The Little Mermaid (Live-Action)

[carolinakid]

The woke mob is never satisfied, Patch.

[Disney's Divinity]

No way TLM wasn't going to be changed to some degree with her selling her voice and entire life for a man, as well as having the prince, who is a non-entity, defeat the villain Ariel empowered, so... Thankfully, TLM only needs a bandaid in one or two scenes, since she already longed to be part of the human world before Eric enters the story. Simply emphasizing that more in "PUS" with one or two lines would be enough. Of course, they were still going to trumpet it in interviews the way they always have.

Racebending Ariel, on the other hand, wasn't about "fixing" anything for a modern audience, so much as Disney's attempt to shove a square puzzle piece into a circle hole and acting shocked when people reacted accordingly. Even if Halle Bailey could sing like Whitney Houston (imo, I expected better based on past performances she's given; while the second half of POYW is strong, I found the vocals on the reprise surprisingly disappointing), it really has nothing to do with Bailey or her "qualifications." It isn't about "She's not talented enough," or "pretty enough," or "nice enough," or a "good enough actor" or whatever else Disney would like to warp the conversation into because it deflects from their soulless decision-making--she's may be all or most of those things. At least, to me, she's pretty, nice, talented (even if her reprise disappointed me, she can at least sing radio-driven music well from what I've heard / listened to), no idea about acting ability though. It's more that a character known for bright, red hair should be cast with an actor who has bright, red hair.

The musical cast someone nothing like Ursula and the remake cast someone nothing like Ariel. It's sort of sad this movie can't ever get a good, live version like the other Fab Four. Even Walt couldn't get the movie to work back then though, it must've only been possible that one moment in time when Ashman was alive since everyone else screws it up.

[MaQu]

Oh, wow, the trailer was beautiful. Halle is amazing, her voice is angelic. I think Disney nailed it with the casting, she's probably better than actresses I wanted to play Ariel before.

I haven't noticed Eric's tear before I read about it here! I think the actors will really have a great chemistry.

Why is Disney's Ariel doll so much uglier than Mattel's .

[Disney's Divinity]

Sophia Lillis or an unknown redhead who can sing would've been better, imo. And then move on to find somebody better for Triton, Eric, and Ursula, too.

I missed the posts on the last page--so the trailer's up to 82% negative now. I'm not sure what the new norm for "Worst-rated Hollywood movie is" now... TLM's teaser broke Ghostbusters 2016's record from six years prior to take that title. But barely a year later now you have its second teaser, first trailer, as well as PP&W's trailer that all have comparable scores. Which holds the benchmark for "worst" now really between TLM and PP&W? Disney isn't in competition with any other studio for the title either, I wonder if it could be a long time before something non-Disney can match the hatred people seem to have for these recent live-action remakes of theirs.

[Thumper_93]

These last days i had hope for a success with this movie but I’m starting to think that this is going to be a great fail. People are unhappy in social media and the trailer have a big number of dislikes.
If this movie is a flop it can hurts Disney too much. Is the live action movie that gas more merchandise…

[Disney's Divinity]

Dreamworks Dunks on Disney’s The Little Mermaid in ‘Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken’ Trailer

Disney’s rival DreamWorks seems to be taking a swipe at The Little Mermaid with Ruby Gillman. The upcoming animated movie features a very Ariel-like mermaid as the primary villain, seemingly reversing the roles of Ariel and Ursula.

Given that Dreamworks has famously dunked on Disney before in the Shrek series, it was probably no coincidence. The timing is curious as well, with the live-action Disney remake of The Little Mermaid being embroiled in controversy over castingand the creepy, uncanny valley versions of Sebastian, Flounder and Scuttle.

Here’s the official write-up for Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken…

This summer, DreamWorks Animation dives into the turbulent waters of high school with a hilarious, heartfelt action comedy about a shy teenager who discovers that she’s part of a legendary royal lineage of mythical sea krakens and that her destiny, in the depths of the oceans, is bigger than she ever dreamed.

Sweet, awkward 16-year-old Ruby Gillman (Lana Condor, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before franchise) is desperate to fit in at Oceanside High, but she mostly just feels invisible.

She’s math-tutoring her skater-boy crush (Jaboukie Young-White, Ralph Breaks the Internet), who only seems to admire her for her fractals, and she’s prevented from hanging out with the cool kids at the beach because her over-protective supermom (Oscar® nominee Toni Collette, Knives Out), has forbade Ruby from ever getting in the water.

But when she breaks her mom’s #1 rule, Ruby will discover that she is a direct descendant of the warrior Kraken queens and is destined to inherit the throne from her commanding grandmother (Academy Award® winner Jane Fonda), the Warrior Queen of the Seven Seas.

The Kraken are sworn to protect the oceans of the world against the vain, power-hungry mermaids who have been battling with the Kraken for eons. There’s one major, and immediate, problem with that: The school’s beautiful, popular new girl, Chelsea (Emmy winner Annie Murphy, Schitt’s Creek) just happens to be a mermaid. Ruby will ultimately need to embrace who she is and go big to protect those she loves most.

https://www.piratesandprincesses.net/dr ... n-trailer/

[PatchofBlue]

These last days i had hope for a success with this movie but I’m starting to think that this is going to be a great fail. People are unhappy in social media and the trailer have a big number of dislikes.
If this movie is a flop it can hurts Disney too much. Is the live action movie that gas more merchandise…

There's also a very specific reason for that though. There's a very vocal crowd that is determined to hate the film simply because Ariel's black. It's well documented that media that prioritizes racial diversity, especially in traditionally white spaces, are prone to a lot more backlash. That's happened like three or four times with Star Wars alone, I think.

I feel like a lot of people are hiding behind the line of "it's not the race thing, I just think that ALL remakes are dumb and lack imagination," while their hate is actually motivated by something else.

I'll clarify, that's not a callout against anyone on this board or anything. It's mostly something I've observed through my own social media ventures and whatnot. And I'm also not saying that true lovers of the film shouldn't question this remake simply because of its cultural significance: there's certainly a precedent for these remakes being awful. (I still have PTSD from "Pinocchio.") There are valid reasons for a person to not like this film, even if it's in the green for me. It's just that there's a whole lot of organized ugliness obscuring the reality of the situation, not to mention putting people like Halle Bailey through hell, and I wish there were more reliable ways to call that out.

[Sotiris]

Lot of people are putting random comments in the YouTube trailer. It seems like a trend. For example one of the comments says “I loved when Vin Diesel says Fish and chips? Nah this is family. Chilling momment”.

I've noticed that too. It's a meme comment format that people use to mockingly express their displeasure with something in a covert way so they won't have their comments deleted. I think it started after Disney disabled comments for the Peter Pan & Wendy trailer where people were openly criticizing it. Disney has since enabled the comment section for that trailer and now that one too is flooded with these type of comments.

[Disney's Divinity]

There are valid reasons for a person to not like this film, even if it's in the green for me. It's just that there's a whole lot of organized ugliness obscuring the reality of the situation, not to mention putting people like Halle Bailey through hell, and I wish there were more reliable ways to call that out.

Oh, I agree that there is some racism / review bombing involved. 82% negative though, I think that excuse loses a lot of its weight, as much as Disney wishes it could be that simple in order to sweep the criticisms under a rug. Speaking for myself, I knew there was an infinitesimal chance I would like this once they revealed the cast and most of them didn't fit the roles they're playing, pretty much how I felt about Mulan 2020 once they cut Shang, Mushu, and the songs--hard to come back after that. I never like the remakes where they take heavy liberties with the story, character and locale designs, music, and so on, but sometimes there can be little things in the bad remakes that can be fun sometimes--like the Red Queen in Alice, Emma Thompson in Cruella, Angelina Jolie in Maleficent and Michele Pfeiffer in its sequel, what I expect Gal Gadot to be for the SW remake, etc. While my dislike of this is probably magnified by ten compared to how I felt towards Mulan on a consequence that it's my favorite film period whereas that was merely top 10-12 area, I do still intend to watch this in theaters whereas I refused to support Mulan because of several of the controversies (filming where there were concentration camps in China being the biggest one).

As for the last part, I actually haven't read or seen much of any criticism of Halle Bailey specifically. It helps that Bailey is largely unknown, I remember Erivo from Pinocchio was criticized much worse than anything I've read of Bailey (and that's despite Erivo's character not being the main one as here). The worst I've seen involving Bailey is some of those videos going on "woke" tirades where they manipulate the pictures at times to have Bailey's eyes cross-eyed or whatever, but they do that to everyone they criticize, I imagine. The target is almost always Disney.

[Disney Duster]

Love with a person or love with a world you want to live in are neither really good reasons to give up your voice and risk your life, Divinity.

[Farerb]

Josh Gad has quote tweeted a tweet saying this about the film:

https://twitter.com/joshgad/status/1636 ... nv3xg&s=19

This is the original tweet:

https://twitter.com/CalltoActivism/stat ... V9OVw&s=19

This user also linked to this article about the film:

WHY DISLIKING THE NEW DISNEY “THE LITTLE MERMAID” IS RACIST
https://www.poptingz.com/opinion-1/blog ... -one-4rw4e

[carolinakid]

I can’t believe someone actually took the time to write this hateful and racist woke nonsense rant. I can just imagine the powers that be getting the blame ready that if this film lays an egg, it’s because all the “maga racists” stayed home.I can’t wait until this film comes out so that whether it’s a hit or a bomb, I can stop hearing about it.

[Vlad]

I am among those people who have no issue with Halle Bailey. I think she's pretty and talented enough to be Ariel. But I do understand those who are unhappy about the decision of casting her. I think Disney are cowards for putting out articles like this - why is it racist to hate the new Little Mermaid. It seems to me that the racist card is now used when there are no more arguments to be made. Now that the new trailer for this and the one for Peter Pan & Wendy are getting destroyed online (Snow White is also getting a lot of hate, based on the leaked picture of Zegler), hopefully, Disney will stop with these woke remakes.

[carolinakid]

Bravo, Vlad!

[carolinakid]

Latest stats:
178k
925k

Oh, those nasty MAGA racists!

[robster16]

Don't forget that there is a VERY energised moaning whining group of people who are VERY vocal about their grievances and hatred. While a vast majority of the world truly doesn't give a rats ass and will simply be oblivious and go into cinema's in DROVES. I'm convinced this movie will be a massive hit for the studio and am not the slightest bit worried with the downvotes on the trailer. It's that negative mob that is vocal and actively searches out places and buttons like that to vocalise their anger.

[Farerb]

Trailer Reaction:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_GlcaJro8g

[Disney's Divinity]

I can’t believe someone actually took the time to write this hateful and racist woke nonsense rant. I can just imagine the powers that be getting the blame ready that if this film lays an egg, it’s because all the “maga racists” stayed home.I can’t wait until this film comes out so that whether it’s a hit or a bomb, I can stop hearing about it.

I think I've already said once that I'm grateful there are only 3 months left before this thing is done and in the past, however things end up going at the box office. It's honestly disgraceful how they took a film like TLM and used it for some kind of social media circus like this; at least Pat Carroll, Howard Ashman, Kenneth Mars, and Samuel Wright weren't around to endure that. I don't really blame their actors because you know Disney has all their employees on leash to say the same things regardless, it's not like any of them could disagree and keep their jobs. You and I are complete opposites as far as politics go, and yet I also thought the casting was horrible on this film, so... That explains why it's 84% negative reactions rather than, say, 30 or 40%.

Perhaps Mulan, Pinocchio, TLM, PP&W, and Snow White getting raked over the coals--the way almost all of them deserve--is part of the decision not to make an Aladdin sequel. It's a shame, I'd rather have seen an Aladdin 2 than any of those really, tbh, since they at least got the cast for those characters right. I loved Massoud, Scott, and several others, it would've been fun to see them again even if the movie itself turned out meh. I think it's already likely that there won't be any big remakes in theaters after SW aside from the TLK prequel since Disney derailed the train with them like this.

[carolinakid]

Divinity, thanks as always for sharing your thoughts. I’m glad you’re as sick of hearing about this film as I am! That article accusing anyone who doesn’t like this film to be a racist was really the last straw for me...

[Toky]

Don't forget that there is a VERY energised moaning whining group of people who are VERY vocal about their grievances and hatred. While a vast majority of the world truly doesn't give a rats ass and will simply be oblivious and go into cinema's in DROVES. I'm convinced this movie will be a massive hit for the studio and am not the slightest bit worried with the downvotes on the trailer. It's that negative mob that is vocal and actively searches out places and buttons like that to vocalise their anger.

This… most people in my area are extremely looking forward to this movie and give zero f*cks about Ariels skincolor…

As long as there is still so much hate towards Ariel being black, there’s more reason to have things like this… looking at everything happening now in America, this hate is definitely targeted towards skincolour and race and is disgusting ( how i perceive it as a white person)

Also the whining on this forum…guys come on…whats your age again?