While there's no bonus content after The Little Mermaid's ending, it's always a good idea to stick around through the credits in order to appreciate the sheer number of people it takes to make the film, especially one on a scale as massive as Disney's 2023 live-action remake.
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.
Ariel is 16 years old when she became a human; the whole story only takes place in the span of a few days. Ursula turns her into a human for 3 days, but after the sunset on the 3rd day, she transformed back into a mermaid.
In Hans Christian Andersen's original story, things don't end so rosily. In fact, the story is tragic throughout, with Ariel's transformation to human causing her constant agonising pain, before her heart is broken when her prince marries someone else.
Although The Hunchback of Notre Dame is already considered Disney's darkest animation for its themes of sin and lust, the original novel by Victor Hugo looms with despair persistently.
At the end of the 1989 animated film, Eric saves the day and kills Ursula. But in the new movie, Ariel is no longer the damsel in distress. She takes matters into her own hands and kills Ursula herself. Ariel and Eric's marriage brings the sea kingdom and the people on land back together.
In the 1989 animation, Ariel gives up her voice to Ursula the sea witch in exchange for legs. While Ariel is hesitant, Ursula reminds her that she will have no need for her voice above water. I was curious to see how the live action adaptation would navigate this complex plot line.
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.
Athena took too long to try and escape (going back for a music box she'd gotten for her husband as a gift), and she ends up crushed between the pirate ship and the rocks of the cove. Ariel's mother is far from the only material figure in Disney Animation to die.
Queen Athena is a minor character in Disney's 2008 animated feature film The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning. As ruler of Atlantica alongside her husband, King Triton, Athena is the mother of Ariel and her six older sisters.
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.
During the song "Poor Unfortunate Souls", Ursula asks Ariel for her voice, saying that men only want silent and obedient women, but secretly in an attempt to make sure Eric won't be able to recognize her or fall in love with her, to which Ariel agrees, and signs a contract.
With intent to sabotage Ariel's relationship with Eric, so she can continue with her evil plan, Ursula takes the form of a beautiful human female with Ariel's voice. Under the alias "Vanessa", Ursula hypnotizes Eric into forgetting all about Ariel and marrying her.
According to production notes, Ariel is described as a "spirited 18-year-old" (via Yahoo!). This change of age is likely to avoid criticism surrounding Ariel's hasty marriage to Prince Eric in the animated version and make 23-year-old Halle Bailey more believable in the role.
In the movie The Little Mermaid (Clements & Musker, 1989), Ariel displays symptoms of disposophobia, which is defined as the fear of getting rid of things.
The Mermaid after transition becomes a metaphor for disability as she becomes abnormal in the human eyes. The fairy tale verbalizes her bodily denigration to a physical inability that can be surveyed as a locomotive disability, and she also sells her voice to the sea witch, surmising her as a speech-disabled person.
Ursula's plan was not only to trick Ariel, so she could own her but also to get rid of her, so she could replace King Triton and thus rule over the oceans. However, her reasons to do so, for her resentment towards King Triton and company, and for her banishment and isolation weren't revealed in the movie.
One theory is that each of Ariel's sisters represents different oceans that are home to various cultures and ethnicities. It's pretty problematic to have mermaids who all look the same representing such an expansive underwater world.
Most of the mermaids and mermen escape safely, but Attina, the oldest princess, gets her tail stuck between two rocks. Athena is able to free her, but she is crushed to death by the ship while trying to save the music box, and the ship sinks after hitting the rocks. Athena's death leaves Triton completely devastated.
She forgot he had Triton, then only one-year-old, and dismissed him as a threat until he became old enough to depose her and become king. Ursula's motivation for revenge otherwise remains similar to the original book of the musical, with the addition that she was the one who killed Ariel's mother.
Ariel was offered by Ursula to become a human for three days and would become human permanently if she shares a kiss of true love with Eric, but will turn back into a mermaid and be bound to Ursula for eternity if she fails to kiss Eric.
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 original tale, the Little Mermaid fell under the spell of a human whom she saves from drowning, but unlike Disney's adaptation, she was not driven to wish for legs out of curiosity for life on earth, or her love for the princes.
