Film Name: 小美人鱼 / The Little Mermaid
The bickering and trolling over Disney’s live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid has been a typical spectacle of internet war of words in recent years, and out of intense curiosity and the basic principle of “you can’t say anything unless you’ve seen it,” I not only caught up on the 1989 animated version of The Little Mermaid a while back but also went to the theatre on the opening day of the film, which was a disappointment at the box office, and contributed a ticket to the film. Little Mermaid” animation some time ago, but also went to the cinema to contribute a ticket on the opening day of the film, which was a dismal showing at the cinema and the box office. Well ………… in short, you guys were right.
In fact, The Little Mermaid has a lot of good things to do, such as images, colours, songs and dances, etc., but these are just the basics, the film’s story, performances, character relationships, and other core elements of the film did not stand, which can not be explained by the fact that mermaids do not have feet, right? Haley Bailey’s Ariel does fail, and this has nothing to do with her looks or skin colour – many people spout “political correctness”, which I won’t go into in this article – but rather with the fact that her portrayal of Ariel is inappropriate. It’s just that her portrayal in the film is so inappropriate and poorly acted that it’s hard to get the audience into the film. But the blame for the film’s awfulness shouldn’t be thrown at her alone.
[Friendly reminder: slight spoilers below, if you mind]
Before I start spouting off, it’s best to briefly mention a few of the film’s strengths.
Personally, I’m more of a fan of song and dance films, so it still pleases me that the bright and colourful The Little Mermaid is able to perform a couple of great songs up and down the sea, and in addition to the old classics such as Part of Your World and Under the Sea, LMM (Lin-Manuel Miranda) has created a couple of new songs, such as Prince Alec’s Wild Uncharted Waters. For example, Prince Alec’s “Wild Uncharted Waters” and so on, especially Okafina’s “The Scuttlebutt” with Daveed Diggs is more to my liking, it’s a whole live rap! It’s so fun and brainwashing, whoever listens to it knows.
In addition, may be in order to take care of the characters in the film’s appearance settings, the film’s song and dance scenes and styles are also intentionally close to Latin America, Ariel and Sebastian in the tide of the school of fish to congratulate, as well as Ariel and Alec in the beach of forgetfulness to dance, can be tasted out of Carnival and Samba flavour to, is indeed a kind of innovation. But at the end of the day, these strengths only count as Disney’s line work, and not to the point of being worth writing home about, so all that’s left is the grooves. …… There is nothing more controversial than the casting of Haley Bailey, who is a great singer and sings admirably in the film, and whose appearance I have no problem with (and it’s not a good idea to attack someone’s appearance and skin colour is a very low act), and after finding the right style of dress-up and dressing, the look wasn’t too bad – the only thing that didn’t look like a fairytale mermaid was the dirty braided, half-bared, disliked face shot visage. I’ve been trying to rule out preconceived prejudices as much as possible, but the reality is that Ariel in the film is really unattractive, which has a very fatal consequence: it’s very easy to get out of character.
Take the scene where Ariel sings “Part of Your World” on the reef, it’s after she’s fallen in love with her brain and expresses her strong desire to change her destiny as well as her desire for Prince Alec, her face is slightly obsessive, especially when she slowly climbs up, her eyebrows slightly furrowed and slightly grimacing, it looks like she’s scheming on how she’s going to kill the prince… …To put it bluntly, “The Little Mermaid” tells a very old fairy tale, and if audiences today want to accept it, they at least have to convince themselves that it’s a story that takes place in a “vacuum world” or that Ariel is a “silly white girl”. or believe that Ariel is a “silly white girl”. The original anime has a natural advantage in this regard, and even Ariel’s somewhat “juvenile” image is a plus, so even if people don’t agree with its outdated story, they will at least admit that it’s logical and self-contained… And Haley’s Ariel, even if she’s not lacking in “silly” and “white”, she’ll still be a good actress. And Haley’s Ariel, if not “silly” and “white”, is certainly not “sweet”. The live-action version of the film doesn’t have much of a “fairy tale feel”, the plot is almost a carbon copy of the original anime, and the characters aren’t very convincing, so without a convincing foundation, the show just doesn’t look right.
For example, Sebastian and a group of anthropomorphic animals singing “Kiss the Girl”, assisting Alec and Ariel to kiss, it should be a very romantic atmosphere, but if the audience did not get into the scene, the whole flavour changed, like a group of monsters who have not been trained to human form, are compelling, instigating the prince to step into the trap, the whole of a harmful crime scene, with a bit of thriller … … of course, more than the lack of image, “The Little Mermaid” is a bigger disaster is that the performance is not in tune with the hero and heroine are not in love, but also arranged for Ursula to make the obstacle to make the prince step in a trap. …Of course, compared to the lack of image, “The Little Mermaid” is a bigger disaster is the performance is not in tune with the main man and woman are not electric, but also arrange Ursula to make Ariel forget the “three days within the kiss” task, increase the difficulty similar to “50 First Dates”, purely to make “50 First Dates” difficult. The difficulty of 50 First Dates is purely to take the awkwardness to the next level. Ariel’s scenes with Alec are almost entirely out of character, with Ariel often looking like “Who am I? Where am I? I’m going to do” look, but not at a loss for words, as if the spirit of the flesh and blood separation, Alec’s closeness is like out of the minimum politeness, there is not much of their own ideas, as if the backstage back to be taught a lesson, and then pinched his nose and continue to come out and Ariel to play the game of house. Watching two people who can not spark hard concave emotional drama is really a kind of torture, from the heart of the blessing, and the fear of bad face against the blessing, completely different things.
It’s no wonder that people are so supportive of Jessica Alexander’s Vanessa. At the very least, she’s able to get some of the audience to agree with the logic of “judging a book by its cover”. Since the fairy tale road does not work, then Disney could have chosen to take another “rebel road”, the entire “The Little Mermaid” story tone change, play a little darker, more realistic is also not bad …… However, they did not do so! However, they didn’t do that, they just chose the most traditional and conservative tone, with the narcissism and arrogance of the anthropocentric perspective, and the stupidity or viciousness of the female characters, just to name a few. Although the film has added good scenes that could have enriched the characters, such as Alec’s similar yearning for freedom and Ariel’s introduction of oceanic objects, and deleted the thrilling scene of Sebastian’s life-or-death fight with the chef, compared to the original animation, these framing stitches will not save “The Little Mermaid”. One of the most joyous moments of my viewing last night came from a child sitting in the back row behind me, when Ariel, freshly shorn of her dirty braids and long hair, wearing a large pink headband commonly seen around the house and an ill-fitting pale blue dress, was about to enter the storeroom, and the child milked her voice and said, “The Little Mermaid, it looks like an alien. ” I couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
Children’s words are most deadly. Children before learning the rules of society, there will be no taboos, are want to say what say, and will not carry any good or bad intentions, so the comments, is the explosion kill.
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