Among the Disney animated movies that have gotten the live-action treatment is The Little Mermaid, which even though has already made some big changes to the animated movie, it’s still continuing a major trend related to the original tale. Disney has brought a number of fairy tales to the big screen that have been key to the studio’s popularity and success, though with various changes in order to make them more family-friendly. Among those is The Little Mermaid, directed by John Musker and Ron Clements and based on Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 fairy tale of the same name.
The Little Mermaid tells the story of Ariel, the youngest daughter of King Triton, who is fascinated by the world of humans. Ariel ends up falling in love with (human) Prince Eric after saving him during a shipwreck, and her desire to be with him leads her to make a dangerous deal with the sea witch Ursula, who against what she says, can’t really be trusted. Now, over three decades later, viewers will reunite with Ariel in a live-action version, directed by Rob Marshall and starring Halle Bailey as the beloved princess – and, unfortunately, it continues the trend of not being a loyal adaptation of the original tale.
Why Little Mermaid Adaptations Aren’t Loyal To The Original Tale
Although Andersen’s The Little Mermaid is a fairy tale, it isn’t like those seen in Disney’s animated movies, and it’s actually quite dark. The basis of the story is the same as in Disney’s classic, as it follows a young mermaid willing to give up her life in the sea as a mermaid in order to gain a human soul and join the human world. The Little Mermaid is given a potion by the Sea Witch that gives her legs in exchange for her voice, and while she would be able to walk and dance, she would constantly feel as if she was walking on sharp knives. However, in order to gain a soul, she has to win the love of the prince and marry him, otherwise, she will die of a broken heart and turn into sea foam upon the waves. In the end, the prince marries another princess, and unable to kill him (as that would have allowed her to return to the sea as a mermaid), the Little Mermaid dies and dissolves into foam.
The Little Mermaid has been adapted to film and TV various times, and the versions closest to Andersen’s tale are an episode of Shirley Temple’s Storybook and an episode of the animated series The Triplets, with the latter including the tale’s tragic ending. As fairy tales are now associated with happy endings, and The Little Mermaid’s ending is not exactly a happy one, it’s understandable that most adaptations have opted to change it and instead give Ariel a different fate. In Disney’s case, the studio always gives happy endings to its characters (though not before going through a couple of tragedies), and the dark tone of Andersen’s tale doesn’t really fit the studio’s family-friendly style. It’s more likely that a lesser-known or not-so-commercial version of The Little Mermaid would have the freedom of adapting the tale as it is, but as long as it’s made as a children’s tale, it will continue to go through drastic changes.
How The Live-Action Little Mermaid Can Fix This Trend
Although the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid is meant to be a family-friendly movie, Disney has taken some steps in different directions with its live-action remakes (as seen in Aladdin, where Jasmine went against the rules of Agrabah and was crowned sultana-regnant without having to marry a prince). The Little Mermaid could change the deal between Ariel and Ursula and make it more like the one in the tale, where instead of becoming Ursula’s slave, the princess could disappear into the sea, or she could be given another way out through a potion that could put the prince into eternal sleep. The Little Mermaid doesn’t have to be dark, but it can do some justice to the original tale by staying true to some parts of it.
