Line #16 Animation/TheLittleMermaid1968


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/littlemermaid1968.png]]
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3	''The Little Mermaid'' (Russian: ''Русалочка'' - ''Rusalochka'') is a 29-minutes 1968 UsefulNotes/{{Soviet\|RussiaUkraineAndSoOn}} UsefulNotes/{{Russia}}n animated film directed by Ivan Aksenchuk and produced at Creator/{{Soyuzmultfilm}}. Aleksandr Lokshin composed the soundtrack.
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5	It adapts the Creator/HansChristianAndersen FairyTale [[Literature/TheLittleMermaid of the same name]], about a mermaid who, after reaching her 15th birthday, is allowed to swim to the surface. She saves the life of a human prince, falls in love with him and sacrifices her voice to a sea witch so she can turn human and be with him.
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7	!!This film provides examples of the following tropes:
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9	* AccessoryWearingCartoonAnimal: The whole school of fish in the port of Copenhagen wear clothes or at least hats, and the female [[TheStoryteller storyteller]] fish wears a babushka headscarf.
10	* ActOfTrueLove: The Mermaid is given one last chance to save herself by her sisters, that is, killing the prince and his newlywed by using the magical seashell to cause a storm and destroy the ship. She can't bring herself to do it, allowing him to live happily with his new wife and thus dissolving in sea foam when the Sun rises.
11	* AdaptedOut: The Mermaid's grandmother and the Daughters of the Air do not appear in this adaptation.
12	* AdaptationDeviation:
13	** Instead of a knife to kill the prince with in order to save her own life, the Mermaid is given a magical seashell that can cause a storm to sink the ship by her sisters.
14	** The ending is an outright {{Downer\|Ending}}, with no mention of the Mermaid becoming a Daughter of the Air and earning an immortal soul, although this may be explained by the film being probably based on the ''first'' version of Andersen's tale that didn't mention these things.
15	* AgonyOfTheFeet: Every step is painful for the poor Mermaid once she has human legs.
16	* BarbieDollAnatomy: The mermaids (the protagonist included) are bare-breasted, but they don't have visible nipples.
17	* BeautifulSingingVoice: The Mermaid's voice (with singing provided by lyric soprano Viktoriya Ivanova). So beautiful that the Sea Witch demands it as price for the Mermaid to become human.
18	* BecomeARealBoy: The Mermaid wants to become human so she can be with the prince.
19	* BigRedDevil: The Sea Witch has a devil-ish red skin and fangs, and appears in bursts of flames.
20	* CannotKillTheirLovedOnes: The prince ends up marrying a princess. The Mermaid's sisters buy her a way to kill the prince and become a Mermaid again to avoid death, but she can't bring herself to do it.
21	* CreatorProvincialism: The short's FramingDevice is set in Denmark, but the fish storyteller looks and sounds like a Russian babushka.
22	* DownerEnding: The Mermaid lets herself die instead of killing the prince to save herself.
23	* DrivenToSuicide: The Mermaid chooses death over killing the prince and reverting to mermaid form.
24	* EvilLaugh: The Sea Witch cackles quite a bit, although she clearly explains everything that will happen to the Mermaid and at what cost if she chooses to go through with it.
25	* FramingDevice: The story is framed by scenes featuring a bunch of tourists who visit Copenhagen, in Andersen's native UsefulNotes/{{Denmark}}. They stop by the famous statue of the Little Mermaid in the city's port, and a talking fish in the water below serves as storyteller.
26	* GenerationXerox: According to the Sea Witch, the Mermaid's great-great-great-grandmother also fell in love with a human and also requested to be turned into a human.
27	* GiantPoofySleeves: The prince has big shoulder puffs.
28	* InnerMonologue: When meeting the prince, the [[TheSpeechless mute]] Mermaid's thoughts (her wish that he knew what she sacrificed to be with him) are voiced out for the viewer.
29	* LastSecondChance: After the prince marries the princess, time's up for the Mermaid. Her sisters learn of what she did, and they buy an emergency solution to try saving her at a heavy price -- a magical seashell the Mermaid will have to use to cause a storm and kill the prince if she doesn't want to die.
30	* LikeBrotherAndSister: At least on the prince's side. Once he marries the princess, he treats the Mermaid like a sister (in his own words), much to her sorrow.
31	* NoNameGiven: As in the original tale, neither the protagonist Mermaid nor anyone else is named.
32	* TheOmniscient: The Sea Witch already knows the reason the Mermaid visits her before she even starts explaining, that is, to become human because she's fallen in love with a human prince.
33	* {{Pegasus}}: The Mermaid and the prince have a FlightOfRomance on a winged horse in the Mermaid's ImagineSpot when she meets him in her human form.
34	* PowerAtAPrice: As in the original story, the Sea Witch will not do magic without a sacrifice -- the Mermaid's beautiful voice. And even then, the spells come with [[AgonyOfTheFeet painful side effects]].
35	* RegalRuff: The king of the kingdom the prince and the Mermaid visits has a big ruff collar, and so do many nobles in his court.
36	* SilentWhisper: When the prince arrives at the court of the kingdom he's been arranged to marry the princess from, the whole court whispers in each other's ears as they see the Mermaid by his side.
37	* TheSpeechless: The Mermaid sacrifices her voice to the Sea Witch so she can turn human, and becomes mute as a result.
38	* StandardSnippet: The beginning of Music/JohannSebastianBach's StandardSnippet/ToccataAndFugueInDMinor plays whenever the princess shows up.
39	* TheStoryteller: Upon hearing the guide talk to the tourists in Copenhagen, a female talking fish laughs about humans "believing in love and not mermaids", and starts telling the story of the Little Mermaid to other fishes.
40	* TalkingAnimal: At the very least, the female fish with a headscarf who tells the story of the Little Mermaid.
41	* TruerToTheText: It is one of the most faithful adaptations of Andersen's tale.
42	* UnrequitedLove: The Mermaid loves the prince, but she has no way to express it to him, and he rapidly comes to love a princess he believes is the woman who saved him instead.
43	* WestminsterChimes: The town clock heard in Copenhagen at the beginning rings this way.

Context Animation / TheLittleMermaid1968