The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

[Disney Duster]

She should have the same hair color in all the movie. I think that a hair with a computer-generated color is not going to look great. She should have worn a red wig as the one that Mera wears in Aquaman. A wig with a bright red color.

I'm gonna wait and see what they do with her hair before I judge what they should have done. I like the idea of a Black mermaid having magically red hair because Black humans aren't born with red hair, so when she's human it changes.

[D82]

Halle Bailey has posted this on Twitter, so apparently she's recording a new song for the movie titled "Somewhere We All Belong" written by Diane Warren. I guess it's an end-credits song, but this is quite unexpected, especially considering Menken and Miranda are doing the music for the film.

Little Mermaid new song.jpg (105.46 KiB) Viewed 2546 times

Source: https://mobile.twitter.com/HalleBailey/ ... uZu68rAAAA
https://mobile.twitter.com/HalleBailey/ ... 2UvK8rAAAA

[Thumper_93]

She should have the same hair color in all the movie. I think that a hair with a computer-generated color is not going to look great. She should have worn a red wig as the one that Mera wears in Aquaman. A wig with a bright red color.

I'm gonna wait and see what they do with her hair before I judge what they should have done. I like the idea of a Black mermaid having magically red hair because Black humans aren't born with red hair, so when she's human it changes.

We are talking about a fantasy world where mermaids exist. Black people don't have red hair but Ariel's hair is her more iconic characterist and this movie is based in the animated version. If they wanted something more realistic they should have done a completely new version of the movie where the main character has brown hair all the time.

[Sotiris]

Halle Bailey has posted this on Twitter, so apparently she's recording a new song for the movie titled "Somewhere We All Belong" written by Diane Warren. I guess it's an end-credits song, but this is quite unexpected, especially considering Menken and Miranda are doing the music for the film.

This really pisses me off. Why do they need an end credits song by another songwriter when they have Menken? Do they honestly believe he can't write a pop song? Having a musical written by one songwriter and then getting someone else for the end credits song is incredibly disrespectful, inconsistent and unnecessary. What possessed Disney to do such a thing for this remake when they didn't for Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin? Couldn't they have simply done a pop arrangement for one of the pre-existing or newly-written songs instead? This decision is completely out of left field and doesn't make any sense. It's bad enough they did this to him on Tangled, now they're doing it again and on the remake of the first musical he ever wrote for the company, no less? The amount of disregard and thoughtlessness is infuriating. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if this song was promoted to the Oscars instead one written by Menken.

[singerguy04]

Halle Bailey has posted this on Twitter, so apparently she's recording a new song for the movie titled "Somewhere We All Belong" written by Diane Warren. I guess it's an end-credits song, but this is quite unexpected, especially considering Menken and Miranda are doing the music for the film.

This really pisses me off. Why do they need an end credits song by another songwriter when they have Menken? Do they believe he can't write a pop song? Having a musical written by one songwriter and then getting someone else for the end credits song is incredibly disrespectful, inconsistent and unnecessary. What possessed Disney to do such a thing for this remake when they didn't for Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin? Couldn't they have simply done a pop arrangement for one of the pre-existing or newly-written songs instead? This decision is completely out of left field and doesn't make any sense. It's bad enough they did this to him on Tangled, now they doing it again and on the remake of the first musical he ever wrote for the company, no less? The amount of disregard and thoughtlessness is infuriating. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if this song was promoted to the Oscars instead one written by Menken.

I wonder if contractually any end credits are considered a part of the score. They aren't really a part of the film in that way, and typically pop covers of songs in the film aren't considered a part of the overall score. Usually the pop covers don't even have the original writer's input, they just get credited for their work on the "original". To me it's not entirely dislike Christina Aguilera's "Loyal Brave True" being tagged on to the Mulan Live-Action film(but I've only watched the film once and heard the song a few times so maybe she does reuse some themes from the film...). Menken may not have had a say in anything regarding the credits, or maybe he didn't care, or maybe he liked the idea of using another massively successful and well respected song writer in the mix to this capacity? We probably wont know unless he comments on the situation, but in the meantime I don't think it's anything to get too riled up over. If she was brought in to make adjustments, add, or re-write music for the actual film that would be another story in my opinion.

[Sotiris]

I wonder if contractually any end credits are considered a part of the score. They aren't really a part of the film in that way, and typically pop covers of songs in the film aren't considered a part of the overall score. Usually the pop covers don't even have the original writer's input, they just get credited for their work on the "original".

I don't think that's true given that Menken was very much involved with the pop covers used in the end credits for all the animated musicals he wrote with the exception of Tangled. The same goes for the Lopezes and the end credit songs in Frozen and Frozen II as well as LMM with the end credit songs in Moana and Encanto.

To me it's not entirely dislike Christina Aguilera's "Loyal Brave True" being tagged on to the Mulan Live-Action film(but I've only watched the film once and heard the song a few times so maybe she does reuse some themes from the film...).

That song was co-written by the film's score composer and it's based on a theme featured in the film.

Menken may not have had a say in anything regarding the credits, or maybe he didn't care, or maybe he liked the idea of using another massively successful and well respected song writer in the mix to this capacity?

Given he was unhappy with what happened on Tangled, there's no way he's OK with this. He obviously won't say anything negative about the situation in public. I know from Glenn Slater who is much more forthcoming, that he and Menken were very upset they were replaced as songwriters for Tangled's end credit song. They were in the middle of writing it when the change was announced to them.

[D82]

I saw someone speculate that the song could also be for a Little Mermaid inspired album like the one Beyoncé did for The Lion King. That wouldn't be so bad, but I think an end credits song is more likely. I'm not that surprised they're doing this to Menken since they've done it to him before. It's more surprising they're doing it to Lin-Manuel Miranda, though, especially after the success of Encanto.

At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if this song was promoted to the Oscars instead one written by Menken.

I was thinking about that too. I guess they'll have to submit at least one song from each songwriter/songwriting team. Didn't they do that for The Lion King remake with Elton John and Beyoncé? But I don't understand why they're making it more difficult for the original composers by giving them competition from the same movie.

[Disney Duster]

We are talking about a fantasy world where mermaids exist. Black people don't have red hair but Ariel's hair is her more iconic characterist and this movie is based in the animated version. If they wanted something more realistic they should have done a completely new version of the movie where the main character has brown hair all the time.

I don't agree just because it's fantasy that throws all of reality out of the window. Fairy tales are about fantasy happening in real life. It's totally fine by me if Ariel's most iconic characteristic is just the red hair when she's a fantasy mermaid.

[lord-of-sith]

Is there any proof that Menken really wanted to do this end credits song, and is being denied it? I think in interviews he's mentioned that he doesn't particularly like working on these remakes, that he'd rather do new projects. So I think it's just as likely he passed on doing it, so they went with another option whose legendary at writing end credits songs. To view this as a "slight" to Menken may not be a really accurate read of the situation.

[Sotiris]

He didn't say he doesn't like doing remakes; he said he doesn't like only doing remakes. It's not news Disney hasn't been offering him any original projects. He actually jumps at the opportunity to work on any projects derivative of his work as he considers them his babies and doesn't want anyone else messing with them. He said that multiple times in interviews. But even if he did hate working on the remakes, it wouldn't make sense for him to take the job and write multiple new songs, but pass up on writng just one more for the end credits.

[Disney's Divinity]

It's undeniably a slight to Menken. That said, I'd rather a Warren ballad than whatever Miranda would push Menken to do.

[Farerb]

New logo:

[D82]

What a downgrade! The previous one was much better.

[Farerb]

Teaser:
https://youtu.be/0-wPm99PF9U

[D82]

The teaser confirms Ariel's hair won't be bright red in the film. Her tail is a bit different here and it (and all of her in some shots) looks very CGI, but I think she doesn't look bad.

[Sotiris]

Not impressed. The teaser barely showed anything. Ariel's hair is brown, not red and she doesn't have her iconic hairstyle. Her tail is over-designed, but I do like its color and texture. I'm glad she is wearing her signature purple bra instead of a top to cover her up like we feared. I didn't like Halle's performance of Part of Your World. She sounds like she's doing a pop cover of the song. This is not a musical theater-styled performance.

[DisneyFan09]

Wow, what an underwhelming teaser! The first part was generic and didn`t have any Disney Magic to it at all. It was exactly like those fan-made trailers on YouTube. The shots in the sunken ship were superior, but I was disappointed with Ariel`s hair. I didn`t like the look of Flounder either, as he looked awfully genric. And the logo is awfully underwhelming too.

[Disney's Divinity]

What a downgrade! The previous one was much better.

No kidding. I guess I should withdraw my praise of the Snow White logo now, too, since they'll probably uglify its logo before release, too. I guess they wanted to "correct" anything we might have praised to ensure they truly screw this one up as much as humanly possible--purposely, it seems, at this point.

Personally, I'm glad her hair wasn't changed beyond all realism. To me, they abandoned the original look the moment they cast someone without red hair. Dyeing it pure red would have been stupid to me, this is a fairy tale set in a faraway land, not a modern day city where people dye their hair and I don't care what anyone says, Ariel may be a fantasy creature, but she is not magical. Ursula and Triton are magical--Ariel, no. And, anyway, forcing the actress to change her hairstyle to be more "White" would be racist in itself, tbh. This was the best case scenario of a racebent Ariel, imo, since there was no way she was going to look the way the original did without being eyeroll-inducing. We already knew she was very beautiful in real life as it was, so no need to change her dreadlocks, imo. Thankfully the tail and bra aren't overly glitzified, I thought for sure they would do that and make it all unnecessarily gaudy like the musical often did.

Overall, I'm grateful to say that I think I do like how she looks for what this is (as far being a racebent version of the character). At least her mermaid look is MUCH better than that horrible dress that was posted ages ago, the one I think was supposed to replace the blue dress or the pink dress, who knows. At least in that shot of her you posted, she sort of nails the look of yearning Ariel often shows. Those shots almost made me a little excited to see this, but then I remember some of the other stuff that's come out lately, like the sisters having superpowers and now the logo downgrade.

[PatrickvD]

This looks WAY better than I thought. It helped having no expectations. Halle looks and sounds gorgeous. Her facial features already make her look angelic so I feel that she’s perfectly cast as a mermaid.

The intonation is indeed a bit more pop style than musical but her crystal clear voice and pronunciation more than make up for it. Her voice is magnificent.

[D82]

Personally, I'm glad her hair wasn't changed beyond all realism.

I'm also glad her hair is not bright red. I don't think she would've looked good in it. This color does seem more natural and suits her best, in my opinion. Although, we know there'll be mermaids with blue hair in the movie. I wonder if Ariel will look out of place compared to them.