With "The Little Mermaid," Disney Has Totally Lost the Plot

In its relentless pursuit of profit and content, the House of Mouse has willingly jettisoned the magical approach to filmmaking that made it so beloved.

Once upon a time, the release of a new Disney film was truly an event. I was one of those who was fortunate to come of age during the Disney Renaissance, which saw the studio release a new feature-length animated film roughly every year, with each building on the success (both artistic and financial) of the last. Beginning with The Little Mermaid and reaching an apogee with The Lion King, this was truly an extraordinary run of triumphs (with one notable exception, the woefully underappreciated The Rescuers Down under, which did not do nearly as well as it had been hoped). Even when the Renaissance slowed down–a process that began with Pocahontas and continued on until Home on the Range–it still managed to produce some great films, most notably The Hunchback of Notre Dame. 

Then came the period when Disney decided that it would make the switch to CGI, making traditional 2-D animation a thing of the past. With the notable exception of The Princess and the Frog, Disney stuck to this model and while some of the features of the 2000s and 2010s came close to attaining the unique magic of the old days–most notably Tangled and Frozen–I’ve always felt that they were still lacking that certain little magical dash that had characterized the Renaissance films at their finest. In hindsight, it should have been clear which direction the studio was headed.

For a time, it almost seemed as if the 2010s, and the 2020s, would be another Renaissance, in large part due to the burgeoning art of the live-action remake. The success of both The Jungle Book and Beauty and the Beast showed that there was a seemingly bottomless appetite for such nostalgia-motivated reimaginings, particularly among millennials. Very quickly, however, it became clear that the bloom was off the rose if, in fact, it could ever be said to have been on it in the first place. Looking back, Beauty and the Beast, for all that it appeared to be a rebirth of the Renaissance, was instead nothing but a naked crash grab largely devoid of merit (and featuring people who, with some exceptions, can’t sing). Each subsequent remake has reinforced the perception that Disney is no longer even nominally interested in producing anything of artistic merit and is instead merely a glorified content machine. Indeed, with the release of the new trailer for the upcoming The Little Mermaid, it really does seem as if there is very little, if any, magic left in the old Disney formula. 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure that the cast will be excellent. Despite all of the racist naysaying about the casting of a Black actress to play Ariel, I’m absolutely certain that Halle Bailey will be phenomenal (at least if the trailer is anything to go by). Aside from everything else, she can at least sing, so hopefully this will minimize the need for autotune that now seems ubiquitous in any film that requires even the most basic of vocals. I’m less convinced about the suitability of Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, though I’m willing to give her a chance, simply because I love her so much.

No, far more concerning, to my eye, is the visual palette. Just as The Lion King leached its original film of all of the color and joy that (making it into what one critic called a nature documentary), The Little Mermaid looks as if the filmmakers decided to take everything that was enjoyable about the original film and totally strip it away. At this point, it’s hard not to feel as if Disney doesn’t even care to even make an appearance of making something that isn’t just another cynical cash-crab. 

In some ways, though, I’m not at all surprised by this turn of events. Disney, like so many of the other major media conglomerates, seems to be under the illusion that people will flock to the theater to gobble up whatever CGI fest they’ve decided to lavish money on. That might have been true when something like the live-action Beauty and the Beast and The Jungle Book seemed like they were going to do something new and interesting, but the illusion behind that has long been exposed. And, as the truly horrible Pinocchio remake of 2022 made abundantly clear, sometimes the original really is just better left alone. 

Now, lest I be seen to be pollyannaish (another good Disney film, by the way) about the history of the studio, I’m well aware that, like all movie studios, Disney has always been driven by profit rather than artistry. However, it’s impossible to deny that, despite (or perhaps because of) the need to draw people to the theaters, there was a sense that what the studio produced mattered, that it was as much a matter of craft as it was money. Now, it’s hard to shake the feeling that Disney really has lost the plot and, more importantly, forgotten what it was that drew people to them in the first place, both during its “Golden Age” and during the “Renaissance.” And, say what you will about those films produced in its less fertile periods–say, during the 1960s-1980s–the products of that period still manage to be entertaining and at times quite good (witness the ever-improving reputation of such long-underappreciated gems as The Rescuers, The Sword in the Stone, and Robin Hood). 

One would have thought that the studio would have learnt its lesson from the bruising its reputation took during the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, when practically every few months would see the release of yet another subpar sequel that no one asked for. Though some of these were middling-to-decent (both The Return of Jafar and The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride are examples of sequels done at least competently), most were far inferior to the original and have rightly been forgotten. Nowadays, it’s more exceptional for a live-action remake to be good—Mulan comes to mind—than it is for them to be incredibly subpar.

Though we might live in an age of constant content creation, and while there is still an appetite for whatever the studios put out, the recent earnings losses from Disney suggest that something is amiss. If the studio really wants to turn things around and return to their place of dominance, they would do well to remember what brought them such praise in the first place. Disney has a chance to bring magic back to the movies, but to do so it is going to need to invest in more interesting properties like Strange World which, while not perfect, was at least interesting.

Let’s hope the studio has the bravery to go in some new and exciting directions.