YMMV / The Little Mermaid (2023)

• Americans Hate Tingle: While the film made a respectable $95.6 million in its opening 3-day weekend in the domestic box office, it made a disappointing $63.8 million in the international box office, indicating that most foreign audiences weren't impressed. In particular, China, which has traditionally been one of Disney's largest markets, only contributed a minuscule $2.5 million to the global opening box office.
• Awesome Music:
  • Halle Bailey takes on the iconic "Part of Your World"... and kills it.
  • Even some of her doubters have admitted that Melissa McCarthy absolutely nailed "Poor Unfortunate Souls," with a lot of people outright saying that Pat Carroll would've been proud.
  • "Vanessa's Trick" is haunting, sinister, and siren-like. Even more impressive is that Halle Bailey nailed it in one take.
  • Like Jasmine, Eric lacked his own song in the original, so this version gave him "Wild Uncharted Waters," which easily stands alongside the film's classic songs.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Before Ursula transforms into Vanessa, there's about half-a-minute of her scrambling around her lair for the right potion as if she won't be able to find it, the music even builds up to a crescendo and she lets out a Big "NO!" before just randomly finding it.
• Bile Fascination: There are a sizable number of people who hate "The Scuttlebutt" (Scuttle's rap number) and consider it to be the most cringeworthy song in the film. However, a good chunk of those same people will admit that they keep revisiting it because they're either in awe that it exists or consider it to be So Bad, It's Good.
• Broken Base:
  • Ariel's Race Lift has been a very big point of contention ever since it was revealed. Many people complained about it for different reasons, among those being that a character's race should be respected, that it was historically inaccurate given the time period the story is set in, and others feel it was yet again another very cheap attempt at being more inclusive. Others however defended the change, with some invoking the actor's ability would make up for it and/or that it was nice way to differentiate the film, with some accusing the detractors of being racist ^note This is despite that fact that many black people weren't particularly impressed with the race swap either for the third reason listed, with Halle Bailey herself being rather surprised she was chosen for the role. Of couse, there's the third camp that's neutral about the whole deal.
  • The change to have Ariel be the one to defeat Ursula via ramming the ship into her instead of Eric has split viewers. Some liked the change as it allowed Ariel to be the one to defeat the villain responsible for her torment while still allowing Eric to help via keeping the sea witch distracted. Others dislike the fact that it robbed Eric of his defining moment from the original film, which is also agreed to be the moment where he convinced King Triton that humans weren't all horrible.
• Common Knowledge:
  • As their names are similar and the former is far more well-known, several people on the Internet mistakenly believed that Ariel was being played by Halle Berry rather than Halle Bailey once the casting was announced. The misconception persisted even after the release of the first teaser trailer. Berry herself could only laugh at the absurdity of people thinking she was playing a teenage mermaid in her mid-50s.
  • Scuttle in this version is actually a Gannet, not a seagull.
  • Some have complained about Sebastian undergoing an Adaptation Species Change from a lobster to a crab, unaware that he was a crab in the 1989 film as well.
• Cry for the Devil: Somehow, the creators made Ursula's horror upon realizing she inadvertently killed Flotsam and Jetsam even more convincing here than in the animated version.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Ariel's sisters are quite popular in many viewers' eyes. Not only are they very diverse, but they each have very unique designs compared to the ones from the animated original.
• Evil Is Cool: Ursula brings the Disney Villains back to form after years of not-quite bad guys, those who could be bad turning good at the end, and twist villains, and she reminds audiences just why she's on the top of the list. Melissa McCarthy channels the late Pat Carroll's raspy yet boastful delivery as the Sea Witch and as a result steals every scene she's in.
• Fan Nickname: Passing of the Dinglehopper for Jodi Benson's cameo, in which she appears as a merchant who hands a fork to Halle Bailey's Ariel.
• Genius Bonus:
  • When Ursula casts her spell, sharp viewers can hear when she slips in the part about making Ariel forget the terms of the deal. Instead of the cartoon version's "Larynxes, glossitis" ("voice box, swollen tongue"), Ursula says, "Amnesia, glossitis".
  • When Ursula is looking for the potion that will turn her human, her tentacles are shown to think and act independently of their owner, just like with a real octopus.
  • Scuttle is a gannet, a diving bird, rather than a seagull like in the original. Since merfolk are forbidden from visiting the surface, it makes more sense for Ariel's avian friend to be a bird that regularly spends time underwater.
  • In "The Scuttlebutt," Scuttle mentions the popular myth that rice thrown at a wedding will make pigeons' stomachs explode and correctly states that it is untrue.
  • In one scene Scuttle mentions being briefed by Flounder and asks if Ariel has killed Prince Eric yet, having misheard kissed as killed. Fans of the original story would know in Hans Cristian Anderson’s story, the Mermaid was tasked with killing the prince in order to go back to being a mermaid.
• Improved Second Attempt:
  • While Eric is among the more distinct Disney Princes, he still didn't have much backstory or motivation dedicated to him (which even The Simpsons mocked in Welcome to the Club). The film gives a significant amount of effort towards fleshing out Eric's backstory (making him an orphan adopted by the kingdom) and showing he and Ariel have very similar personalities and hobbies to help give the two a stronger connection towards falling in love with each other.
  • For years, Ariel being able to write was a controversial Plot Hole (to the point that How It Should Have Ended parodied it): she signs Ursula's contract with her name but somehow doesn't think to write her story down to get Eric to give her a kiss, made even more egregious by the fact that even if merfolk had a written language, it would certainly not be in the Latin alphabet that Ariel signed her contract with in the original. Here, the issue of Ariel's illiteracy in human writing is circumvented, with her sealing the pact with Ursula by giving the witch some of her blood and one scale. Ursula also enchants her to make her forget about the kiss.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some viewers just want to see how Melissa McCarthy does as Ursula, an iconic villain, and even some detractors have deemed her an exception.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "I love the part where [X] says [X]. Gave me chills." ^ExplanationAfter the first teaser dropped, social media quickly started claiming the movie had Ariel, Triton, Ursula, or Sebastian saying a famous line from another movie before following up with saying how it gave them chills to hear it.
  • It's Mermaid Time/ It's Mermin' Time/ "One of the movies of all time."/ Mermillion Dollars ^ExplanationSnow-cloned from Morbius, it is used to joke about the obvious fact that it's a movie about a mermaid.
  • Lil Mermaid. ^ExplanationMany have (satirically) defended the Race Lift of Ariel, stating that many Black creators do indeed have the name "Lil" (ex. Lil Wayne, Lil Nas X) as a prefix.
  • La Sinegrita.^ExplanationA Spanish-speaking pun on the Race Lift, mixing the franchise's Hispanic title La Sirenita ("The Little Mermaid") and negrita ("little black girl" - note that the word has no particular connotation in Spanish). It is also used to differentiate it from the animated movie.
  • The Little Mermaid is a horror movie. ^Explanation The trailers and poster were criticized for having a very desaturated color grading. Some have joked that the lack of bright colors made the remake more like a horror movie.
  • Weiss is a mermaid now.^Explanation One of Ariel's sisters looks extremely similar to Weiss from RWBY.
  • Around May 2023, a screening of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 accidentally played The Little Mermaid's trailer with that of Transformers: Rise of the Beasts at the exact same time. Fans began joking that the Autobots would wind up appearing in the Disney remake, ranging from the bots having to help Ariel out to the mermaid transformation literally being her transforming between modes.
  • Among Hispanic fans, many have compared the Cat Fight scene between Ariel and Vanessa to a similar one that happens in the Soap Opera Marimar. Even Thalia, who starred in the aforementioned series, has joked in on social media that "Ariel and Marimar share the same DNA."
  • Triton’s other daughters all being different races has had many joking that Triton Really Gets Around and/or had a harem. According to Javier Bardem, the sisters are different races because they were conceived in different oceans and during the act of reproduction the essence of each sea was embodied within them (a concept that was invented by Rob Marshall).
• Misaimed Fandom: Some fans who fell in love with Jessica Alexander as "Vanessa" insisted that she should have been cast as Ariel instead because "her singing was better than Halle Bailey's". Somehow they didn't realize that her singing is Halle Bailey's, because the disguised Ursula sings with Ariel's voice.
• Older Than They Think:
  • While casting the African-American Halle Bailey as Ariel sparked much controversy, this isn't the first time Disney has had a diverse cast for the story. In most stage adaptations of Disney's The Little Mermaid, King Triton, Ariel's sisters, Sebastian, and at least one of Flotsam or Jetsam are usually portrayed by black actors. As of 2023, all live action portrayals of Ursula featured on television have only been played by black actresses (Yvette Nicole Brown, Merrin Dungey and Tiffany Boone in Once Upon a Time, Queen Latifah in The Little Mermaid Live!, and Whoopi Goldberg in Descendants 2 as well as Amber Riley in the prequel Disney Plus series). Zaykia Young Mizen, the African-American actress who originated the role of Ariel's sister Attina in the Disney on Broadway production, even stated she was surprised when she saw that half the cast in the original production was black. Moreover, while not black, the mixed-race Auli'i Cravalho (who is of Native Hawaiian, Chinese, Puerto Rican, and white background) likewise played Ariel in ABC's The Little Mermaid Live! in 2019.
  • Some fans complained about Ariel being the one to kill Ursula in this version instead of Eric, but that's the case in the stage musical as well.
  • An adaptation of the 1837 story with a setting update is nothing new:
    • The 1989 film was already meant to be a case of Adaptational Location Change: the creators decided to set the story in the Mediterranean and base Eric's kingdom off of Italy instead of Denmark, where they assumed the original story took place.
    • Likewise, many adaptations have gone for a Western European setting based on the assumption that the setting of the original story is Danish because Hans Christian Andersen was. The truth is that while the 1837 story never specifies where it takes place, most of the described imagery (orange, lemon, and tall palm trees; vine-covered hills, likely referring to vineyards; crystal clear light blue seas; marble statues and pillars reminiscent of Greco-Roman architecture; etc) resembles the Mediterranean, which Andersen actually visited in 1833 (namely Italy) and wrote extensively about in The Improvisatore, a book published in 1835, only two years before "The Little Mermaid."
    • An 1911 publication of Andersen's story featured illustrations by Edmund Dulac that depict the prince as Middle Eastern, likely because the original text describes the prince as having coal-black eyes and living in a marble palace with dancing slave girls in gold and silk.
    • Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child has an East Asian setting, with the merpeople being Korean, the prince being Chinese, and his betrothed being Japanese.
• One-Scene Wonder: Despite only having five minutes of screen time, Ursula's human alter ego Vanessa and her actress Jessica Alexander were well received, with audiences saying Alexander nailed Vanessa's sexy temptress vibe.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The controversy surrounding the race of the actress playing Ariel seems to dominate most discussions about the movie. Mentioning it in a comment section has the chance to ignite a Flame War between supporters and detractors of the film.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Some fans weren’t happy with the fact that Chef Louis and his song "Les Poissons" were Adapted Out. Even though the song added very little to the story, they had been looking forward to seeing him rendered in live action.
  • During the final battle, Ariel is the one who commandeers a shipwreck and drives it into Ursula rather than Eric. Some viewers felt that depriving Eric of his Big Damn Heroes moment, leaving him as nothing more than a brief distraction to Ursula and more or less a bystander for the rest of the big showdown, was a disservice to the character, particularly as the original scene served as a way for Eric to impress Triton and break down the ruler's anti-human prejudice, which isn't really accomplished by the new scene. Others thought it was a perfectly good change, because it gave Ariel a chance to defeat her own villain, and she herself pointed out that Eric still helped her anyway. Others have noted that Eric was distracting Ursula, thus still allowing him to help out while letting Ariel wrap up her own story arc.
  • A lot of fans complained that this version of "Poor Unfortunate Souls" removes the verse about body language and women staying quiet to find a man. This is because the song had been criticized by some parents for sending a bad message. Others counter that it was sang by the villain who was manipulating Ariel for her own ends; it was never presented as a legitimate moral.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The first glimpses at Flounder and Sebastian were not well-received to say the least, with their more realistic designs being off-putting to viewers.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The way the undersea world is depicted in the teaser is nothing short of gorgeous, especially Ariel's grotto (courtesy of Moving Picture Company and Framestore). Considering that it follows the teasers for Avatar: The Way of Water and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, both of which have gorgeous underwater scenes, it speaks highly to the talent at both MPC and Framestore.

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