Since the MTV Music Awards premiered a clip from The Little Mermaid live-action remake, reactions have been polarized. Let’s just say it’s always risky to remake a nostalgic classic because of the inevitable comparisons.
While Halle Bailey is radiant as Ariel, and Jonah Hauer-King is quite charming as Prince Eric, the chemistry and energy of the song is much different here. As far as fan reaction, many official clips have the comments turned off.
Of course, people on Twitter have been going in with the memes:
If you noticed a couple of changes in the clip, those were deliberate and done in collaboration with Lin-Manuel Miranda, according to original lyricist Alan Menken. Via Vanity Fair:
[VF]: Turning to The Little Mermaid, the story about Lin-Manuel Miranda is fascinating because he worshipped you as a kid. He always talks about it. So I’m wondering how the collaboration for this movie actually happened?
[Alan Menken]: What happened was Lin gave a lot of interviews about just that. Sean Bailey, head of film production at the studio, heard or read one of those interviews. He didn’t even ask me. He just went to Lin and asked him to work on the movie. I’m used to that. Sometimes I actually find out something of mine is happening in a press release. So this was a case where I heard I’m going to be working with Lin, I guess. We had a great time.
[VF]: Was there anything from the original that you redid, or something about it needed to change?
[Alan Menken]: There are some lyric changes in “Kiss the Girl” because people have gotten very sensitive about the idea that [Prince Eric] would, in any way, force himself on [Ariel]. We have some revisions in “Poor Unfortunate Souls” regarding lines that might make young girls somehow feel that they shouldn’t speak out of turn, even though Ursula is clearly manipulating Ariel to give up her voice.
Some adult fans are crabby as Sebastian, but little kids will probably think it’s a lot of fun. Time will tell!
Images: YouTube / Rotten Tomatoes Coming Soon
