- by Owen Morton
I had the misfortune to see The Little Mermaid last night. The reason for this will go unspoken, though it had something to do with the fact that the rest of my video collection was deemed unacceptable for viewing. Consisting as it does primarily of Buffy videos, I can see where this would cause problems for people who don’t like Buffy. But quite why my He-Man video was rejected, I’m not sure. Speaking of that He-Man video, it’s got an episode on it that I haven’t reviewed yet. Expect a He-Man episode review to pop up in the near future.
Anyway, let’s talk about The Little Mermaid. I don’t generally like Disney films as a matter of principle, given that good old Walt Disney himself had rather right-wing, nay even Nazi, tendencies. On the other hand, The Little Mermaid was produced in 1993, which is a good long time after Walt’s death, so he probably had very little to do with it. The same goes for The Lion King, which is my own personal favourite Disney film. But anyway, I seem to have digressed. As usual.
For those who are lucky enough to have never seen The Little Mermaid, I hope for your sakes that you never do. Trust me, your sanity will not be improved by viewing this film. It’s only 79 minutes long, but it seems an awful lot longer. I was only able to cope by consuming alcohol and ice cream while I was watching, though the alcohol was a bottle of Mango and Apple flavoured Reef, so that could quite potentially have added to the torment, Mango and Apple flavoured Reef not being what one could call the nicest alcohol in the world. The ice cream was all right though.
Anyway, the intention of the previous paragraph was to start giving an overview of the plot, such as there was one, of the film, though I instead diverged into an irrelevant discussion. So in this paragraph we’ll get it right. The Little Mermaid’s title character was Princess Ariel, daughter of King Triton. The presumable intention of the animators was that she was supposed to look attractive, but … well, she didn’t. She was supposed to be sixteen years old, but she looked about five. At any rate, it would have been quite an impressive feat if the animators had managed to make someone who’s half-girl, half-fish look attractive.
The film opened with a very irritating song and dance performed by a load of mermaids who looked very slightly more attractive than Ariel (only very slightly) for the entertainment of King Triton, who, it must be said, was of one of those frankly impossible muscular builds (frankly impossible even for a half-man, half-fish). His fish tail was around about the same size as Ariel’s and everyone else’s, but from there, his body expanded to a huge size. At a guess (I’m not going to watch the film again just to make sure), I would say that his arms were roughly the same width as his fish tail. He had long white hair (which, just like everyone else’s, managed to stay immaculately coiffured even though he was underwater) which would imply great age and presumably wisdom, though as it turned out, neither of these was true. The age bit was disproved the moment he spoke, because he was voiced by someone who I would estimate was about 30. The wisdom bit was disproved later in the film, but we’ll just have to wait till we get there in order to discuss it.
Anyway, enough about Triton and more about the plot. The quicker I get on with the plot, the quicker I’ll finish the article and the sooner I’ll never have to think about The Little Mermaid again. The centrepiece of this irritating song and dance which I mentioned earlier was supposed to be Ariel hiding in a very large seashell, for some reason, but while the other mermaids were singing and dancing about, Ariel buggered off somewhere. King Triton’s expression when he realised she’d gone was a joy to behold.
But where had she gone? Well, we now got treated to a long and pointless interlude which served only to facilitate one joke much later on, and it wasn’t even a good joke. Ariel and her friend Flounder, who was a guppy fish, are off exploring the wreck of a human ship which is lying on the bottom of the sea. It’s a dark and uninviting-looking place, so, this being a Disney film, we know something nasty is likely to happen here. Anyway, Ariel and Flounder swim around the ship for a while. They get in through a porthole (quite why they don’t just swim over the deck and down inside the ship the same way a human would go is somewhat unclear), which provided me with much amusement when Ariel just flitted through it and the much, much smaller Flounder got stuck. This then resulted in Ariel telling Flounder, “Oh, Flounder, you’re such a guppy!”, which considering that Flounder is a guppy, doesn’t seem like much of an insult. Flounder responded, “I’m not a guppy!” which was patently false. I must have missed something in this little exchange, because it was clearly supposed to be amusing, but it wasn’t.
Anyway, the dynamic duo explore the ship and loot it. I’m not lying: Ariel nicks off with whatever she wants. Oddly enough, the only things she does seem to want are a fork and a pipe, and having got these, she decides it’s time to leave. Unfortunately, the ship is in the territory of a large and frankly unpleasant shark whose sole objective in life seems to be to eat Ariel and Flounder. You’d think it would go off and look for some easier prey, considering the merry chase Ariel and Flounder now put it through. In the course of the chase, Ariel drops the fork and pipe and disregards all safety rules she’s ever been taught by going back for them. What sort of message does this convey to the children watching this film? If you happen to be being chased by a shark and you’re carrying a fork which you’ve only just found and you drop it, make sure you risk life and limb to recover it? Okay, that’s not a particularly likely scenario, I’ll admit, but you understand the principle.
The chase ends with the shark somehow getting its head stuck in something and being unable to pursue our heroes any further, and Ariel and Flounder head up to the surface of the water to meet a friend of theirs, a seagull whose name temporarily escapes me, and will continue to do so for the entire article, I would imagine. They have an interminable conversation with the seagull, in which the seagull tells Ariel that the fork is a comb (though he calls it a boondingle, for some unknown reason) and that the pipe is a musical instrument, and in attempting to demonstrate, he blows into the pipe and a load of plants spring out of it. I am unsure why. One thing I’d really like to call attention to in this scene is that Flounder the fish comes out of the water and manages to remain alive without any evident problems. It struck me that this is not remotely realistic, until it occurred to me that, given I was watching a film in which the title character was a mythical creature, I might have to suspend disbelief for the duration. But that doesn’t mean I’d stop insulting it.
Ariel suddenly remembers that she’s supposed to be performing in that irritating song and dance for King Triton that I mentioned many paragraphs back, and swims off as fast as she can. She doesn’t get there in time, obviously, and King Triton demands to know where she’s been. She manages to keep it hidden for a while, but eventually someone, I think Flounder, lets slip that she’s been up to the surface. At this, King Triton totally flips out. I have no idea why. It’s not like she even did anything up there other than talk to a demented seagull. At any rate, he forbids her to ever go up there again, and orders his crab, Sebastian, to watch over Ariel and make sure she doesn’t.
Anyway, the main action of the film begins round about now. (Yes, folks, everything that’s gone before has just been the introductory sequence. That’s how good it is.) Ariel buggers off to her cave where she’s collected an immense amount of junk that she’s looted from human ships. By immense, I really mean immense. She’s got a hell of a lot of stuff. To be perfectly honest, I reckon she deliberately sunk the ships herself just so she could nick this stuff. She’s got that shifty kind of look about her; she definitely looks the type to sink ships.
Quite what the attraction of this human stuff is, I was never entirely sure. Ariel tries to justify it by singing another annoying song about “that other world”, but I’m not buying it really. I think she’s just a kleptomaniac. Anyway, after she finishes the song, Sebastian makes his grand entrance and starts jabbering on about how she shouldn’t bother with savage humans. Of course, Ariel doesn’t listen, being far too intent on watching a human ship go by. “Ah ha!” she says, “Another ship to sink!”
Well, actually, she doesn’t, but you can see the thought crossing her face. At any rate, she swims up there, followed by Flounder and Sebastian, the latter of whom all the while insisting that she come back down again, without success, obviously. The three of them stick their heads above water – including Flounder, who once again doesn’t asphyxiate, much to the disappointment of certain viewers (me, specifically) – and watch as the ship lets off fireworks, for no readily apparent reason. Fascinated, Ariel climbs on board (though quite how she does this, given her lack of legs, is similarly unclear), and watches the humans more closely.
It is at this point that we see our first glimpse of the handsome prince. He is called Eric and at first impression he appears to be mightily stupid, an impression which is only borne out by his later actions. This time when we see him, he’s playing a flute to a demented dog, and they’re dancing. For some reason, this causes Ariel to fall deeply and madly in love with him – though no one ever said she was that bright either.
Anyway, disaster now strikes! A storm arises and this somehow causes the ship to catch fire. Everybody evacuates, Ariel thinking “Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Now I can nick all this lovely stuff!” Everybody, that is, apart from the afore-mentioned demented dog, which Prince Eric then goes back and rescues. Unfortunately, he himself fails to get off the boat in time, and his crewmates assume that he has drowned.
But no! Ariel has rescued him. I was really rooting for her to take him down to the bottom of the sea to meet her father, and let him see how humans aren’t savage after all, but it seems that despite the many breaches of logic Disney employed in this film, the misconception that humans can breathe underwater was not one of them. On the other hand, she could have taken him down after all. Once he’d drowned, King Triton would have seen how undangerous Eric was. As it actually turns out, Ariel takes Eric to a beach and sings to him, an awful racket which makes him wake up. He catches a brief glimpse of her face before she dives back into the water. He sits around groggily before his shipmates find him, and take him back to his castle.
Sebastian sings Ariel an irritating song (you may have worked out by now that all the songs in this film are irritating) about how life is so much better “under the sea! Life is much better, down where it’s wetter, under the sea!” Understandably, in the middle of this song, Ariel buggers off again and goes back to her cave. King Triton somehow finds out that Ariel has been back to the surface and goes to find her in her cave. This is the bit which paints King Triton as not particularly wise – in fact, one is left with the lasting impression that he’s a complete bastard. It was the only bit of the film which made me even slightly feel any emotion: I felt kind of bad for Ariel. Which considering how annoying she is, is quite an achievement.
King Triton barges in and starts shouting at Ariel about how she must never go to the surface. After only a very slight argument, King Triton decides that Ariel will not be convinced, and decrees, “Well, if this is the only way to persuade you!” and promptly uses his golden trident to destroy all her loot. He then leaves, muttering something to himself about how it was the only way. In fact, if you ask me, it wasn’t the only way. It was in fact the stupidest possible way to attempt to persuade her. Doing that is only going to make her dwell on what she’s lost, so she’s going to be more preoccupied than ever with humans. Ariel throws herself down on a rock and starts crying. Sebastian and Flounder try to comfort her, but she tells them to fuck off (though not in so many words, obviously).
And now things really get sinister. Unbeknownst to all involved, the sea witch Ursula, who appears to be half-woman, half-octopus, has been watching everything with great glee. She obviously has some kind of plot up her sleeve, though quite what it is is totally unclear, and remains so throughout the entire film. Even when she’s succeeded, I have absolutely no idea what it is she thinks she’s achieved. Anyway, she sends her eels, Flotsam and Jetsam, to find Ariel, and they manage to persuade her to come and see Ursula, who might be able to help her.
The entrance to Ursula’s fortress is enough to put anyone off, even someone as stupid as Ariel. The doorway to get in is fashioned in the style of a large sea monster, and you get in by swimming into the mouth. Inside, there are a load of wizened brown creatures who look miserably at Ariel. Moreover, the eels themselves speak in much too oily voices to possibly be up to any good. And when Ariel sees Ursula herself, she should know she’s not going to get anything good out of this, and should leave right now. I mean, I’m not for judging people on appearances, but since this is a cartoon, and good and evil are two totally separate camps, and you can tell who the baddies are just by looking at them, Ariel really should know better.
Ursula sings an irritating song about the “poor unfortunate souls” that she helps. The only poor unfortunate soul I was aware of at this moment was myself. I was forced to take a good long drink of my Mango and Apple Reef, which in itself was a mistake and led only to the exacerbation of my soul’s poor unfortunate condition. Anyway, Ursula offers Ariel the chance to become human for three days, in which time she must make Prince Eric kiss her. If she manages it, she will be human for evermore. If she doesn’t, she will belong to Ursula, and become one of the wizened brown creatures mentioned in the previous paragraph.
It occurred to me while watching this scene that it borrows rather heavily from Christopher Marlowe’s classic play ‘Doctor Faustus’. Ariel is selling her soul to Ursula, just as Faustus does to Mephistopheles in Act II, Scene I of that play. Okay, so she doesn’t sign in blood, but she does agree to surrender her immortal soul to Ursula at the end of a set time period: Ariel gets three days, Faustus twenty-four years. And it’s also painfully obvious that Ursula doesn’t intend keeping her side of the bargain, just as Mephistopheles gave Faustus no end of trouble. I think someone in the Disney corporation had been reading Doctor Faustus, and had been inspired.
Anyway, it’s occurring to me that this article is getting extremely long, and since I’m only halfway through the film, I’m getting rather bored, so I’m going to finish here. I’ll write the second half of the review probably tonight and post it up on the website tomorrow. Probably. No promises. It could be ages until I get round to doing it. But rest assured, I wouldn’t miss out on doing the second half. It contains much more screen time – and thus many more demonstrations of stupidity – for the prince, far fewer irritating songs and the extremely interesting spectacle of Ursula growing to a tremendous size for no apparent reason.