This is going to be a LONG post….
Well I’ve seen Ariel’s Beginning ten times now and I think it’s a great film. We all have our favorite characters and our favorite films. Because of this we sometimes are biased, and do not like when others disagree with us. That is understandable. The point is however, that everyone is entitled to their opinions and have their reasons for supporting their claims. No one has the right to argue because someone does not agree with them. That seems to be the biggest problem in this thread between everyone.
Before I review this film I just want to lay a few things out for everyone from a Disney Marketing prospective: First, Ariel is one of the most popular and well known Disney characters (In my opinion only second to Mickey Mouse). No matter where you go people know who Ariel is and they know she’s Disney. Besides Mickey, no other character is that popular. Not only is Ariel popular, so is her franchise, known to us as “Disney Princess”. The Disney Princess franchise is the most successful and most popular franchise Disney, or any other company for that matter, has. It draws in billions and billions of dollars a year. Parents and small children (and us) love the princesses (for the most part). What children sometimes dislike are the princesses’ original films. I have a lot of younger cousins, all but two are girls. I’ve seen how Disney’s marketing has affected their lives. They will not watch Sleeping Beauty because Maleficent scares them; they skip over the Ursula scenes in The Little Mermaid. A lot of children do this. Now Disney realizes this, and they also realize the popularity of characters like Aurora and Ariel. So one day in the Disney conference room everyone was sitting around and decided to make a new Ariel film. They wanted to make a nice film that taught lessons, had heart, and was not scary. This meant ditching Ursula. I assure you that no one thought of the true Disney fans, because in all honesty we are going to purchase the film regardless. Disney knows this.
Who really cares that Ariel’s Beginning doesn’t do the original justice. In all honesty it wasn’t created to. What about the true Disney fans you ask? Well believe it or not Disney actually does do things for us. They actually just went through the pain staking process of restoring some of our classic films to HD, digging in the vault for rare and exclusive footage, recording new interviews, and using a technology to its fullest so that the true fans get what they deserve. Disney is a huge corporation and they have a lot of different audiences to cater to. Like it or not Ariel’s Beginning (or Cinderella III for that matter) was not meant to cater to the true Disney fans. We can like the film, and we can also dislike the film- in the end its our decision. The upcoming Blu-Ray releases of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Beauty and the Beast do cater to us Disney fans. Do we have every right to be upset over Ariel’s Beginning? Yes we do, but please understand where the company is most likely coming from. I hope this made sense. Obviously I am NOT connected to The Walt Disney Company so I cannot speak for them, but I’m trying to put things into perspective.
I thought Ariel’s Beginning was a very nice film. It had a lot of emotion, which I feel recent Disney films have lost, and its animation was wonderful. That is my opinion. Yes there were times when Ariel was off- model, but it happened so quickly you could not really notice. Besides, have you seen the original film? If you have you’ll see that Ariel goes off-model quite often. The songs were okay, they were well written and showed emotion. The only song I disliked was Marina’s. I guess I was looking for a more wicked Villain song. The score was beautiful; simply stunning. I usually don’t say that about DTV’s, Cinderella III and Return to Neverland being my only exceptions.
I watched the film with my 16 year old sister (I’ll be 19 on Sunday btw). She is a Disney fan as well and was looking forward to learning about Ursula. We really did not have any problems with the film, and I even think it flows into the original. This film takes place an entire year before the original, and the events of this film only took a few days to occur. A lot can happen in a year. I really don’t think Flounder had a change in personality. Both my sister and I think flounder was brave up until he faced the eels and marina. That event led to him always being afraid. We also got a deeper understanding of King Trition and why he always favored Ariel. I thought the movie carried a lot of emotion, the most of any DTV release. Ariel’s new found freedom most likely led to start exploring and she eventually became interested in humans. What does bother me is the new characters from the Catfish Club that are Sebastian’s band. It makes no sense that they are just dropped after this film. Perhaps during the year they went their separate ways. However it bothers me that this film created new characters who obviously have no connection to the original film. This film should not have been called “Ariel’s Beginning”, that word, “beginning” is very misleading. This is more like an adventure that occurred before the first film not Ariel’s entire back story, like the title implies.
My favorite character was, of course, the villainess Marina Del Ray. She was hysterical, and stole a lot of the show. I think there was the implication that Ursula and Marina had something to do with each other. Especially because of the electric eels; that could not have been a coincidence. I truly believe that Ursula and Marina may be one in the same or share a back story. Ursula could have easily fit into Marina’s role. Everything about Marina was so Ursula. There was definitely a past implied. And because of this I was satisfied with the film. They did not explain Ursula, but they did leave you thinking, and I thought that was clever. I give this movie 4 out 5 stars. It loses a star because of its title and marketing which depicted it as Ariel’s entire back story.
I am sorry for the long post. I also apologize for any grammar errors. If you want to reply directly to something I said I prefer you e-mail me. I really don’t have time to post here every few hours. Plus I’m still working on my Disney World trip report, lol.
Download the soundrack:
http://www.ultimatedisney.com/forum/vie ... ht=#404557
Whatever. I tried, and you won't listen so I'm not even going to bother with you anymore.
)
) and noticed that the end of "Just One Mistake" is cut out. Right before "I HAD IT!" I can always rip it myself, but I just thought I'd let you know. 
lol) Thanks again! 
