The Little Mermaid:Ariel's Beginning Discussion Thread Vol.3

[Vermin Friends]

Fine. But why?

You're constantly criticizing the animation in this movie, but never giving a legitimate reason. What makes it bad? How do you know it's bad? Have you studied animation? I will not sit here and listen to you bash the hard work the animators have put into this film anymore.

well, I don't think the animation is as terrible as some Disney DTV's, but there are some chopped up areas, like some frames almost appear to be missing. I noticed when Athena swims toward Ariel, it almost looks as though her body stuttered a little. The good part about it is at least the characters are on model most of the time. I'm not going to lie though, even the original little mermaid has some badly animated parts. A lot of shots in Part of that World Ariel's really off model...

I'm sure Disney Duster will have more to back up on why he thinks the animation so bad.

If that's really the reason, then he's confusing the quality of the animation with the quality of the video. Two of the videos I posted- "Athena's Song" and the "Keep Oceans Clean" ads - are REALLY low in quality, and are therefore missing frames, etc- for the sake of being able to load faster while on the internet.

I completely agree with you about everything being on-model. Compare it to TLM2 when Melody is trapped in the ice cave- look at Flounder. Terrible.

[jeremy88]

I completely agree with you about everything being on-model. Compare it to TLM2 when Melody is trapped in the ice cave- look at Flounder. Terrible.

Don't even get me started on how bad the animation is there! Off model mania in that one! It's just "eeek" the whole movie! lol.

[Old Fish Tale]

Another 'The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning' review!

[Vermin Friends]

I HATE how all these reviews are saying that TLM3 is great for girls, or that it's targeted at tween girls, I know a LOT of us TLM fans are in fact male, and if not, we're much older than "tweens"- I mean seriously- I know more male TLM fans than I do female fans.

Sorry, just had to get that out of my system. Thanks for sharing, Old Fish Tale!

[Ariel'sprince]

I agree,Vermin Friends,those people are just dumb,Little Mermaid and Disney is for everyone.
And Ariel's Begininning is targeted for Ariel fans,not little girls,I also hate that review,it's like those awful Wal-Mart exclusives.

[Disney Duster]

Yea jeremy88, missing frames, choppiness, and stuttering is right.

And...I watched Athena's Song...bad animation yet again.

Fine. But why?

You're constantly criticizing the animation in this movie, but never giving a legitimate reason. What makes it bad? How do you know it's bad? Have you studied animation? I will not sit here and listen to you bash the hard work the animators have put into this film anymore.

Wrong, I have given reasons why the animation is bad in the past, and also revealed how people who know a lot about animation, including some who actually worked in the biz, knew it was bad. Some of those people actually commented on the badness in an older TLM: AB thread. Many other forumers ignored it, of course.

I already stated the low frame-rate, going off-model, and bad proportions. I'll also add, though I thought it was nit-picking (even more), that often the characters will stop moving for a noticeable amount of frames before it goes to the next shot, though more so in other clips than Athena's Song.

I know Cinderella III even had a few instances of badness, but no missing frames and only about one or two instances of any of the bad. For this prequel, I'm seeing the bad everywhere. Some people may not notice it since they said the first trailer looked "beautiful" when Ariel looked toony or off or badly proportioned or blobby or morphed through almost the whole thing.

But anyway, as for the missing frames, we'll have to see the DVD to know, but I do know that they do this TV animation thing where they have characters move only about two frames at a time, and some things move on a different frame than other things move (I first noticed this in The Little Mermaid II, which some animation experts are saying this is about the same level as. Don't let the shading and lighting on the animation fool you).

Here's a few pictures to back up things, since you challenged me. First, notice that in these two pictures, the merpeople don't move, but the bubbles do:


Next, this is probably an instance of bad proportions or possibly things morphing a little as the move (as in, get out of shape). A lot of people may not notice it. And DON'T go saying I'm just picking the times when she has the weirdest expressions or poses. I know bad proportions when I see them, she's not doing an exaggerated acrobatic or stretchy movement, she's sitting and singing, only moving slowly.


And finally, probably bad proportions or morphing again, but I don't even know where to begin on this one. Get it it, Ariel's Beginning?

[Poody]

As someone who's seen the entire movie.... I have to say that Athena's song probably has the worst animation in the film. Or at least.... the "weirdest." They could still could have "fixed" a couple things by the time of the DVD release... but who knows!

[Vermin Friends]

But anyway, as for the missing frames, we'll have to see the DVD to know

Exactly.

[Ariel'sprince]

But Disney Duster,you"re talking YouTube quality,not a DVD quality.

[Vermin Friends]

But Disney Duster,you"re talking YouTube quality,not a DVD quality.

No, the screen capture examples he gave were all choppy- especially the first one. Youtube doesn't separate layers (the moving bubbles from the still people), that had to have been done prior to the upload.

The last one might just be frame rate, but like I said, we still shouldn't judge it until we see the final product.

[Disney Duster]

I don't know if things moving like that (in the merpeople/bubble scene) happens in theatrical features or not, but I've only ever caught it in DTV's. Now, I know some theatrical Disney features animated "on the two's", but it's never looked like that before. I wonder if it's like...the four's or something. In Cinderella, one time I caught the stepsisters moving, then the camera moving, then them moving, and so on...I think. I don't remember.

But I mainly have a problem with the bad drawing.

[jeremy88]

What kind of bugs me about this one though is that all of the resident's of Atlantica are far more colorful. In the original everyone has a greenish-blue tail. Here they are all different. Triton's daughters were the only lucky ones to have different color tails.

[Atlantica]

I'm thrilled that out of the reviews that I have seen, they say the movie is solid and decent, and is a lovely addage to the little mermaid series. That is what is important to me.

What suprises me is that the reviews seem to really like the music as well; of course they say its not on par with Alan Menken, but it holds up really well. This is wonderful news, as what I've found in the past is that the music and dreadful songs let down the DTV (Cinderella III, Pocahontas II, Hunchback II, Aladdin II etc). I'm so happy to see that there will be songs to happily hum along to

[Juuchan17]

What kind of bugs me about this one though is that all of the resident's of Atlantica are far more colorful. In the original everyone has a greenish-blue tail. Here they are all different. Triton's daughters were the only lucky ones to have different color tails.

Well, doesn't that just add more personality to everyone then? I mean, everything around them is bluish-green (the water anyway), so what's wrong with sprucing up Atlantica with some more vibrant color, eh?

But yeah, now that you mentioned it . . . I just realized that. (I should have noticed it with the first actual DVD ad . . .)

I'm thrilled that out of the reviews that I have seen, they say the movie is solid and decent, and is a lovely addage to the little mermaid series. That is what is important to me.

What suprises me is that the reviews seem to really like the music as well; of course they say its not on par with Alan Menken, but it holds up really well. This is wonderful news, as what I've found in the past is that the music and dreadful songs let down the DTV (Cinderella III, Pocahontas II, Hunchback II, Aladdin II etc). I'm so happy to see that there will be songs to happily hum along to Smile

Same here. I mean, I'm usually not a griper when it comes to a sequel/whatever in a series I like (Why else do you think I actually like TLM2? Well, other than Melody . . .), but if it's really bad . . . I mean, worse than death, then I'll gripe about it. However, I think that the reviews I've read for TLM:AB are probably what I'm going to think of it next Tuesday when I watch it, but we'll just leave that out in the open for now. But still . . . meh.

Yeah, I noticed that too. Sure, it's not like really, really good, but it's enjoyable and works well based on the previous films. But yeah, those sequels had really bad songs (Cindy3's weren't too bad . . . not all of them were dreadful, but the first one was. The others . . . yeah. Trash 'em.).

- Juuchan17

[Disney's Divinity]

I disagree about the sequel soundtracks being bad. None of them are up to theatrical quality, but there are very few I hate. Both the Aladdin sequels, Bambi II (though the music doesn't work well with Bambi) and Simba's Pride have great music, in my opinion. Twist in Time is so-so ("At The Ball" is really the only song that I enjoy). Same with Journey to a New World and "Where Do I Go From Here?" My feelings on Return to the Sea are complicated; I somewhat enjoy and somewhat hate all the songs. The opening song is easily the best though.

What kind of bugs me about this one though is that all of the resident's of Atlantica are far more colorful. In the original everyone has a greenish-blue tail. Here they are all different. Triton's daughters were the only lucky ones to have different color tails.

That's not actually true, as we never see enough of the other merfolk to know that. The opening scene shows all of them swimming in the dark and then it only shows their upper bodies when it zooms in on the crowd. Of course, I think that all the merfolk released from Ursula's garden had the same tail color, but I can't remember perfectly (don't have a screen of that moment either). Still, Triton also has a different tail--dark blue. And it wouldn't make much sense for his daughters to be the only different ones.

But, yeah, I don't enjoy the way the sequels (particular the LM ones) rainbow-fy everything either. Everything's a little too bright and Care Bear-like

[Sky Syndrome]

Here are screenshots of moments when you can see the tail colors of the merfolk in the original.

[Chernabog_Rocks]

Fine. But why?

You're constantly criticizing the animation in this movie, but never giving a legitimate reason. What makes it bad? How do you know it's bad? Have you studied animation? I will not sit here and listen to you bash the hard work the animators have put into this film anymore.

If I remember correctly I haven't seen you or anyone else state why you think the animation so is amazing or well done If you read Disney Dusters wonderful posts you would have known he DOES give legit reasons on his thinking. Personally and very honestly I think you and other people for that matter are just sitting there just going "no he's wrong" or "it's TLM it can't have flaws" . Again I may be very well wrong about this BUT this is what I feel is happening is peoples love for this character is making them overlook things, because I don't think I've ever seen anyone here aside from Duster, Siren, myself and perhaps Jeremy state any flaws we've seen, all the Ariel fans have never sat and agreed that we may be right on some points or even could be right, instead it's just "wow this is amazing" or "I love this so much more than sliced bread and dare I say it Bread itself".

I like that your excited about this, I'm glad to see that you like things about this movie but would it seriously kill you to also admit and point out some of the flaws yourself? They're there but I just don't think people want to admit.

Ok rants out of me return to to whatever was being discussed prior to me, tail colors I think?

[Siren]

I am guessing the reason for only two colors for the other merpeople tales was a combination of time and money. It was probably cheaper and much faster to just go with two colors then to get too specific. Consider the scene with Triton entering the great hall (or whatever it is). In EVERY frame of that scene, the ink and paint had to remember which random merperson had what color. It was a waste of time. Unless they did Xerox like they did for 101 Dalmations, hand-painting them was too much.

Storywise....perhaps the royal family has more colors because they are in a position of power. Many animals tend to have more vivid colors when they are leading.

This time around, they aren't hand-painting them, they are just clicking the color in. Saves time, saves money, is probably easy to keep track who gets what color.

And I am just going to ignore the complainers of our criticisms. NO movie is perfect. NONE. So its not worth arguing about.

[buffalobill]

I'm always very careful when thinking about buying a Disney dtv dvd but if I read more reviews like dvdtown's I will almost definitely buy it. It may not be quite theater quality but it sounds a whole lot better than almost any other cheapquel. I'm not 100% sold as there is 1 more week & I'm sure some other good websites will be posting reviews (including UD) but I am definitely leaning toward buying it (along with Nightmare Before Christmas).

[Vermin Friends]

Fine. But why?

You're constantly criticizing the animation in this movie, but never giving a legitimate reason. What makes it bad? How do you know it's bad? Have you studied animation? I will not sit here and listen to you bash the hard work the animators have put into this film anymore.

If I remember correctly I haven't seen you or anyone else state why you think the animation so is amazing or well done If you read Disney Dusters wonderful posts you would have known he DOES give legit reasons on his thinking. Personally and very honestly I think you and other people for that matter are just sitting there just going "no he's wrong" or "it's TLM it can't have flaws" . Again I may be very well wrong about this BUT this is what I feel is happening is peoples love for this character is making them overlook things, because I don't think I've ever seen anyone here aside from Duster, Siren, myself and perhaps Jeremy state any flaws we've seen, all the Ariel fans have never sat and agreed that we may be right on some points or even could be right, instead it's just "wow this is amazing" or "I love this so much more than sliced bread and dare I say it Bread itself".

I like that your excited about this, I'm glad to see that you like things about this movie but would it seriously kill you to also admit and point out some of the flaws yourself? They're there but I just don't think people want to admit.

Well apparently you're right- you haven't been listening to me.

The reason why I'm not praising (or complaining about, for that matter) the animation, or the story, or the music is because everything we've seen or heard or read so far is all speculation until the DVD itself comes out. Even Poody, who went to one of the test screenings said that there is still a possibility that things could be changed prior to the official release.

You can not judge an unreleased plot based on a few spoilers, just as you can't deem an unreleased movie bad just because it doesn't compare to one that's been out for two years.