Tag Archives: Disney

The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning

The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning is the 2008 prequel to The Little Mermaid. It’s also the last Disney direct-to video sequel, that is till the Tinkerbell movies came along.  It’s better than Return to the Sea but it’s pretty stupid and dare I say confused in its focus.

Sebastian singing Jump in the line

Some ten years ago, the Mer-kingdom was awesome. Triton was super happy with his wife and daughters and music was everywhere. One day, when the royal family was chilling at surface, Triton gave his wife a music box that played their song. In that same hour however Triton’s wife dies by getting crushed by a pirate ship against a cliff or something. In his sorrow, Triton outlawed music and started enforcing icky rules.

Ten years later, Ariel hates rules, Sebastian is the chief of staff at the palace, and the Governess, Marina, is an ambitious meanie, as she wants Sebastian’s job but she needs to get some dirt on him.

One day Ariel meets a fish named Flounder. Flounder gets in trouble for making music but Ariel covers for him. Later that night, Ariels follows Flounders to a music club and sees that Sebastian is the head liner. When Ariel wakes and her sisters’ question her about where she was last night. Ariel tells them and they ask to go. That night they all go and Marina somehow finds them. She tells Triton who ruins the club and arrests Sebastian and the some of the others.

Triton puts Ariel and her sisters under house-arrest and Marina gets Sebastian’s job. Ariel decides to run away and frees the band. Sebastian takes them to a place where Ariel’s mother’s music box fell so that Triton can remember fun awesome times with music.

Marina then decides that to keep she position she will have kill Sebastian and Ariel with her electric eels. But they defeat the electric non-talking eels, Triton brings back music and gives Sebastian the job of court composer. Marina and her manatee minion land in jail.

Benjamin

Manatees? Really movie? You know, I’m not surprised that a Little Mermaid movie or a Disney sequel movie doesn’t know that Manatee don’t live in the deep ocean. Also why don’t Marina’s eels talk? Everything else in the ocean won’t shut-up but the evil eels don’t talk but Ursula’s eels spoke. Oh whatever. It’s futile trying to make sense of Disney sequels.

Sebastian

The movie gives us the impression that this movie is an Ariel story but it’s not. This movie focuses more on Triton and Sebastian. This movie is really Sebastian’s beginning.

We see how he got to be court composer, though we didn’t need a movie to explain that. Marina is focused on bringing Sebastian down. It’s a Sebastian’s origin story but an origin story that includes Ariel.

Triton is also the one who learns or rather relearns a lesson that music is awesome. Ariel helps but it was Sebastian’s idea that save the day.

Ariel and Flounder at The Catfish Club

For a movie called Ariel’s Beginning, Ariel does very little. She’s there, she complains, she dances and sings. The trouble is Ariel was never about the music in the first movie. Ariel was obsessed with human items and the human world.

Hey, creators of Ariel’s Beginning, remember in the original movie when Ariel missed contest to steal human stuff from a sunken ship? I do. Ariel’s Beginning should have been about Ariel discovering a love for humans. Now Ariel hates rules and likes music, that is her character now apparently.

Marina and King Triton

Triton banning music in the first place was stupid. He bans music because his wife died. Her death was stupid, she got crushed against a cliff by a pirate ship because she reached for her music box. He didn’t ban going to the surface, he banned music. King Triton is a bad king.

Ariel and her sisters, from left to right Attina, Aquata, Alana, Arista, Andrina, and Adella

Then we have Ariel’s sisters. Ariel’s sister have vague attempts at personalities. They have their little quirk that separate them out but they are by no means fleshed characters but then again Ariel in this movie isn’t really a character but more of a mechanic for the movie to follow Sebastian’s rise and fall and Triton rediscovering his love for music and laughter.

Marina

Then there is the villain, who is a goofy and weak. She is one the few villains who gets what she wants and is probably in the right. She did run the palace better than Sebastian but she was crazed about getting and keeping her position.

One question I have to ask, How the hell did Marina find the music club? Did the girls have tracking devices? Also, when Ariel follows Flounder, the club has all these safety knocks and codes, How did Marina pass them or know them? EXPLAIN movie! That is not a little thing, it’s how Triton finds out about evil music in his Kingdom. Was the club even in the Kingdom? This movie is stupid.

Sebastian and Marina

The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning suffers from false advertising. It promised us Ariel’s Beginning but failed as that is not the focus of the movie. All Ariel does is help tells Sebastian’s and Triton’s tale, ha tale because mermaids.

This kind of narrative works better in literature but not in a Disney sequel. To be fair even if this was called Sebastian’s Beginning it still would be a weak stupid movie. And how dare you movie use Jump in the line, shame, that’s Beeltlejuice’s song. Really, Sebastian singing Jump in the line was just weird.

A Blog Note- We may be done with the Direct to video Disney Sequels but now we’re going to look at the Theatrical release Disney Sequels. (sheepish yay)