The Little Mermaid - One of Disney’s classics
In 1989, Disney released an animated feature of the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid. This film was the 28th animated feature in the Disney animated films library and grossed over $111 million in the United States along with an additional $99 worldwide. Read further down the page for more!
The Little Mermaid is about a sixteen year old mermaid, Ariel. Ariel is dissatisfied with having to live life under the sea. Ariel would sneak up to the surface of the ocean with her friends Sebastian the crab and her best friend Flounder the fish. They were quite a pair. When they were there, Scuttle (a seagull) would help her collect human artifacts. Although Ariel knows that the contact between humans and the merpeople is forbidden, she still longs to be a part of the human world.
Things begin to get interesting in The Little Mermaid when one night, Ariel and Flounder go up to the surface to watch a firework’s celebration for the birthday of Prince Eric. Eric is given a giant stone statue of himself and they start pressuring him to find a bride and get married so he can officially take over the throne. The party is cut short when a thunderstorm moves in and Eric loses his ship. He is lost at sea and almost drowns but Ariel saves him – she has taken a great liking to him. She disappears just before he wakes up but after she’s gone, he finds himself surrounded by the memory of her beautiful voice. Without giving too much away about The Little Mermaid, the rest of the story is finding out of Eric and Ariel can ever find happiness together!
The Little Mermaid is an important animation film because it was the first Disney film to mark the return of the musical format that Disney movies were most popular for from the 1930’s to the 1960’s. One of the happy scenes at the end of the movie is one of the first to use a Computer Animation Production System in a Disney feature. This is where a digital ink-and-paint and animation production system are used. It was also a film that had the most special effects since Fantasia, almost forty nine years prior.
The Little Mermaid also won an Academy Award in 1989 for Original Music Score. Popular songs from The Little Mermaid include “Mysterious Fathoms Below”, “Daughters of Triton”, “Part of Your World”, “Under the Sea”, “Les Poissons”, “Kiss the Girl” and “Happy Ending.”