new live-action The Little Mermaid.

There are other threads to discuss other Disney films.

???

They're talking about TLM.

 

[MisterPenguin]

???

They're talking about TLM.

It's rehashing the existence of live-action remakes, which has been brought up in this thread dozens of times. All in lieu of discussing a film they haven't seen yet, OR...

It's somehow about the marketing for Elemental???

OR... a random "I like Spider-Verse."

So, are they really talking about TLM?

I disagree with this. It’s perfectly possible and fair to wonder if a film is necessary after having seen it. This was my reaction to the remake of The Lion King, which I found utterly pointless.

Where is all this media marketing for Elemental? It's all hands on deck for TLM while over at Pixar marketing went on vacation.

This is why I think the crowded May/June calendar isn’t doing Disney any favors. They have to promote, sequentially, GOTG3 (which they’ll stop doing now that TLM is on the horizon), TLM (5/26), then shift gears suddenly to Elemental (6/16, which has had virtually no advertising yet and probably has terrible awareness), then ramp up for Indy 5 (6/30, and has already had a ton more marketing as compared to Elemental.

Disney has a finite amount of promotional dollars and employees (big hit in the layoffs). There’s also a finite amount of marketing space and box office dollars to compete with, especially when you have competition in the form of Fast X, Spider-Man, The Flash, Transformers, and Mission Impossible all coming in the same time frame.

Very crowded, finite resources, competing studios under Disney umbrella. Elemental is getting left out in the elements.

I've seen more for Wish than Elemental and it's five months later.

Jungle Book always struck me as Favreau doing a proof-of-concept for Lion King rather than a project they took on for its own sake.

Not to be conspiratorial, but if you as a company head harbored a true animosity for Pixar, it’s costs, and it’s independence, what would you do any differently than how they’ve been treated the last few years?

Maybe, but the result for TJB was fantastic.

"Spiderman: Across The Spiderverse" is the film I'm looking forward to. The first Spiderverse film was fantastic. I loved it even though I have no interest in superheroes. BTW, Spiderman is blowing the Mermaid out of the water when it comes to presales. I can't predict what's going to happen box-office-wise, of course. Mermaid is a popular Disney IP. We'll see what happens...

 

[LittleBuford]

It's rehashing the existence of live-action remakes, which has been brought up in this thread dozens of times. All in lieu of discussing a film they haven't seen yet, OR...

It's somehow about the marketing for Elemental???

OR... a random "I like Spider-Verse."

So, are they really talking about TLM?

You’re being a bit overzealous. Comparisons and analogies naturally come up in any discussion. Just report the posts if you really have such a problem with them.

 

[Tha Realest]

You’re being a bit overzealous. Comparisons and analogies naturally come up in any discussion. Just report the posts if you really have such a problem with them.

It’s clear he/she’s on a rampage to gatekeep out any negative discussions on these films. We’re all in the appropriate place to now discuss them and it’s still not good enough. It’s tedious and pathetic at this point.

 

[MisterPenguin]

It’s clear he/she’s on a rampage to gatekeep out any negative discussions on these films. We’re all in the appropriate place to now discuss them and it’s still not good enough. It’s tedious and pathetic at this point.

You've been discussing Elemental's marketing. If you think that this is the appropriate place for it, then why are you also discussing Elemental's marketing in the Elemental thread?

 

[BlakeW39]

It's rehashing the existence of live-action remakes, which has been brought up in this thread dozens of times. All in lieu of discussing a film they haven't seen yet, OR...

It's somehow about the marketing for Elemental???

OR... a random "I like Spider-Verse."

So, are they really talking about TLM?

Are you a mod?

 

[MisterPenguin]

You’re being a bit overzealous. Comparisons and analogies naturally come up in any discussion. Just report the posts if you really have such a problem with them.

It's a courteous heads-up to people to be courteous about being on-topic before I do bother the mods about it.

I don't care if people don't like that I do that or not.

 

[Tha Realest]

You've been discussing Elemental's marketing. If you think that this is the appropriate place for it, then why are you also discussing Elemental's marketing in the Elemental thread?

This was what I responded to:

“Where is all this media marketing for Elemental? It's all hands on deck for TLM while over at Pixar marketing went on vacation.”

The OP clearly discussed TLM marketing relative to Elemental.

Are you trying to be intellectually dishonest?

 

[LittleBuford]

It's a courteous heads-up to people to be courteous about being on-topic before I do bother the mods about it.

I don't care if people don't like that I do that or not.

By your logic (since you quoted my post), even analogies and comparisons aren’t permitted. That’s just silly. And your gatekeeping has itself now caused an unnecessary derailment.

 

[Disney Analyst]

So anyway, I went through as many tweets as I could find last night, and I was very happy to see such positivity. There were some with critiques on the CGI, but overall it sounds like Disney has done this film right.

Cannot wait to watch. The nostalgia is real for this millennial.

 

[MisterPenguin]

 

[LittleBuford]

So anyway, I went through as many tweets as I could find last night, and I was very happy to see such positivity. There were some with critiques on the CGI, but overall it sounds like Disney has done this film right.

Cannot wait to watch. The nostalgia is real for this millennial.

I haven’t been this excited for a film in a really long time!

 

[Casper Gutman]

I haven’t been this excited for a film in a really long time!

That genuinely shocks me. Culture war folderol aside, I think these live-action remakes do a terrible disservice to the originals, which were masterpieces of writing, animation, direction, and musical composition. These remakes are just so uniformly flat - uninteresting cinematography, lesser versions of classic songs, imitative performances. Looking at TLM, for instance, it’s stunning how terrible and unimaginative the character designs for Flounder, Sebastian, and Scuttle are, particularly compared to their brilliant originals. As films, they’re profoundly lackluster. As remakes, they’re a bit insulting - there’s an implicit suggestion that because the new version is live, it’s superior to the original, a suggestion only strengthened by the long dead status of Disney’s traditional animation department.

If Disney was determined to do these remakes, they should have set out to create new visions of familiar material, to put the remake in meaningful conversation with the original. Let’s have del Toro do Sleeping Beauty or Wes Anderson take on Snow White. The only remakes worth much of anything are Maleficent and Cinderella because they kind of do this.

If Disney really wants to endlessly milk these cash cows, I’d much prefer big-screen hand-drawn sequels, as exploitative as that might be.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

The only remakes worth much of anything are Maleficent and Cinderella because they kind of do this.

Cruella too. It's a bummer it got pandemic'ed.

It would have never happened, obviously, but I also think there's an R-rated martial arts movie that could have been pulled out of Mulan.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Cruella too. It's a bummer it got pandemic'ed.

It would have never happened, obviously, but I also think there's an R-rated martial arts movie that could have been pulled out of Mulan.

There were plans at one point for a Shaw Brothers/ wuxia style take on Snow White that sounded like a lot of fun.

Honestly, it even makes sense from a business perspective. You can only do a beat-for-beat remake once, but if you play variations on a theme, you can get multiple pictures out of familiar stories like Snow White.

 

[LittleBuford]

That genuinely shocks me.

Me too, to be honest. I generally feel indifferent towards the remakes, none of which I’ve much looked forward to or enjoyed to any significant extent, but this one has me truly excited for reasons I myself can’t quite put my finger on. It may have to do with my being a Little Mermaid superfan, which could also be the very thing that works against the film if it turns out not to be as good as I hope it’ll be. (I don’t expect it to surpass or equal the original, but it still has the potential to be great.)

 

[Disney Analyst]

That genuinely shocks me. Culture war folderol aside, I think these live-action remakes do a terrible disservice to the originals, which were masterpieces of writing, animation, direction, and musical composition. These remakes are just so uniformly flat - uninteresting cinematography, lesser versions of classic songs, imitative performances. Looking at TLM, for instance, it’s stunning how terrible and unimaginative the character designs for Flounder, Sebastian, and Scuttle are, particularly compared to their brilliant originals. As films, they’re profoundly lackluster. As remakes, they’re a bit insulting - there’s an implicit suggestion that because the new version is live, it’s superior to the original, a suggestion only strengthened by the long dead status of Disney’s traditional animation department.

If Disney was determined to do these remakes, they should have set out to create new visions of familiar material, to put the remake in meaningful conversation with the original. Let’s have del Toro do Sleeping Beauty or Wes Anderson take on Snow White. The only remakes worth much of anything are Maleficent and Cinderella because they kind of do this.

If Disney really wants to endlessly milk these cash cows, I’d much prefer big-screen hand-drawn sequels, as exploitative as that might be.

I think there are properties you can absolutely go a different direction on with these remakes, as to the examples you mentioned.

I also think there are properties that would get eviscerated if they were anything but a fully realized recreation of the animated film (and its music) in a real world setting, with subtle changes here and there.

I mean, the proof is in the pudding for which remakes have been insanely successful in terms of $$$, even if they don’t meet what you seek creatively.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

I don’t expect it to surpass or equal the original, but it still has the potential to be great.

But isn't that the point? Like... if they're making the same movie (as opposed to Maleficent, which was a different movie from Sleeping Beauty), and it's very unlikely that it's as good as the thing that already exists, then what are we even doing here?

If you're going to do it better, do it better. If you're going to do it different, do it different. But why do it the same, only worse?

Obviously the answer is to sell more dolls and Spirit Jerseys but that's not really an argument.

I also think there are properties that would get eviscerated if they were anything but a fully realized recreation of the animated film (and its music) in a real world setting, with subtle changes here and there.

Strongly disagree. Remaking the beloved thing is what opens up all of these avenues for criticism. A fresh story using some of the same characters would free these movies from the baggage of their predecessors.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Me too, to be honest. I generally feel indifferent towards the remakes, none of which I’ve much looked forward to or enjoyed to any significant extent, but this one has me truly excited for reasons I myself can’t quite put my finger on. It may have to do with my being a Little Mermaid superfan, which could also be the very thing that works against the film if it turns out not to be as good as I hope it’ll be. (I don’t expect it to surpass or equal the original, but it still has the potential to be great.)

If they put out a high-quality hand-drawn sequel, I’d watch it in theaters despite knowing my nostalgia was being exploited. But I’ve seen the story this film will tell already in a spectacularly good animated film.

Shame they couldn’t get James Cameron to direct. Guy likes water.

I do hope you really enjoy it.

 

[LittleBuford]

I do hope you really enjoy it.

Thank you!