The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning (2008)

I hadn’t seen this prequel before, and I went in fully expecting it to be awful. I never would have watched it at all except that it’s on the blu-ray of Return to the Sea, which I knew I wanted. And yet, it’s actually a lot of fun.

Okay, I spent half the movie/special worrying it would end with Marina being transformed into Ursula, which would be wrong for three reasons: (1) her conflict with Triton ought to be far back in time, much longer ago than this story takes place; (2) if she had this kind of rivalry with Sebastian, she wouldn’t have been so blasé about him being in the cavern when Ariel signed the contract in Little Mermaid; (3) it’s better moviemaking to give the audience a new villain instead of danger always coming from the same place, and it’s weak moviemaking to think you need to cram everything from the original into the prequel.

I feel like I’ve seen the “he banned all music” trope just a few too many times. I love Sound of Music, but I don’t want to see that same device played out again and again in animated stories.

On the other hand, here that trope allows us to see the underground sing-easy, introduced in a magnificent scene.

Other good things:

The song from Ariel’s childhood is “Endless Sky,” something you can’t experience under the sea.

We know why Triton is so intense about Ariel staying away from the surface. It didn’t necessarily need more explanation, but Ariel’s Beginning deepens our understanding of his feelings.

Triton is just as impulsive and hyperreactive as he was in The Little Mermaid, but missing here is his regret and doubt immediately after. This is not a flaw in the script: he has not yet learned to question his own behavior.

Ariel’s sisters got short-changed in the original Little Mermaid. They help set up the concert problem, and she mentions them a single time when weighing whether or not to sign Ursula’s contract, and that’s pretty much all that’s done with them. Poking their heads out of the water at the end, they could just be random merfolk coming to watch the princess. Which is to say, you could write them out of the story and it wouldn’t change anything except that unrelated court singers would have to do the concert lead-in. We don’t see much evidence that Ariel is connected to them the way you would be if you grew up with sisters. Ariel’s Beginning remedies that, and so deepens the effect of Ariel’s decisions in the original film.

Benjamin is a fun character.

The songs are better here than in Return to the Sea.

Ariel’s “I Remember” number is right on target that songs help us remember feelings we had and stir up things we’d forgotten, and we value music for that very reason. It’s why Triton has banned music, and why Ariel now wants it back.

“—he was a BAD boy!”

“She really can’t dance.”

“. . . but high enough so they can’t see the disdain on my face.”

Watching Marina bask in her triumph is great fun. Watching her do just about anything in this movie is fun.

To my surprise, this movie/special avoids just about all the things that make a direct-to-video sequel rubbish.

I’ve decided that Flounder got his name from the guys at the Catfish Club, and it was affectionate but not a compliment.

Also see:
The Little Mermaid
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea