Disney's decision to age up Eric so he is 21 years old or older in The Little Mermaid does create a bigger age gap between him and Ariel than before, but this also lines up with Jonah Hauer-King's age. He was 24 years old when production began on the live-action remake.
Prince Eric is the deuteragonist of the 2023 live action remake of the 1989 film, The Little Mermaid. He is a twenty one year old man who is the Prince of an unnamed kingdom. His life is saved by Ariel, the mermaid princess, and becomes determined to find the woman who saved him.
Apart from his love of the ocean, we don't learn much about his backstory or wants and desires — Eric (Jonah Hauer-King) is given a lot more to do in the 2023 version. For starters, we learn that he's not only an orphan, but one that came to the shores of his future kingdom via a shipwreck at a young age.
Jonah Hauer-King - Wild Uncharted Waters (From "The Little Mermaid")
How old is Eric in The Little Mermaid 1989?
However, according to the official novelization of Disney's story, Prince Eric is 18 years old in The Little Mermaid (via Internet Archive). The 2 year age difference between the couple in the 1989 Disney movie may be another reason for Ariel's change of age in the live-action remake of The Little Mermaid.
In the animated film, Ariel's 16, something which made her quick marriage to Eric within a few days of meeting him cringeworthy. Disney's production notes for the live-action film note that Ariel's a "spirited 18-year-old."
It's suggested that Eric's biological parents died in a shipwreck. We finally meet Prince Eric's mother. In the animated film, we never meet Eric's parents. But the live-action movie introduces audiences to Eric's mother, Queen Selina.
In the first Frozen movie, Elsa's age was 21, while Anna was 18. Considering Frozen revolved around Elsa's coronation, it's refreshing to see that Arendelle waited until she was a more appropriate age to receive the queen title. Frozen II occurred after a 3-year time jump, with Elsa now 24 and Anna 21.
At the end of the film, after King Triton uses his magical trident to transform Ariel into a human, she leaves the sea to live in the human world. She and Eric marry and live happily ever after.
Eric eventually takes Ariel sightseeing in a lagoon and starts to fall in love with Ariel but is reluctant to kiss her as he still hopes to marry the one who rescued him. With the help of Sebastian orchestrating a romantic stimulation, Eric and Ariel are finally about to kiss before Flotsam and Jetsam ruin the moment.
In the animated film, Ursula was a villain who enjoyed messing with people and getting what she wanted. In The Little Mermaid live-action, however, Ursula's backstory gets an adjustment — she is upgraded to Triton's sister and Ariel's aunt, making her revenge and motivations all the more sinister.
All of king Triton's daughters represent their own seas all over the world and as such they are all different ethnicities in the movie. It is not specified where the movie takes place, i.e. where Ariel lives but it's obvious it's not in Denmark.
Voice cast. Jodi Benson as Ariel, the 15-year-old adventurous and headstrong mermaid princess of Atlantica. Samuel E. Wright as Sebastian, a red Caribbean crab with a Jamaican accent who serves as King Triton's advisor and court composer.
The primary events of the film take place over the span of a few days, and I assume that the ruined Eric/”Vanessa” wedding was immediately repurposed to Eric and Ariel's, so she was at most 17 when she married Eric (if she had a birthday during that time and we didn't see it), but more likely still 16.
Ariel is the seventh-born and the youngest daughter of King Triton and the late Queen Athena of the merfolk, and over the course of the original film becomes human and marries Eric, a human prince. She is the only Disney Princess to reach parenthood in Disney's animated film canon.
While it is known that her mother perished, there is no story attached to the event. However, much later, in 2008, an animated The Little Mermaid prequel revealed that Ariel's mother was crushed by a pirate ship during an altercation between humans and merpeople.
Ursula was played by Melissa McCarthy in the 2023 live action remake of The Little Mermaid, directed by Rob Marshall. In this version, like with the Broadway musical, Ursula is the estranged younger sister of King Triton (played by Javier Bardem), thus making her the paternal aunt to Ariel and her sisters in this film.
In The Little Mermaid remake, Scuttle plays a bigger role than in the original. Instead of Scuttle being a male seagull, Scuttle is a northern gannet which is a female seabird. This allowed Scuttle to be included in the underwater scenes which ends up being an important change from the original movie.
In the new film, we learn that Eric was adopted by the king and queen of an island nation after a shipwreck, so he's a little bit of an outsider even in the royal family. He'd rather hang with the sailors.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs came out in 1937, debuting the very first Disney princess with Snow White herself. Voiced by Adriana Caselotti, she's incredibly of her time (i.e. dated af).
In exchange, Ursula takes Ariel's siren song from her throat. The deal struck is that mute Ariel has three days to get Prince Eric to kiss her, at which point she'll become permanently human, and Ursula will return her voice.
Ariel can't speak, having given up her voice in exchange for legs in a devious deal made with Ursula, the sea witch played by Melissa McCarthy in the remake. But Bailey's expressiveness (plus a new song that represents her internal monologue) conveys how she's feeling as she gets used to the human world.
