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.
However, towards the bottom of the chart are some very young couples, including The Little Mermaid's, Ariel and Eric, who are just 16 and 18, and the youngest, other that Snow White, being Aladdin's Jasmine who is only 15-year-old, who is with 18-year-old Aladdin.
In the original Hans Christian Andersen story, the prince's sixteenth birthday is being celebrated on the ship at the beginning. Eric's voice actor Christopher Daniel Barnes was sixteen when the movie was released. Ariel is also sixteen and it makes sense that she and Eric should be around the same age.
In the original film, Eric is pressured by Grimsby to get married, but Eric wishes to find the right girl to fall in love with, which is overheard by Ariel who had been watching Eric's birthday party on board the ship and had become romantically attracted to him upon first sight.
What happened to Eric's parents in The Little Mermaid?
We learn that Eric, now played by John Hauer-King, is not a prince by birth— he was adopted by the king and queen. 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.
ariel marries eric | little mermaid 2023 wedding ending hd
Did Eric really love Ariel?
In the animated movie, when King Triton gives Ariel back her human form, she walks right into Eric's arms. But, for the new version, Eric can be seen missing Ariel at the palace while playing with Max, and she sneaks up on him. It's such a small change, but really shows how much Eric loves Ariel as he hugs her.
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.
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."
Ursula marries Eric and becomes Princess. This story brings us 6 years in the future when Vanessa is slowly using her new Kingdom to take over the surrounding land and start an all-out war. Ariel has taken over her father's rule as Queen of Atlantia.
The decision to fix Ariel's age at 16 years old was also likely to appeal to the target audience of Disney's version of The Little Mermaid. Her age makes sense to the narrative of the story as it's driven by her curiosity about the world and her identity crisis; relatable themes for many at the same stage of life.
The movie itself does not explicitly state Ariel's age, but Disney's production notes for the film shared by Yahoo! describe the lead character as a "spirited 18-year-old." The evidence behind Ariel being aged up two years compared to the animated movie can be seen in the live-action remake.
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).
However, Ursula is determined to sabotage Ariel's and Eric's budding romance at any cost; when she realizes that Ariel and Eric are actually falling in love, Ursula transforms herself into a beautiful young woman named "Vanessa" and hypnotizes Eric, tricking him into agreeing to marry her instead.
In the classic, she falls in love with Eric because she's physically attracted to him, seeing him first as a literal statue, not a walking, talking, thinking human man. If you watch that movie, she's really, really into that statue!
In both the original "The Little Mermaid" and the new live-action remake, Prince Eric must kiss Ariel before sunset on the third day of her becoming human if she wishes to remain on land as a human.
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.
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.
5) In the film's novelization, Moana's age is given as 16. This makes her the only Disney princess to be voiced by an actress younger than herself. Moana was released on Cravalho's 16th birthday.
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.
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.
The wedding, we didn't show the wedding. We don't really have a wedding because we didn't want to make it that it was all the penultimate thing is the wedding. No, it's the relationship. They're going off together and adventuring together."
What race is Ariel in the original Little Mermaid?
In the 1989 movie, Ariel was born in the fictional underwater kingdom of Atlantica, which technically makes her Atlantican, not Danish. As Ariel is half fish, she cannot be categorized by our ethnicities and races.
