The author of this article is a contributor @Red Panda
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The live-action version of "The Little Mermaid" recently exposed another new trailer and poster.
In the new trailer, familiar characters such as Red Crab Sebastian, Halibut Little Fat, and Witch Ursula have appeared, and the famous scene of Prince Alec and the Little Mermaid Ariel meeting for the first time has also been restored.
In the finalized poster released earlier, the picture of the Little Mermaid played by the new generation of 00s actor Hailey Bailey sitting on a reef in the sea and looking up at the starry sky also pays tribute to the original animated poster in 1989.
As one of the commemorative works for Disney's 100th anniversary, the live-action version of "The Little Mermaid" has attracted the attention of the media and audiences from the moment of public casting.
However, the choice to use black actor Hailey Bailey to play The Little Mermaid Ariel also caused a lot of controversy in this classic remake.
In the face of some people throwing doubts without watching the film, live-action director Rob Marshall (who directed "Chicago" and "Memoirs of a Geisha") firmly stood up to support the heroine Hailey Bailey, saying:
"The team met actors of 'all races' during the audition stage, and the eliminated candidates were either aesthetically fatigued or looked too smart, but Hayley Bailey kept that freshness. We were just looking for the best fit for the role, and it was as simple as that. ”
In addition to the director's support, the live-action version of "The Little Mermaid" also specially invited Alan Manken (one of the most Oscar-winning composers) and Lin-Manuel Miranda ("In the Highlands") to create new original songs for it.
It can be said that in addition to the actor controversy, the live-action version of "The Little Mermaid" can be described as sincere.
And whether this well-made controversial blockbuster is a mule or a horse will be known two months later.
The live-action version of "The Little Mermaid" will be released in North America on May 26
The reason why the live-action version of "The Little Mermaid" can cause such a big controversy also proves the depth of the original animation from the side.
34 years ago, the animated version of "The Little Mermaid" was born.
It was not only the animation work with the largest investment cost for Disney that year, but also triggered a movie-watching boom after its release, becoming the "best picture" in the minds of countless little girls (the Douban score has remained 8.4 so far).
Therefore, whether for Disney or the audience, the 1989 version of "The Little Mermaid" has a unique meaning.
At the end of the 70s, Disney ushered in a period of low points.
The horror film "Black Hole" released in 1979 was disappointed at the box office, and a series of animated films such as "The Legend of the Black God Cauldron" and "Miaomiao Detective" were well received.
Under pressure, Disney decided to return to Broadway-style musical animation.
"Wonderful Detective"
Disney first tasted the sweetness of musical animated films in "The Adventures of Oliva" (the film grossed $74 million), and then decided to increase investment in musical animation to produce an unprecedented fantasy song and dance blockbuster.
In 1989, Disney brought together the world's most talented artists and playwrights to create the princess animation The Little Mermaid.
As Disney's 28th feature-length animation and the last hand-drawn animation in its history, The Little Mermaid invested unprecedented manpower that year.
In order to present the colorful and ever-changing underwater world, the painters used thousands of colors and painted more than a million drawings in total, just to achieve the effect of natural landscape.
In particular, millions of bubbles floating in the water were hand-drawn by the artists, and none of them were copied and pasted from beginning to end. This extremely labor-intensive work was eventually done by a studio in Beijing.
"The Little Mermaid" is adapted from Hans Christian Andersen's classic fairy tale "Daughter of the Sea".
The story tells that the beautiful and lively little mermaid Ariel has always been very curious about the outside world and hopes to one day go to the human world to see it.
After a storm, Ariel rescues Alec, the human prince, and falls in love with him at first sight.
In order to meet the prince again, Ariel turns to the evil witch Ursula for help, hoping to become a human.
So the little mermaid used her beautiful singing voice as collateral in exchange for the opportunity to become a human for three days, and only by getting the prince's true love kiss within the time limit can you truly become a human being.
But how could the evil witch let Ariel's dream come true, and she used magic to confuse the prince's mind and make him marry another girl.
Just when Ariel was heartbroken, Red Crab Sebastian, Halibut Little Fat and other friends arrived in time, and with their help, the Little Mermaid finally found her true love.
Compared with the original fairy tale, "The Little Mermaid" has made a drastic change in the ending.
In "Daughter of the Sea", the prince empathizes with the princess of another country and marries the princess of another country, and the little mermaid transforms into a bubble, suggesting that in 1836, when Hans Christian Andersen published his fairy tale, love was still difficult to cross the racial gap.
In "The Little Mermaid", Disney fulfilled Ariel and the prince and gave them a happy ending.
This is Disney's most contemporary brave attempt, which not only conveys to the audience the good wishes that true love can beat everything, but also creates Disney's precedent in feminist and equal rights movies.
In a sense, the boldness of black characters in the live-action version of "The Little Mermaid" is not another subversion and innovation of Disney for tradition.
On the other hand, The Little Mermaid Ariel is Disney's first heroine with a modern personality.
She is beautiful and confident, has a strong curiosity, and is willing to leave all status and prejudice behind in order to pursue her true love.
Even the animation crew joked that if Walt Disney (Disney founder) were still alive, he would never allow a "rebellious" girl like Ariel to appear in the animation.
In addition, the introduction of the role of Red Crab Sebastian has also promoted the qualitative improvement of "The Little Mermaid" in terms of music/song and dance.
In the original setting, Disney designed a serious and upright court minister for Little Beauty.
But at the strong recommendation of composer Alan Manken (who is also the composer of the live-action version of The Little Mermaid), the artists eventually designed the character as the funny, likable, and musically gifted Red Crab Sebastian.
It dedicates a number of endurable bridges in the film, which has become another highlight of "The Little Mermaid".
Animal characters in the live-action version
In the end, the animated version of "The Little Mermaid" received more than $200 million at the global box office, becoming a symbol of Disney's animation from decline to prosperity.
The original and gradually declining Baile Hui song and dance film has found new life through animation, and Disney has gradually ushered in another golden age of its own with such animation.
Two years later, Disney launched the world-famous "Beauty and the Beast"
In December last year, the 1989 version of "The Little Mermaid" was officially selected into the list of films added to the National Film List in 2022 announced by the Library of Congress.
This means that this 34-year-old animation has officially become an icon of Hollywood cinema and stands in the collection.
The romance of "The Little Mermaid" carries that worldly "love myth" that has touched generations of human beings.
And whether the live-action version of "The Little Mermaid" can break the controversy and bring us unexpected surprises, let's wait and see!