Hacker Cinema
The Little Mermaid
2023 · Film · 135 min
Directed by Rob Marshall
The youngest of King Triton’s daughters, and the most defiant, Ariel longs to find out more about the world beyond the sea, and while visiting the surface, falls for the dashing Prince Eric. With mermaids forbidden to interact with humans, Ariel makes a deal with the evil sea witch, Ursula, which gives her a chance to experience life on land, but ultimately places her life – and her father’s crown – in jeopardy.
6 negative11 neutralfrom 17 commenters
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17 comments on Hacker News
A not insignificant part of human history is retelling the same stories. Stories like the Odyssey and the Iliad were oral traditions refined, refined, and refined, until taken down by a master. Every time Dracula and derivatives get made, something new gets added, changed, improved.
The problem with Disney's remakes is that they are trying to be the original story, reshot, but LESS Disney. The Little Mermaid is a prime example of something that should have been brighter, more colorful, more energetic, more beautiful, and IMPROVED, but instead they chose a least common denominator impersonation.
The concept of going back and retelling a prequel can work. It worked for Rogue One (despite production challenges), it worked for Wicked. What isn't working for the Disney Live Action movies is letting the machine output reduced facsimiles, instead of giving the projects to experimental storytellers, or master storytellers to do their thing.
Id love to see a remake of Bambi that amplified the music/animation connection, using modern technology to sync the movement of elements in the frame to parts of the musical composition, much like a visualizer. Breathing, fluttering, raindrops falling on the beats, quivering with the strings. Imagine a modern Little April Showers by Atticus Ross that looks like Spiderm-Man into the Spiderverse or Puss in Boots 3 or Wild Robot or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Bambi should be a music video like Fantasia. Instead Disney will try and tell a story about a Deer, and forget the rest of what made Bambi so revolutionary.
And yet, Disney still does make things like Soul, which really was innovative in its animation style by how restrained it was. It's simple complexity of its dream world was its strength. Animation can be done well without the hyper speed over indulgences I cited above as good examples.
Oh, are you offended? Do you need a safe space? I thought you liked offensive comedy? Or is that just when it offends other people who aren’t you?
I never said I hated anyone. I just think these conservative talking points all rhyme with each other and when you trace them far enough they are all rooted in white supremacist ideas and misogyny.
Turning Red is only “woke” if you think people shouldn’t talk about going on your period because women are bad.
The Little Mermaid remake is only “woke” if you think Black people shouldn’t be the lead in movies.
Lightyear is only “woke” if you think people of the same gender shouldn’t kiss.
The list goes on and on. Literally none of these pro-offensive content people ever explain themselves in any way that makes sense beyond their hate for non-white people, women, and the LGBT community.
You literally criticized Disney for trying to please everyone. If they aren’t trying to please everyone, who are they supposed to sell tickets to, ghosts?
And this conservative cult gets in the way of understanding objective reality, like how you thought that Disney stock went down because of woke movies, when the financial reality of their stock decline had more to do with low Disney+ profitability and the Covid-19 collapse of theme park revenue.
The article compares The Little Mermaid with Furiosa. The two movies cannot be any more different. I saw Furiosa and enjoyed it a lot. It's not a kid's movie... I think a summer blockbuster needs to appeal to a wider crowd.
You ignored 40+ films from both years, and these films made the difference even more strikingly apparent than your cherry picking.
As for your understanding, I think there are generally two types of films in Hollywood. There's the largely uninspired make a buck type film, and there's the more creative works where you have a group of people who actually have a pretty neat idea. 'Hollywood' did not remake the Little Mermaid because there was some wave of inspiration where they felt they could really create an amazing film. It was just an uninspired sifting through an IP bucket to find what could be remade to make a movie for the year. And that drivel is what they dug up.
And this is of course nothing new. But what's changed has largely been the ratio. I reference the spandex films not because there's anything inherently wrong with the genre, but because it's become the clearest embodiment of this uninspired conveyor-belt style film-making. The overwhelming majority of these stories may as well have been written by ChatGPT, and the future ones probably will be! And Hollywood is absolutely spamming us with them at this point. But there's nothing inherently awful about the genre. The Dark Knight was clearly an inspired and quiet good film, yet of course it was also spandex.
I've absolutely nothing against Hollywood and am more than happy to see an inspired film. In recently saw Dune 2 yesterday - a sequel of a remake!? But I have no interest in watching 'conveyor belt films', and that is currently the vastly overwhelming majority of what is coming out of Hollywood. And that's not how it used to be.
>Antman, Indiana Jones, Wish, all had white main characters,
DEI doesn't just affect main characters. See who were tasked to write and direct those movies and the DEI agendas they're forced to push. Clueless people with other flops under their belt, who got the projects out of DEI so Disney can look inclusive on social media.
And speaking of Indiana Jones, that flopped because they shoved a strong independent Girl Boss™ with an annoying personality to replace the beloved Indie as the main character who got sidelined in his own movie. It flopped because people go to an Indian Jones film to see Indie, not Fleabag. If you disrespect the fans they won't watch your movie.
Same stuff with Star Wars where Disney shoved Rey the super-powerful Girl Boss™ to replace Luke Skywalker the old and useless CIS white Jedi, and defeat all other evil white men in the movie by herself with her magic powers. Same with Marvel, Snow White, Little Mermaid and every other of Disneys trash remakes that are all about DEI instead of entertainment.
People go to see movies to get entertained. If you fail to entertain them because you wish instead to push DEI agendas on them, they won't pay for your content and you will lose money and ultimately your shareholders won't be happy and the free market will eventually correct this, so at least capitalism has some upsides.
See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_k8cDLe-Kk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E6wJpu0A8E
> I want escapism
I mean going by the highest grossing movies of the year you got plenty to choose from. Other than barbie (which I would argue is not super deep in terms of politics anyway) the rest are all escapism: Super Mario Bros, Fast and furios 10, guardians of the galaxy 3, spiderverse 2, mission impossible, quantumania, little mermaid and elemental are all extremely light in terms of politics.
The three movies with "heaviest" political message are oppenheimer, barbie and even then in case of oppie the message is "mcarthyanism was paranoid and political engagement was stiffled as well as weaponised for personal and selfish goals" certainly not a super crazy political opinion that america's red scare went too far. And in terms of Barbie its mostly surface level "its not easy to be a woman" and capitalism takes advantage of people. But saying "self actualisation is hard with economic forces pushing against you, and some parts of the patriarchy have a compounding effect on women in terms of how difficult it is" is incredibly milktoast feminism even if its pushing the boundries in a movie that is essentially a toy ad that lasts 2 hours.
I don't know what kind of media you think does not allow Escapism and its so absolutely drenched in political content that is impossible to enjoy.
Most emmy noms went to Succession, a shakespearean tale of rich brats picking on each other for father approval and Last of Us, a zombie show about a father daughter found family that shows humans are the worst threat and not the zombies. Neither seems incredibly political.
Videogames this year, top of the crop were Baldur's gate 3, Zelda and Spiderman 2. One is a DnD campaign about power, world domination and brain washing aliens. Another is Ganon is back, you are the hero go make a car and kill him and the last one is Spiderman saves new york from the same guys he has fought since the 1960s.
What is this escapism that existed in the 90s that no longer exist and where is the political undercurrent in all mainstream media that makes it so hard to escape into?
Was there even a "message" in "Wish" ?? I enjoyed the movie, but it was terrible from a plot perspective and almost entirely vapid.
I don't think there were many messages in other recent Disney movies I enjoyed (ex: Little Mermaid live action, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) either.
Its more like, Disney's Phase4 / Phase5 of Marvel was just poorly written. They ran out of creative juice for the movies after they spent it all on the TV Series. Disney oversaturated us with Marvel and needs to cut back down to stories we can actually follow.
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Star Wars didn't seem to have much "messaging" either in my view. It was just two directors arguing over the plot with the audience getting confused in the middle. Is Ray a nobody? Or is she the grand-daughter of someone important? Well, both, because the directors / creative team behind Episodes 7/8/9 couldn't decide and didn't have the heart to make a decision.
That's just crappy storytelling. "Messaging" isn't the issue as much as the writers just suddenly started to suck recently.
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As far as I'm aware, the best recent Disney movie, critically, was the one with "obvious messaging". Elemental, which was about how to think about immigrants and how their culture/strength/weaknesses play a role in cities.
Its not 10 outright failures in a row, but they've been doing poorly for most of 2023.
Keep in mind that ~2X the official production budget is roughly the minimum threshold for a movie to break even, after factoring in marketing and the theater take:
Elemental was a modest success earning $495.9M against a $200M budget.
The Little Mermaid maybe barely broke even at $569.6M against a $297M budget.
Indiana Jones bombed hard, earning $384M against a $300M budget.
The Marvels is trending towards about $200M against a $274.8M budget.
Wish opened terribly this weekend, pulling in $49M in its first weekend against a $200M budget (will likely finish between $120-150M)
Edit: Forgot about Haunted Mansion, earning $117.5M against $150M.
The problem with a UCLA-sponsored survey of teens is always going to be response bias.
For example:
>Very few adolescents prefer aspirational content. The majority favor original content over IP-based content. Also, the majority prefer binge releases over weekly releases.
A quick search of the top Youtubers shows that Gen Z in fact loves aspirational content, they just don't like the image that comes into their head when they hear the term.
A quick scan of the box office shows that they also love IP-based content, unless all the viewers of Spiderman, Barbie, Mario, Guardians of the Galaxy, Fast X, and The Little Mermaid were over 25 (Hell, even Oppenheimer was technically IP-based).
I believe the binge watching thing though.
> is critic-career suicide to give negative ratings to any girl-power movie, no matter how bad or artistically bankrupt
Oh come on, this is exactly what I’m talking about. No critic worth their salt is afraid to criticize a movie if it’s bad or mediocre.
I remember just recently the “woke” Marvel Eternals getting plenty of sniffy reviews because it was a boring endevour. Ditto for the Ghost Busters remake, Disney live actions etc.
The only thing is that the critics write actual reviews, they don’t just say “I hate the new Little Mermaid because they made Ariel black” like all the anti-woke mouthbreathers on the internet.
Either you are living under a rock, are being purposely obtuse, or support the politics being pushed so you either do not see it or just willfully ignore it.
>There was no campaign speech to elect Biden in the latest Captain America
This is just a stupid statement
>I don't recall anything overtly political in most modern movies.
Snow White, Indian Jones 5, Just about Every Marvel Movie Past infinity War, 2 of the 3 Star Wars Films in the new Trilogy, The Little Mermaid... Shall I go on?
It is more pronounced in TV Shows however, She Hulk, Season 2 and 3 of Witcher, Rings of Power, etc etc etc
>So what exact "narratives" is everyone complaining about?
For starters [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPE7-PRL0M8
This that just just the tip of the ice berg...
The one useful aspect is that if you only care about the scores of movies you were already interested in, the audience score actually is quite accurate. If you already know "I am the sort of person who might pay to watch the little mermaid" then you can have good confidence you'll like it based on the audience score.
Yeah, the audience score is in no way an accurate measure of quality because it is provided by a self-selected group of people who both paid for the movie and went online to rate it. The end result is that a lot of movies viewed as failures will have high audience ratings as long as they can reach some small passionate audience. Just looking at some current movies:
Blue Beetle: 78% critics, 92% audience
Gran Turismo: 63%, 98%
Elemental: 74%, 93%
Meg 2: 29% 73%
Haunted Mansion 38%, 84%
Indiana Jones: 69%, 88%
Little Mermaid 67%, 94%
Those audience scores are not "more accurate" in any way. People who are forced to see these movies like them less than people who chose to see it.
There also really isn't anything currently that fits into "the political correctness / marketing budget of the movie" claim of OP. It seems like they are just buying into cultural war nonsense. The closest I can find is Barbie and its critic score is 5% higher than the audience score, so not much of a gap.
I'm sure Disney was disappointed in Lightyear's performance given its marketing push and brand appeal, but I don't think you're listing the movies that are central to Disney's strategy anymore. Ever since COVID, Disney has pretty much banished Pixar to Disney+, not as "premium" releases that cost extra, but just included day one on the service. If they had theater runs, they were limited or international-only. That includes such films as Soul, Luca and Turning Red, whereas Encanto from their other animation company (Walt Disney Animation Studios) got a wide and successful theatrical run. Turning Red's box office returns are irrelevant because of this. However, due in part to people going back to theaters and (largely) to the film's brand recognition, Lightyear became the first Pixar film since 2019 to be given a real theatrical release. And the main reason it bombed was, I believe, because everyone and most importantly families had gotten used to being able to watch those movies on Disney+ for a lot cheaper. Even if that one waited two months to come to the service.
As for Strange World, it was widely observed that Disney didn't give it any marketing push and a majority of people weren't even aware of its existence. To me, the main reason is that Disney doesn't bother to hype up movies that they don't really believe in. Strange World was one such film, a WDAS movie that isn't a fairytale or a musical (and isn't safe from the kind of conservative hate campaigns that Disney tends to avoid). Disney has a long history of letting their studios make films outside of the cookie cutter but release them with little fanfare. They can now easily be written off as Disney+ fodder.
Disney absolutely still relies on their animation studios for blockbusters, but they've noticed which formula works best for each. Pixar is never as successful as when it does sequels. WDAS routinely hits the 1 billion mark when it makes new additions to their fairytale canon, or bombastic musicals (see Encanto's massive success). It's no surprise then that they're now pushing WDAS, a notoriously sequel-adverse studio, into making a third Frozen and a second Zootopia, and that a _fifth_ Toy Story is suddenly in the works at Pixar alongside... Inside Out 2. Any other project is bound to get buried in the release schedule or dumped on Disney+.
So what kind of movies are core to Disney's strategy? Star Wars is on a kind of hiatus and lives on Disney+. We have Marvel of course, which isn't in the healthiest state but still produces frequent hits. Avatar is now a big one. Any animated movie that fits their preferred formula. And of course, the depressing string of live-action remakes which, if they're all quickly forgotten, often hit the 1 billion mark, and I've no doubt that their lifeless Little Mermaid clone will do the same. I think Disney is now suffering from the same "we grew too big, too quick" realization as every other tech and entertainment giant, and they're definitely reeling from a few recent failures, but I wouldn't use Strange World or Turning Red as the poster children of their troubles; they never bet much on those anyway.
Unfortunately, when Disney makes the most bland and forgettable nostalgia bait, they still make the "movies people want to see".
The reason dislike count had to be removed is that it enables hate campaigns against things (e.g. the recent controversy around the trailer for the live action The Little Mermaid movie, to name one among many).
Organized hate campaigns have a disproportionate representation in review sites, so they break rating systems. Also, the dislike count acts as a positive signal to hate-bombers ("we're winning", "let's make it to 50k dislikes") more than it helps anyone actually engaging with the content in a more healthy way.
One could also argue that the like count also creates a pernicious culture around subscriber / watch-count ("help us reach 1M subs!") that negatively affects young content producers and adds nothing of value to the world. But that's a much more complex conversation.
> I cannot pay for Marvel movies without paying for Alladin and Little Mermaid (Disney+)
Lol yes you can.
> Netflix had promise. Netflix was the Spotify of visual content. My one place with simple good interface that I can find all the content available, or at least good 80-90% of the middle of bell curve. The one monopoly I wholeheartedly desired to remain a monopoly.
No, it didn't. Netflix never had anything like this. Netflix never had even a tenth of modern, mainsteam content. Not even close. Never in it's entire history. It just used to be aimed more at Hacker News typical audience demographically.
> I cannot pay for Marvel movies without paying for Alladin and Little Mermaid (Disney+)
> I cannot just pay for Star Trek Strange New Worlds without paying for... I don't even know what, honestly, CBS All Access / Paramount + / whatever it's called these days holds no other interest to me.
Do Blu-rays and VODs just not exist anymore? You can absolutely pay for just what you want. I mean honestly how much does a collection of all the MCU movies through Endgame cost if you were to buy them discretely? $20 per in iTunes/TV, and what was it something like 20-25 movies? So $400-500 if you wanted every single one, and you can get at least some of them for cheaper if you get the Blu-rays off Amazon and Renting is an option if you only want to watch a particular movie once.
Or $80/year if you don’t mind subsidizing Walt Disney Animations and Pixar. Honestly I think it’s a toss up whether renting, buying or streaming is more economical because it comes down to your habits, and streaming is only the clear winner if you binge a lot.