And now for a movie review!
Hi, my name is Liz, and sometimes I make questionable decisions.
For example, I spend a large amount of my budget on comic books, and some people would say that is a questionable decision. I also enjoy the occasional chicken and pomegranate jelly sandwich, and while I have an argument to support this, most people I talk to agree that this is a questionable decision. And hey! I’m a creative writing major! Obviously I make great decisions when it comes to securing a financially secure future, right? But we’re not here to talk about my life choices, we’re here to talk about how the other night I decided to watch The Little Mermaid 3: Ariel’s Beginning.
Guess what.
I liked it.
I think this movie was totally charming, genuinely funny, beautifully animated, and it fit in well with the other movies and animated series. That isn’t to say it didn’t have problems (it’s a Disney sequel, of COURSE it’s gonna have problems) but they weren’t the kind of problems that take over and fill you with seething, violent hatred (I’m looking at you, animated The King and I, you bastard son of a mutated idiot).
When it comes to Disney, I have a long history of morbid sequel curiosity. When I was a kid I totally enjoyed the sequel to Aladdin, Return of Jafar. It was a bit darker, but still full of action and comedy and fun times. The third Aladdin movie wasn’t as good as number two, but it was on par with a good episode of the animated series-and I LOVED the animated series, Disney Afternoon represent! Then there was the sequel to Pocahontas, which I watched just to see what they would do about the John Rolfe issue. I don’t remember if I actually liked the movie as a whole, though I don’t think I did. I will say they made the transmission of her affections from John to John (oh man just listen to that sentence) pretty believable…although it bothered me that she got mad at Smith for not writing, because can she read?
Other sequels I watched were Peter Pan 2: Return to Neverland which was…okay I guess? I think that one went to theatres, and while it didn’t blow anybody’s mind, there wasn’t anything so wrong that it needed to go straight to video (I’ll get to why, despite liking LM3 quite a lot, it would not work in theatres in a bit.)
Then of course are the black sheep of the direct to video family: Lady and the Tramp 2 and The Little Mermaid 2.
These movies were AWFUL. What’s more, these movies had the exact same plot. How did they do that? Who in any universe would think to relate a movie about dogs and a movie about mermaids, and relate them enough to give them the SAME FREAKING PLOT?! The fact that somebody managed to accomplish this boggles my mind. BOGGLES! Here’s the short version: Tramp’s son doesn’t like living behind a fence, so he runs away to become a street dog. Tramp has to chase after him, revealing his past and overthrowing some dog meanie that’s terrorizing the streets. Parental bonding ensues. Meanwhile, Ariel’s daughter hates living behind a wall (a wall blocking off the ocean, which was built for her protection from Ursula’s sister) so she runs away and gets turned into a mermaid. Ariel has to chase after her, revealing her past and overthrowing some sea witch that’s terrorizing the ocean. Parental bonding ensues.
Both these movies were awfully written and of overall low quality all around, full of poor decisions and cheap recalls to the original films. When I saw they were making another Little Mermaid movie, I groaned…until I saw the trailer and noticed that hey! That actually looks pretty!
That was the first thing that drew me in, the animation. It really is gorgeous. You can see they took advantage of modern digital animation techniques so it looks new and fresh, but not so departed from the first movie’s animation that it looks like something separate all together (unlike the new The Slayers season, for example, that looks completely morphed from the original 90s style and not in a good way.) Another thing the animators did was come through with excellent new character designs. Unlike in LM2, where Ariel’s daughter-Melody, I’ve just remembered her name, and Tramp’s son is Scamp?-suffered from manface. Seriously. Picture Eric’s head on Ariel’s twelve year old body and that’s Melody.
LM3’s character designs for the newbies were very nicely done, particularly Ariel’s mom Athena who showed family resemblance (to only one of their daughters, but hey, Ariel is the star) while still looking like an individual. They could have gone the “let’s talk all the time about how Ariel looks like her mother” route, but they didn’t mention it once, and I was glad. If I had one complaint on the character designs in LM3 it would be that I couldn’t tell that Benjamin the manatee was a manatee at first. My first reaction to him was HOLY CRAP WHAT IS THAT BLOB THING? Then I wondered if it was a Beluga whale, before finally figuring it out. The fact that he’s a manatee bothers me on the level that a manatee would not live in the area LM is supposed to take place in (between Iceland and Europe), but that’s just me nitpicking like I do. Sebastian is Jamaican so hey, geography is obviously moot in the Disney world. He’s a very likable character, and I can see why they picked manatee.
The second thing that drew me in was realizing that Ariel’s sisters were going to have actual roles in the film. I was curious about them. They have their place in the original Hans Christian Anderson story, but were essentially props and background in the movies and animated series. I was intrigued by the idea of showing the royal family as an actual family, and how they’d pull that off. In the original story the sisters are vein but loving, and LM3 showcased this nicely. Yeah they’re a little ‘stereotypical girls slumber party’ at times, but you never dislike them, and the ones that get the most screen time are very endearing.
So I gave the movie a shot, and now you get to suffer the results (if you’re still reading after this much, that is. Impressive!)
Here’s a summary (spoilers and commentary included) of The Little Mermaid 3 Ariel’s Beginning:
First thing to note, this is a prequel film, and not a sequel to LM2. I know I was going on about sequels earlier, but I use the term “Disney Sequel” as a blanket for all its extra stuff that isn’t an animated series or the original film, such as the Belle Christmas special.)
The opening is narrated by Sebastian, and it talks about how Atlantica was a beautiful place of song and laughter and all that, because Queen Athena? She likes her music lots. You get to see Triton young, and as mermaids go he’s apparently a KILF. You see the mermaid daughters as kids, and everyone is laughing and playing music and having such a wonderful time that even if you’d never seen the first movie you would know some serious shit was about to go down. Now,
airie_fairy had a theory that Athena get’s fished. I felt this was a good theory, because it would explain why Triton is so anti-surface and anti-human in the original. When I saw the trailer to LM3, it showed pirates, and I assumed that Athena get’s fished by pirates. I thought this would have been a good route to go, but that isn’t what happens.
Now, to be fair, LM3 isn’t trying to be a dark movie, and perhaps the powers that be decided that showing Athena in a net would be too traumatizing. I can understand that, to some degree, but I felt the death scene they chose was pretty…lame.
Triton, Athena, the girls and some other mermaids are hanging out at the surface(!) chillin on some rocks and playing music. Triton gives Athena this music box that plays their song, and it’s all very sweet….and then the pirates come. And really, the reason why the next sequence is lame all falls on the pirates, because these are the WORST. PIRATES. EVER. I don’t mean they’re really evil, I mean they’re incredibly stupid-which is saying something, because they don’t even have lines.
So what happens is this. The pirates show up and start sailing near the rocks. Triton evacuates the girls and the other mermaids as the pirates start sending out grappling hooks to grab the mermaid’s stuff from the shore. That’s right. These pirates aren’t attacking other ships, or raiding or whatever, they are yoinking musical instruments from the rocks with hooks. Because that’s what pirates do.
Now, I assume the pirates were probably trying to catch a mermaid for…selling or eating or whichever is more evil, but they really didn’t seem to be trying too hard in this respect. There was no harpooning at the mermaids or any real indication that they were after anything but the mermaid’s stuff. And of course, Athena tries to save her music box and….get’s hit by the ship.
This death scene was incredibly confusing. First off, as expected, they don’t show her getting hit. It’s all alluded to and leaves you kind of going “What just happened?” You at first think that she was on the surface too long and got caught by the pirates…but then you see the ship crash into the rocks and realize that Athena was crushed between them…and then you realize that this is lame, because not only do the pirates fail at looting, they apparently fail at driving too. These pirates just went and crashed their ship into the rocks so easy you’d almost think they did it on purpose. Seriously! Ship. Straight line. Rocks. Shouldn’t people who make their living on the sea be better at this?
This scene had me concernicus. It happens right at the beginning of the movie, and I was worried that the pirate’s intelligence level was setting a bar for the rest of the film, but thankfully this is not the case.
So. Queen dead, Triton sad. Clear? Good.
We see Triton holding the music box and looking first depressed, then upset. He closes the box and chucks it far away, then leaves the surface for what we can assume is the last time until LM1. Sebastian’s narration explains that hearing his and Athena’s song was so painful with reminders of musical fun times that Triton outlawed all music.
Flash forward ten years. The girls are all teenagers-I’m gonna call Ariel a well developed fourteen year old, fifteen at most. They’re all oversleeping when Marina, their governess, and her assistant Benjamin come in to wake them up. Marina is putting on false cheerfulness and pretty much failing to get the girls motivated as they spend time primping in front of their mirrors. She’s trying to get them out the door promptly for their morning meeting with Triton, but the girls aren’t in any rush. Ariel, the only one not beautifying, complains that their mornings are all the same, and Marina says “That’s what you’re father cares about: predictability, presentation, punctuality!” The oldest sister who’s name I can’t remember (there are like six sisters and all their names start with A) gets maternal and urges her to not be so harsh on their father, and not to upset him. Marina rushes them out the door, and complains to Benjamin how she hates her job.
The girls pile into the throne room where Triton’s there, his hair is now the familiar white and he looks like he’s been worn out for a very long time. You should know that this is going to be Tritons thing for almost the whole movie-the depressive funk OH MY GOD DON’T ROCK WHAT BOAT I HAVE LEFT thing. Remember how charismatic he is in LM orrigional? Well even though he’s very blaaah here, it works, because you get to see how he goes from dead wife depression to Coolking McThunderfin.
Anyway, the girls give their perfunctory good mornings. Triton asks if they’ve been attending to their royal duties, they say yes--although what these duties are is never discussed--and Ariel asks dad if they can go swim on the reef, instead of walking (and yeah, they use the word walking multiple times despite their lack of LEGS, and my nitpicking chestmonster rears its head once more) through Main Street Atlantica as they do every single morning since forever. The sisters try to get her to shut up and leave well enough alone, but she keeps asking and Triton gets very weary with the idea of deviating from his coping mechanism…I mean, routine. So no, Ariel, you can’t swim on the reef.
The mermaids go on their “walk”, processing like a dignified royal family should…that is until Ariel, in a fit of boredom, starts a tickle fight with a piece of seaweed and gets her sister to chase her around. This is all much to the consternation of Sister Who Was Trying To Hit On That Hot Merteen, Marina, and daddy, the latter of whom sticks her with scraping barnacles off some rock formation as punishment.
Cut to Marina and Benjamin. Benjamin is feeding something in a cage that’s giving off electric sparks, and Marina is hissyfitting about how she wants Sebastian’s job (chief of palace staff). She sings a song about how she needs to look out for Sebastian to make a mistake she can use to her advantage. Now I keep going back and forth about how I’m not sure this was the right place in the movie for the first song since the No Music law plot is introduced, but if you’re going to have a musical…well it was about time for another song to happen and it made sense for the singer to be Marina.
In the middle of the song there is this weird dress-up montage that comes out of left field. I was kind of “Uh…wut?” at first, but now I’m totally on board with it. It really shows how Marina is a melodramatic spaz who is slightly delusional and THIS IS WHY I LOVE HER. Her crazy That Girl antics are just so refreshing. She’s funny, and just evil enough to make a villain for the movie, but she’s not an all consuming villain. It’s not another sea witch trying to take over Atlantica, AND THANK GOD. The villain in LM2 is Ursula’s sister who tries to steal the trident, but everyone in the cast agrees she is a second rate Ursula-fitting, since LM2 was a second rate movie. LM3 doesn’t bother to rehash this trope and I’m everso grateful. Marina is just right for this story, and totally fun to watch.
Change scene. Ariel is scraping barnacles and…what’s this? Enter Flounder! Here we go folks, friendship origin story!
Flounder, thinking he’s alone, starts singing…if you can call that singing. Actually, he’s making music on coral tubes and air guitaring. Throughout the movie Flounder’s doing this thing that… I’m not sure if it’s scatting, or beatboxing that he’s trying to do, but the point is the fish has got the ILLEGAL RYTHIM OMG and Ariel is very excited about it. It’s a pretty good entrance for Flounder, showing his fun loving side, the lack of care for rules that he shows in LM1 but also the freaking out when caught thing that make up his character’s balance. I’m pointing this out now, because I feel that halfway through the film, Flounder’s characterization takes a downward turn.
Ariel calls him on the music making, Flounder denies it that he supplied it, but she asks him to do it again. Then the palace guards show up, and they swim for their lives with some smooth moves that faintly echo the shark chase in the first movie but with Flounder in the lead this time. (Note: Flounder remembers to say “Swim!” instead of “Run!” because unlike Triton, Flounder remembers he doesn’t have legs. NITPICKING. I DOES IT.) They have their high speed swimchase and in the middle of which introduce themselves. The chase ends when they see Sebastian in their way. Ariel comes to a screeching halt and the crab get’s hairslapped in the near collision (I have to mention that Ariel’s hair is like its own character in this movie, it is so out of control).
The guards explain that they heard music, and Sebastian is horrified thinking it was Ariel, but it was Flounder. He lets Flounder off with a warning and Ariel is sent back to the palace in a huff.
Now it’s bedtime, and the sisters are getting ready. Some are primping, some are having hilarious arguments, and Extra Blonde Mermaid Who Steals is officially my favorite sister. Ariel is sitting at the window angsting when Triton comes in to wish the girls goodnight. The rest of the sisters chant diligently, while Ariel gives him the “I’m angry at you” guilt trip version of goodnight. It’s actually touching, because you can see that Triton is sad that he’s made Ariel sad but he genuinely doesn’t know what to do about it. Triton leaves dejected, Oldest Sister says “Why did you do that? He’s our father,” and tells Ariel that she can mope all she wants but nothing’s changing. The others go to bed, but Ariel sees Flounder swimming for the kelp forest from the window, and sneaks out to give chase.
She follows him though tangles of kelp and a series of secret doors before finally falling through a vent and landing in the back of…an underground night club where fish are partying it up and listening to a live band! GASP! Ariel is shocked, then ecstatic and takes in the sights with this big goofy smile on her face that is frankly quite adorable. And this whole scene right here is a great example of how the filmmakers approached Ariel’s younger age in the movie. They wanted her recognizable I suppose, so she doesn’t LOOK particularly different from LM1&2, but she moves differently. She doesn’t yet have that gracefulness we’re used to seeing in her. She’s flaily, her hair is out of control, and at times she’s a little clumsy. No, not Bella Swan clumsy. I mean the kind of clumsy that’s actually endearing. The excited wave and giant :D! face she greets Flounder with is pretty adorable.
Flounder, who it seems gets his pocket money by selling snack kelp to club patrons, goes O.O!! and tries to get her to hide. Ariel thinks he’s being silly…until the club owner appears on stage. It’s… (wait for it)… Sebastian! Ariel ducks and covers, but her jaw hits the floor when Sebastian starts singing. She’s shocked to see her father’s right hand crab disobeying the law center stage. Sebastian leads the band in a cover of “Jump in the Line” (you may recognize the song from Beetlejuice, and you may recognize the band from LM1’s “Under the Sea”) and while the cover is nothing special despite Sebastian’s good singing, it’s still better than the usual Disney Sequel song fare. I’ll give LM3 + points for their songs not making my ears bleed, but they don’t get the check ++ that Aladdin 2 got for having music I actually liked. Lion King 2 had that one good song, but Joss Whedon had a hand in it and…yeah. So anyway, Flounder gives Ariel some maracas so she can rock along, but she gets too excited to swim still and heads for stageside.
Sebastian sees her and, naturally, freaks out. Ariel gives him a big smile and an “I love your club!” but the music halts. It takes her a beat to catch on, but by then the band has sounded the evacuation alarm and everyone runs even as Ariel protests that she won’t tell anyone. The crowd disappears in a cloud of octopus ink, and Ariel is left alone and bummed that she blew it. But you can’t keep a good fish down, so Ariel starts playing with the musical instruments the band left on stage. At first she’s just giddily poking noises from them, but then she realizes that she knows how to play the piano (or the fish equivalent thereof) and she pulls out the last few notes of the lullaby her mother sang to her and her sisters.
Musical memories start rushing back to Ariel, and she gets her first song of the movie talking about the sensations of music and happiness that she remembers from when she was very young. Flounder emerges first, but soon the rest of the club patrons come out of hiding as they realize that the princess is not turning them in but singing on stage. Sebastian starts wigging about how the princess can’t break her own father’s law, but she tauntingly sings a solid note right in his face and he has no choice but to let her in the club.
Sebastian goes for his morning audience with the king and finds Marina there as well. Triton expresses concern on Ariel’s problematic behavior. Marina wants permission to be more strict with Ariel, while Sebastian-who is freaking about how closer inspection of Ariel might lead to the singing secret-tries to convince Triton that Ariel’s just going through a phase and that the other girls had their own moments of misbehavior. Marina, who wants recognition for being a governess to such unruly mermaids, joins in on this. It ends in a snarky argument between her and Sebastian, who gets put in charge of Ariel. Marina doesn’t like her job anyway, but sees this as a demotion and is further incensed.
Ariel, who was humming in her sleep, gets woken up by a crowd of suspicious sisters around her bed. The question her about said humming and where she was last night. One asks if she was with a boy, and Sister Who Was Trying To Hit On That Hot Merteen screams at the thought of Ariel having a boyfriend before her. Due mocking ensues before Ariel denies the boy theory and says (in an “I’ve got a seeecreeet” tone) that she was helping a friend out past the kelp forest. Oldest Sister tries to make Ariel fess up, producing a maraca she found as Ariel’s In Trouble evidence.
The other girls start worrying, but Ariel tries to play it off like no big deal, saying their father doesn’t spend enough time with them to notice if anything’s up. Oldest Sister gives her that straight up girl where were you? And Ariel, who is a terrible liar, gives in to the secret that’s been bubbling up. She confesses she was listening to music in an underground club.
Most of the sisters are excited by the news and ask what it was like, and Ariel tells them that it was wonderful and how it reminded her of when their mother was alive. The sisters are awed. Extra Blonde Mermaid Who Steals begs Ariel to hear the music too, and the others join in, except for Oldest Sister who is caught between maturity and a hard place. She nearly threatens to stop Ariel, but is can’t bring herself to do it, and agrees that they can all go to the club. Just then Marina barges in to wake the girls, but they are already awake and file out in an orderly fashion like good little princesses. Naturally, Marina suspects something.
The girls go to the club. They are thrilled to hear the music and for having a chance to cut loose. They swim to the dance floor, except for Oldest Sister and Sister Sarcastica, who are nervous in the party atmosphere. They loosen up when Sebastian takes the stage, finally seeing what the tightwad crab has really been up to, and join in on the fun. Sebastian is shocked and appalled to see all the girls there, but it quickly turns to exasperation and he accepts the sitch with an ‘I should have expected this’ sigh.
Sister Who Was Trying To Hit On That Hot Merteen is disappointed that there are no mermen in the club, so accepts a dance from a large…I don’t know what that species is, and apparently neither does she: “Are you a boy?...good enough.”
Extra Blonde Mermaid Who Steals starts hanging near the brass section, imitating the sax players. Blue Mermaid Who Gets Stolen From keeps rejecting dances from various fish until she admits that she can’t dance. The others try to make her, and really…she can’t dance, but she starts having fun anyway. Extra Blonde Mermaid Who Steals gets to try the sax and she’s very good. All the girls are having the time of their lives, and thank Ariel for bringing them, saying that their mom would have loved it. Ariel is happy to finally be having fun with her family, but meanwhile Marina has discovered the girls aren’t in their room.
Marina swims to the club-and no, I don’t know how she found it. It’s a big plot hole I admit. At any rate, Marina is thrilled to see that Sebastian is not only leading a band, he’s essentially corrupting Triton’s youth Footloose style. This is exactly the break she’s been looking for! The girls go to bed with more goodnights than the Walton family, unaware there’s trouble afoot, and Marina tells Triton they need to talk.
The next night, the sisters are dancing it up in the club again when a group of the palace guards storm the place. The octopus puts his ink cloud up, and everyone escapes save Sebastian, Flounder, the band and the girls. Then Triton comes in and two words: BUSSS-TEEEED! He’s furious at Sebastian, who he trusted, and has him and the band and Flounder sent to the dungeon. Ariel protests but it falls on deaf ears. The girls are soooo totally grounded. Marina, on the other hand, get’s Sebastian’s job. As he leaves the club, Triton turns back and blows the joint with his trident.
While her sisters accept their punishment, Ariel snips. He says “You are confined to the palace until you understand what you’ve done” but she doesn’t understand how why Triton thinks they were doing anything wrong, and tries to say so. Oldest Sister pleads for her to leave it alone, but she won’t, and tries to make her father explain why music is against the law. He doesn’t of course, and gets his Triton Temper (trademark) on. Ariel tells him “I may not remember much about my mother, but I know she wouldn’t have wanted this,” and swims off while everyone else winces ‘cause ooooh, she used the M word on daddy!
Ariel cries in the bedroom, the only time in the movie she sits in one of the vanities that I can remember. Her sisters file in and go to bed sulky and angry that Ariel has made it worse. Ariel is distraught that her family is more miserable than ever. “We were finally happy!” “Look around, Ariel. No one’s happy.”
Marina, meanwhile, is very happy. She gets an absolutely fantastic celebration montage full of quick cut scenes of her giddiness, including Marina doing Ariel’s signature ‘mermaid on the splashing rock’ move from “Part of Your World”-which is hilariously interrupted by Scuttle’s half-second cameo. She immediately wakes Benjamin and starts redecorating her quarters and giving herself a makeover, complete with ridiculous outfits as she sings about how she wants more power and is never going back to being Sebastian’s underling. Marina is in her full, spazzy, delusional, super funny glory here and it’s awesome! I do feel the need to point out that if anyone thinks Marina is a little too ridiculous, you should remember human Ursula’s fight with the sea critters at the wedding, which is proves that LM can and does pull off silly quite well.
Ariel angsts at the bedroom window as Triton visits the now neglected gardens he and Athena and the girls used to play in. He looks sadly at the statue of him and Athena in the center of the garden as Ariel makes up her mind to run away.
Sebastian, Flounder and the band are in the dungeon. This is the point in the movie where Flounder starts to do downhill. Contrary to his earlier panic about getting sent to the dungeon, now that he’s there you wouldn’t think it bothered him any. Also this is the part of the movie where the band members start to become characters rather than just background…a move I didn’t care for, really. It wasn’t that there was a problem with the band themselves, I just felt that Flounder should have been more himself, and the primary screen time should have been him and Sebastian with maybe the band in the background if they really had to be there.
So the band members are freaking out about being in prison, and want Sebastian to crawl through the bars and get them out. Sebastian is being cool though, and really, where Flounder fails in this movie Sebastian is fantastic. He’s completely ON in this movie. He’s the guy who, when a bad thing might happen or is about to happen, he freaks out. But after said thing has happened, he cools down and has his head together about how to handle things. He wants the band to calm down and wait for his audience with the king so he can try and get them out that way-perhaps this sounds delusional, but Sebastian has been Triton’s friend for years and his confidence probably stems from trust in Triton to (at least eventually) do the right thing.
Sebastian points out that if they broke out of prison they’d be fugitives. The band is okay with this, except for Flounder, who doesn’t know what a fugitive is. Sebastian also implores them not to break out for Ariel’s sake, since he doesn’t want to leave her with the fallout after all the trouble she’s already in. As he’s saying this, Ariel uses a rock to bust the lock on the cell door and announces she wants to run away with them. The band is all for it, but Sebastian doesn’t want to take Ariel away from her family and break Triton’s heart. Ariel tells him “Without music, this place just isn’t home.” This has the desired effect, as Sebastian gets an idea and tells them he knows just where they all should go.
The next morning, Benjamin goes to wake up the girls and finds Ariel missing. The band is making their escape, sneaking quietly except for Flounder, who is scatting beat boxing making his own theme music. As far as I’m concerned this is where Flounder is as his most OOC, because the Flounder I know would be a nervous guppy for a while after a jailbreak. Anyway, the others yell at him to be more quiet as music is illegal, but he points out that they are outside Atlantica and therefore free of the law. The gang breaks into another rendition of “Jump in the Line” to celebrate.
Maria is trying to get Triton’s recognition with all the work she’s done in the full morning she’s had her job, hoping he won’t forgive Sebastian and take her new title away. Triton starts to express regret for being too hard on “them”, whether this them is the girls or the girls and jailfish I have no idea. As Marina tries to convince him otherwise, Benjamin tries to get her attention to tell her about Ariel, but Oldest Sister comes in and makes the announcement. To Marina’s horror, Triton wants Sebastian to help with the search, but Benjamin explains that Sebastian’s gone too so Triton calls out the guards and goes to head the search. Marina, ignored and fearful of her job, snaps.
Sebastian is leading Ariel, Flounder and the band somewhere, but we don’t know where. Flounder pesters him until they arrive at an open area surrounded by rocks. It looks desolate, and nobody cares for its look, but Sebastian defends the place for its acoustics. He later tells Ariel “Dere’s more to dis place than meets de eye” (or however you write a Jamaican accent). They settle down to sleep.
Marina is in full freakout mode, and chasing Benjamin around the room for the key to the electro-cage. He refuses, citing how she made him promise never to give it to her in a fit of rage. She eventually gets it off him and releases a cagefull of electric eels, which seem to be a different species than Flotsam and Jetsam of LM1. She wants to sick them on Sebastian. When Benjamin points out Ariel is with him, she decides that the eels can just get her too.
[At this point I’d like to say that when I was a kid I owned another animated version of The Little Mermaid, this version an anime that stayed truer to the Hans Christian Anderson tale, and in this movie the Little Mermaid’s name was Marina. So. Lolz there for me.]
Ariel wakes up as she hears a sound coming from the far side of the gulch or…plain, thing…wherever it is they ended up. It sounds like the echo of a song. She wakes up Sebastian and tries to get him to go look for the source of the noise with her, but he feigns sleepy grouchiness so she goes off on her own. Ariel finds some kind of crystal lined canyon and in it discovers her mother’s music box. We’ll have to reach out far and say that the reason she could hear the song was that the music box is slightly magic, but no, I don’t have any idea how Sebastian knew where to find it. Maybe he recovered it from Triton’s fastball and hid it here? They don’t mention. Plot hole.
Ariel opens the music box, hears her mother’s lullaby and watches the figurines of her mother and father dancing. Sebastian comes up and explains how it was an anniversary present for her mother. “When your mother died, the whole kingdom was heartbroken. The heart that never healed was your fathers.” [read with Jamaican accent] Ariel sadly observes that her father doesn’t remember how to be happy, and decides to take the music box back to him. It turns out this was Sebastian’s plan the whole time. And good for him in that it shows a sort of cleverness and how much he cares about the royal family-but the band wasn’t buying the low odds of Ariel actually finding the music box plot hole thing either. They don’t want to chance Triton’s temper, and decide to stay behind.
Flounder is insulted that the band would abandon Ariel and Sebastian like that, and decides to go with them…and here’s another badly done Flounder moment, because if they were really supposed to be showing the beginnings of Ariel and Flounder’s friendship then I’d have preferred to see Flounder’s decision based more on loyalty to Ariel than the ‘help out your fellow music lovers’ ideal. Anywho, Ariel, Sebastian and Flounder head back toward Atlantica. As they swim through some thick kelp, Flounder realizes that there are eels camouflaging themselves in the kelp. The eels close in and Marina appears wearing flamboyant army garb. A quick threat and the chase is ON.
Sebastian and Marina go at it one-on-one, claws versus crazy (and can I just say I love this. I love how Marina is Sebastian’s nemesis, rather than yet another overevil witch trying to zap the mermaids yet AGAIN. It’s new, unique, and ads up to something really fun). Ariel and Flounder are being chased by the eels. They get cornered and are saved by the band who have of course come to their senses to help out. Together, they take care of the eels as Sebastian pulls out his crab-fu and traps Marina in a coral tube.
Triton arrives just in time to see them celebrating their victory, though no one notices his presence yet. Marina, still trapped in her tube, aims her body as a batering ram and heads for Sebastian in a last ditch effort to crush him. Ariel notices this and swims to save him. Triton is horrified to see her get in the way of Marina’s charge as the parallels are obvious and…okay, while on all other occasions in this movie I support 100% Marina’s sillyness, this is the one point in the movie where it didn’t belong. They should have had Ariel save Sebastian from an eel or a large rock or something other than a crazy mermaid with a crazy look on her face because it detracted from the seriousness.
Ariel is knocked out, and falls down a small crag. Triton sees her out cold (possibly dead) with the music box and does the Oh Shits this is all my fault. He picks up Ariel and sings her mother’s lullaby. Ariel wakes up and asks to go home. The band and Flounder are relieved she’s alive, and Sebastian fetches the music box with a smug ‘I totally called it’ look on his face.
Epilogue time. Sebastian narrates briefly and we see the sisters asleep in their rooms again. But this time, it’s Triton himself who’s giving his daughters the morning wake up and with a big group hug we see the family has finally reconnected. Triton calls the merpeople to the palace to officially repeal the no music law, and Sebastian is named court composer. Ariel is a hero, Extra Blonde Mermaid Who Steals is given a flute? Pipe? and made a member of the band, and Sister Who Was Trying To Hit On That Hot Merteen kisses That Hot Merteen who is very happy about it.
While the Atlantica celebrates, Triton returns to the garden and puts the music box in front of the statue of him and Athena. The garden restores itself (and I get that the music box is magic, but I think this is a bit far and he should have restored the garden with the trident). Ariel comes up and asks for a dance. They waltz, but the other sisters quickly show up with the rest of the kingdom and demand a conga-hey! Why not? Sebastian narrates out as the music and love finally return to Atlantica.
The end!
Pre-credits: Merina and Benjamin are in the dungeon. Benjamin convinces Marina to loosen up a tad, and they dance in the jail cell.
Really the end!
Now, I like this movie a lot for what it is, but I also like it lots for what it isn’t. First of all, it isn’t trying to be just like its original. That’s the sequel syndrome, where the filmmakers try to copy the meat in hopes of getting pudding. LM3 is a sweet family comedy with enough drama to make it interesting and gorgeous animation, but it isn’t long enough (70 minutes) or larger than life enough to make it on the big screen…so they don’t try! They don’t try to stuff it with bigger and badder in hopes of hammering out a theatre hit. They accept it for what it is, and produce something quite nice. And the animation really is gorgeous. The Disney Channel could stand to air this one plenty of times; it deserves to be seen.
It also doesn’t suffer from over-prequelitis. That means that they don’t attempt to give the origin story for every. Single. character. you see in the first film. You know what I’m talking about. When I first found out LM3 was a prequel, I immediately feared it would try stuffing in the origin of EVERYONE. Like, how Ursula gets banished for example, and perhaps showing a young prince Eric. For a while I even feared that Marina was Ursula, and got turned into a…octomaid? by some magical mishap. Seeing the electric cage (obviously eels) made me nervous, thinking Flotsam and Jetsam were in there, but they weren’t and I was relieved like crazy. Scuttle makes a cameo, but it’s for all of half a second and it’s purely for funsies. No complaints.
And can I say again how I love the way Sebastian is so ON in this movie? He’s not as stressed as we’re used to seeing him, probably because he has yet to spend a few years chasing Ariel through her antics, but he never stops being in character. Flounder is…he starts well and ends on an off note. I’m still not sure what the mentality behind his characterization here is. He seems a lot younger in the second half of the movie, and more brave than he should be. Not that flounder isn’t brave! He does prove himself in LM1, but not without bouts of nervousness first. Where they trying to show a Flounder that’s so young he isn’t yet aware of his own mortality? That seems a little too deep. So the poor fish ends on a question mark.
But this really is a story about Ariel. Others are there, but it’s Ariel first. You see how she gets her musical start, why she’s so close to her father but also how they frustrate each other, and the how she’s just starting to get her preciousness going on. She’s her familiar headstrong self, but often there’s a lack of certainty in her attitude that’s right on par with her age. She was well done, and the movie earns its title of Ariel’s Beginning.
(I guess they thought Ariel’s Coming of Age or Are You There God? It’s Me Ariel would be too heavy handed)
And here's a clip if you're curious:
I think the sheer length of that review is proof enough of why I don't do these things more often. I mean, can you imagine? I defy you to find another human being who has more to say than I do on this obscure direct to DVD movie. Hey Avi! I bet you wish you hadn't told me you were looking forward to reading it now, eh?
But in all seriousness and with ego included, I think its a fun read. I hearby dub myself the source of all Little Mermaid 3 knowledge. The end.
For example, I spend a large amount of my budget on comic books, and some people would say that is a questionable decision. I also enjoy the occasional chicken and pomegranate jelly sandwich, and while I have an argument to support this, most people I talk to agree that this is a questionable decision. And hey! I’m a creative writing major! Obviously I make great decisions when it comes to securing a financially secure future, right? But we’re not here to talk about my life choices, we’re here to talk about how the other night I decided to watch The Little Mermaid 3: Ariel’s Beginning.
Guess what.
I liked it.
I think this movie was totally charming, genuinely funny, beautifully animated, and it fit in well with the other movies and animated series. That isn’t to say it didn’t have problems (it’s a Disney sequel, of COURSE it’s gonna have problems) but they weren’t the kind of problems that take over and fill you with seething, violent hatred (I’m looking at you, animated The King and I, you bastard son of a mutated idiot).
When it comes to Disney, I have a long history of morbid sequel curiosity. When I was a kid I totally enjoyed the sequel to Aladdin, Return of Jafar. It was a bit darker, but still full of action and comedy and fun times. The third Aladdin movie wasn’t as good as number two, but it was on par with a good episode of the animated series-and I LOVED the animated series, Disney Afternoon represent! Then there was the sequel to Pocahontas, which I watched just to see what they would do about the John Rolfe issue. I don’t remember if I actually liked the movie as a whole, though I don’t think I did. I will say they made the transmission of her affections from John to John (oh man just listen to that sentence) pretty believable…although it bothered me that she got mad at Smith for not writing, because can she read?
Other sequels I watched were Peter Pan 2: Return to Neverland which was…okay I guess? I think that one went to theatres, and while it didn’t blow anybody’s mind, there wasn’t anything so wrong that it needed to go straight to video (I’ll get to why, despite liking LM3 quite a lot, it would not work in theatres in a bit.)
Then of course are the black sheep of the direct to video family: Lady and the Tramp 2 and The Little Mermaid 2.
These movies were AWFUL. What’s more, these movies had the exact same plot. How did they do that? Who in any universe would think to relate a movie about dogs and a movie about mermaids, and relate them enough to give them the SAME FREAKING PLOT?! The fact that somebody managed to accomplish this boggles my mind. BOGGLES! Here’s the short version: Tramp’s son doesn’t like living behind a fence, so he runs away to become a street dog. Tramp has to chase after him, revealing his past and overthrowing some dog meanie that’s terrorizing the streets. Parental bonding ensues. Meanwhile, Ariel’s daughter hates living behind a wall (a wall blocking off the ocean, which was built for her protection from Ursula’s sister) so she runs away and gets turned into a mermaid. Ariel has to chase after her, revealing her past and overthrowing some sea witch that’s terrorizing the ocean. Parental bonding ensues.
Both these movies were awfully written and of overall low quality all around, full of poor decisions and cheap recalls to the original films. When I saw they were making another Little Mermaid movie, I groaned…until I saw the trailer and noticed that hey! That actually looks pretty!
That was the first thing that drew me in, the animation. It really is gorgeous. You can see they took advantage of modern digital animation techniques so it looks new and fresh, but not so departed from the first movie’s animation that it looks like something separate all together (unlike the new The Slayers season, for example, that looks completely morphed from the original 90s style and not in a good way.) Another thing the animators did was come through with excellent new character designs. Unlike in LM2, where Ariel’s daughter-Melody, I’ve just remembered her name, and Tramp’s son is Scamp?-suffered from manface. Seriously. Picture Eric’s head on Ariel’s twelve year old body and that’s Melody.
LM3’s character designs for the newbies were very nicely done, particularly Ariel’s mom Athena who showed family resemblance (to only one of their daughters, but hey, Ariel is the star) while still looking like an individual. They could have gone the “let’s talk all the time about how Ariel looks like her mother” route, but they didn’t mention it once, and I was glad. If I had one complaint on the character designs in LM3 it would be that I couldn’t tell that Benjamin the manatee was a manatee at first. My first reaction to him was HOLY CRAP WHAT IS THAT BLOB THING? Then I wondered if it was a Beluga whale, before finally figuring it out. The fact that he’s a manatee bothers me on the level that a manatee would not live in the area LM is supposed to take place in (between Iceland and Europe), but that’s just me nitpicking like I do. Sebastian is Jamaican so hey, geography is obviously moot in the Disney world. He’s a very likable character, and I can see why they picked manatee.
The second thing that drew me in was realizing that Ariel’s sisters were going to have actual roles in the film. I was curious about them. They have their place in the original Hans Christian Anderson story, but were essentially props and background in the movies and animated series. I was intrigued by the idea of showing the royal family as an actual family, and how they’d pull that off. In the original story the sisters are vein but loving, and LM3 showcased this nicely. Yeah they’re a little ‘stereotypical girls slumber party’ at times, but you never dislike them, and the ones that get the most screen time are very endearing.
So I gave the movie a shot, and now you get to suffer the results (if you’re still reading after this much, that is. Impressive!)
Here’s a summary (spoilers and commentary included) of The Little Mermaid 3 Ariel’s Beginning:
First thing to note, this is a prequel film, and not a sequel to LM2. I know I was going on about sequels earlier, but I use the term “Disney Sequel” as a blanket for all its extra stuff that isn’t an animated series or the original film, such as the Belle Christmas special.)
The opening is narrated by Sebastian, and it talks about how Atlantica was a beautiful place of song and laughter and all that, because Queen Athena? She likes her music lots. You get to see Triton young, and as mermaids go he’s apparently a KILF. You see the mermaid daughters as kids, and everyone is laughing and playing music and having such a wonderful time that even if you’d never seen the first movie you would know some serious shit was about to go down. Now,
airie_fairy had a theory that Athena get’s fished. I felt this was a good theory, because it would explain why Triton is so anti-surface and anti-human in the original. When I saw the trailer to LM3, it showed pirates, and I assumed that Athena get’s fished by pirates. I thought this would have been a good route to go, but that isn’t what happens.
Now, to be fair, LM3 isn’t trying to be a dark movie, and perhaps the powers that be decided that showing Athena in a net would be too traumatizing. I can understand that, to some degree, but I felt the death scene they chose was pretty…lame.
Triton, Athena, the girls and some other mermaids are hanging out at the surface(!) chillin on some rocks and playing music. Triton gives Athena this music box that plays their song, and it’s all very sweet….and then the pirates come. And really, the reason why the next sequence is lame all falls on the pirates, because these are the WORST. PIRATES. EVER. I don’t mean they’re really evil, I mean they’re incredibly stupid-which is saying something, because they don’t even have lines.
So what happens is this. The pirates show up and start sailing near the rocks. Triton evacuates the girls and the other mermaids as the pirates start sending out grappling hooks to grab the mermaid’s stuff from the shore. That’s right. These pirates aren’t attacking other ships, or raiding or whatever, they are yoinking musical instruments from the rocks with hooks. Because that’s what pirates do.
Now, I assume the pirates were probably trying to catch a mermaid for…selling or eating or whichever is more evil, but they really didn’t seem to be trying too hard in this respect. There was no harpooning at the mermaids or any real indication that they were after anything but the mermaid’s stuff. And of course, Athena tries to save her music box and….get’s hit by the ship.
This death scene was incredibly confusing. First off, as expected, they don’t show her getting hit. It’s all alluded to and leaves you kind of going “What just happened?” You at first think that she was on the surface too long and got caught by the pirates…but then you see the ship crash into the rocks and realize that Athena was crushed between them…and then you realize that this is lame, because not only do the pirates fail at looting, they apparently fail at driving too. These pirates just went and crashed their ship into the rocks so easy you’d almost think they did it on purpose. Seriously! Ship. Straight line. Rocks. Shouldn’t people who make their living on the sea be better at this?
This scene had me concernicus. It happens right at the beginning of the movie, and I was worried that the pirate’s intelligence level was setting a bar for the rest of the film, but thankfully this is not the case.
So. Queen dead, Triton sad. Clear? Good.
We see Triton holding the music box and looking first depressed, then upset. He closes the box and chucks it far away, then leaves the surface for what we can assume is the last time until LM1. Sebastian’s narration explains that hearing his and Athena’s song was so painful with reminders of musical fun times that Triton outlawed all music.
Flash forward ten years. The girls are all teenagers-I’m gonna call Ariel a well developed fourteen year old, fifteen at most. They’re all oversleeping when Marina, their governess, and her assistant Benjamin come in to wake them up. Marina is putting on false cheerfulness and pretty much failing to get the girls motivated as they spend time primping in front of their mirrors. She’s trying to get them out the door promptly for their morning meeting with Triton, but the girls aren’t in any rush. Ariel, the only one not beautifying, complains that their mornings are all the same, and Marina says “That’s what you’re father cares about: predictability, presentation, punctuality!” The oldest sister who’s name I can’t remember (there are like six sisters and all their names start with A) gets maternal and urges her to not be so harsh on their father, and not to upset him. Marina rushes them out the door, and complains to Benjamin how she hates her job.
The girls pile into the throne room where Triton’s there, his hair is now the familiar white and he looks like he’s been worn out for a very long time. You should know that this is going to be Tritons thing for almost the whole movie-the depressive funk OH MY GOD DON’T ROCK WHAT BOAT I HAVE LEFT thing. Remember how charismatic he is in LM orrigional? Well even though he’s very blaaah here, it works, because you get to see how he goes from dead wife depression to Coolking McThunderfin.
Anyway, the girls give their perfunctory good mornings. Triton asks if they’ve been attending to their royal duties, they say yes--although what these duties are is never discussed--and Ariel asks dad if they can go swim on the reef, instead of walking (and yeah, they use the word walking multiple times despite their lack of LEGS, and my nitpicking chestmonster rears its head once more) through Main Street Atlantica as they do every single morning since forever. The sisters try to get her to shut up and leave well enough alone, but she keeps asking and Triton gets very weary with the idea of deviating from his coping mechanism…I mean, routine. So no, Ariel, you can’t swim on the reef.
The mermaids go on their “walk”, processing like a dignified royal family should…that is until Ariel, in a fit of boredom, starts a tickle fight with a piece of seaweed and gets her sister to chase her around. This is all much to the consternation of Sister Who Was Trying To Hit On That Hot Merteen, Marina, and daddy, the latter of whom sticks her with scraping barnacles off some rock formation as punishment.
Cut to Marina and Benjamin. Benjamin is feeding something in a cage that’s giving off electric sparks, and Marina is hissyfitting about how she wants Sebastian’s job (chief of palace staff). She sings a song about how she needs to look out for Sebastian to make a mistake she can use to her advantage. Now I keep going back and forth about how I’m not sure this was the right place in the movie for the first song since the No Music law plot is introduced, but if you’re going to have a musical…well it was about time for another song to happen and it made sense for the singer to be Marina.
In the middle of the song there is this weird dress-up montage that comes out of left field. I was kind of “Uh…wut?” at first, but now I’m totally on board with it. It really shows how Marina is a melodramatic spaz who is slightly delusional and THIS IS WHY I LOVE HER. Her crazy That Girl antics are just so refreshing. She’s funny, and just evil enough to make a villain for the movie, but she’s not an all consuming villain. It’s not another sea witch trying to take over Atlantica, AND THANK GOD. The villain in LM2 is Ursula’s sister who tries to steal the trident, but everyone in the cast agrees she is a second rate Ursula-fitting, since LM2 was a second rate movie. LM3 doesn’t bother to rehash this trope and I’m everso grateful. Marina is just right for this story, and totally fun to watch.
Change scene. Ariel is scraping barnacles and…what’s this? Enter Flounder! Here we go folks, friendship origin story!
Flounder, thinking he’s alone, starts singing…if you can call that singing. Actually, he’s making music on coral tubes and air guitaring. Throughout the movie Flounder’s doing this thing that… I’m not sure if it’s scatting, or beatboxing that he’s trying to do, but the point is the fish has got the ILLEGAL RYTHIM OMG and Ariel is very excited about it. It’s a pretty good entrance for Flounder, showing his fun loving side, the lack of care for rules that he shows in LM1 but also the freaking out when caught thing that make up his character’s balance. I’m pointing this out now, because I feel that halfway through the film, Flounder’s characterization takes a downward turn.
Ariel calls him on the music making, Flounder denies it that he supplied it, but she asks him to do it again. Then the palace guards show up, and they swim for their lives with some smooth moves that faintly echo the shark chase in the first movie but with Flounder in the lead this time. (Note: Flounder remembers to say “Swim!” instead of “Run!” because unlike Triton, Flounder remembers he doesn’t have legs. NITPICKING. I DOES IT.) They have their high speed swimchase and in the middle of which introduce themselves. The chase ends when they see Sebastian in their way. Ariel comes to a screeching halt and the crab get’s hairslapped in the near collision (I have to mention that Ariel’s hair is like its own character in this movie, it is so out of control).
The guards explain that they heard music, and Sebastian is horrified thinking it was Ariel, but it was Flounder. He lets Flounder off with a warning and Ariel is sent back to the palace in a huff.
Now it’s bedtime, and the sisters are getting ready. Some are primping, some are having hilarious arguments, and Extra Blonde Mermaid Who Steals is officially my favorite sister. Ariel is sitting at the window angsting when Triton comes in to wish the girls goodnight. The rest of the sisters chant diligently, while Ariel gives him the “I’m angry at you” guilt trip version of goodnight. It’s actually touching, because you can see that Triton is sad that he’s made Ariel sad but he genuinely doesn’t know what to do about it. Triton leaves dejected, Oldest Sister says “Why did you do that? He’s our father,” and tells Ariel that she can mope all she wants but nothing’s changing. The others go to bed, but Ariel sees Flounder swimming for the kelp forest from the window, and sneaks out to give chase.
She follows him though tangles of kelp and a series of secret doors before finally falling through a vent and landing in the back of…an underground night club where fish are partying it up and listening to a live band! GASP! Ariel is shocked, then ecstatic and takes in the sights with this big goofy smile on her face that is frankly quite adorable. And this whole scene right here is a great example of how the filmmakers approached Ariel’s younger age in the movie. They wanted her recognizable I suppose, so she doesn’t LOOK particularly different from LM1&2, but she moves differently. She doesn’t yet have that gracefulness we’re used to seeing in her. She’s flaily, her hair is out of control, and at times she’s a little clumsy. No, not Bella Swan clumsy. I mean the kind of clumsy that’s actually endearing. The excited wave and giant :D! face she greets Flounder with is pretty adorable.
Flounder, who it seems gets his pocket money by selling snack kelp to club patrons, goes O.O!! and tries to get her to hide. Ariel thinks he’s being silly…until the club owner appears on stage. It’s… (wait for it)… Sebastian! Ariel ducks and covers, but her jaw hits the floor when Sebastian starts singing. She’s shocked to see her father’s right hand crab disobeying the law center stage. Sebastian leads the band in a cover of “Jump in the Line” (you may recognize the song from Beetlejuice, and you may recognize the band from LM1’s “Under the Sea”) and while the cover is nothing special despite Sebastian’s good singing, it’s still better than the usual Disney Sequel song fare. I’ll give LM3 + points for their songs not making my ears bleed, but they don’t get the check ++ that Aladdin 2 got for having music I actually liked. Lion King 2 had that one good song, but Joss Whedon had a hand in it and…yeah. So anyway, Flounder gives Ariel some maracas so she can rock along, but she gets too excited to swim still and heads for stageside.
Sebastian sees her and, naturally, freaks out. Ariel gives him a big smile and an “I love your club!” but the music halts. It takes her a beat to catch on, but by then the band has sounded the evacuation alarm and everyone runs even as Ariel protests that she won’t tell anyone. The crowd disappears in a cloud of octopus ink, and Ariel is left alone and bummed that she blew it. But you can’t keep a good fish down, so Ariel starts playing with the musical instruments the band left on stage. At first she’s just giddily poking noises from them, but then she realizes that she knows how to play the piano (or the fish equivalent thereof) and she pulls out the last few notes of the lullaby her mother sang to her and her sisters.
Musical memories start rushing back to Ariel, and she gets her first song of the movie talking about the sensations of music and happiness that she remembers from when she was very young. Flounder emerges first, but soon the rest of the club patrons come out of hiding as they realize that the princess is not turning them in but singing on stage. Sebastian starts wigging about how the princess can’t break her own father’s law, but she tauntingly sings a solid note right in his face and he has no choice but to let her in the club.
Sebastian goes for his morning audience with the king and finds Marina there as well. Triton expresses concern on Ariel’s problematic behavior. Marina wants permission to be more strict with Ariel, while Sebastian-who is freaking about how closer inspection of Ariel might lead to the singing secret-tries to convince Triton that Ariel’s just going through a phase and that the other girls had their own moments of misbehavior. Marina, who wants recognition for being a governess to such unruly mermaids, joins in on this. It ends in a snarky argument between her and Sebastian, who gets put in charge of Ariel. Marina doesn’t like her job anyway, but sees this as a demotion and is further incensed.
Ariel, who was humming in her sleep, gets woken up by a crowd of suspicious sisters around her bed. The question her about said humming and where she was last night. One asks if she was with a boy, and Sister Who Was Trying To Hit On That Hot Merteen screams at the thought of Ariel having a boyfriend before her. Due mocking ensues before Ariel denies the boy theory and says (in an “I’ve got a seeecreeet” tone) that she was helping a friend out past the kelp forest. Oldest Sister tries to make Ariel fess up, producing a maraca she found as Ariel’s In Trouble evidence.
The other girls start worrying, but Ariel tries to play it off like no big deal, saying their father doesn’t spend enough time with them to notice if anything’s up. Oldest Sister gives her that straight up girl where were you? And Ariel, who is a terrible liar, gives in to the secret that’s been bubbling up. She confesses she was listening to music in an underground club.
Most of the sisters are excited by the news and ask what it was like, and Ariel tells them that it was wonderful and how it reminded her of when their mother was alive. The sisters are awed. Extra Blonde Mermaid Who Steals begs Ariel to hear the music too, and the others join in, except for Oldest Sister who is caught between maturity and a hard place. She nearly threatens to stop Ariel, but is can’t bring herself to do it, and agrees that they can all go to the club. Just then Marina barges in to wake the girls, but they are already awake and file out in an orderly fashion like good little princesses. Naturally, Marina suspects something.
The girls go to the club. They are thrilled to hear the music and for having a chance to cut loose. They swim to the dance floor, except for Oldest Sister and Sister Sarcastica, who are nervous in the party atmosphere. They loosen up when Sebastian takes the stage, finally seeing what the tightwad crab has really been up to, and join in on the fun. Sebastian is shocked and appalled to see all the girls there, but it quickly turns to exasperation and he accepts the sitch with an ‘I should have expected this’ sigh.
Sister Who Was Trying To Hit On That Hot Merteen is disappointed that there are no mermen in the club, so accepts a dance from a large…I don’t know what that species is, and apparently neither does she: “Are you a boy?...good enough.”
Extra Blonde Mermaid Who Steals starts hanging near the brass section, imitating the sax players. Blue Mermaid Who Gets Stolen From keeps rejecting dances from various fish until she admits that she can’t dance. The others try to make her, and really…she can’t dance, but she starts having fun anyway. Extra Blonde Mermaid Who Steals gets to try the sax and she’s very good. All the girls are having the time of their lives, and thank Ariel for bringing them, saying that their mom would have loved it. Ariel is happy to finally be having fun with her family, but meanwhile Marina has discovered the girls aren’t in their room.
Marina swims to the club-and no, I don’t know how she found it. It’s a big plot hole I admit. At any rate, Marina is thrilled to see that Sebastian is not only leading a band, he’s essentially corrupting Triton’s youth Footloose style. This is exactly the break she’s been looking for! The girls go to bed with more goodnights than the Walton family, unaware there’s trouble afoot, and Marina tells Triton they need to talk.
The next night, the sisters are dancing it up in the club again when a group of the palace guards storm the place. The octopus puts his ink cloud up, and everyone escapes save Sebastian, Flounder, the band and the girls. Then Triton comes in and two words: BUSSS-TEEEED! He’s furious at Sebastian, who he trusted, and has him and the band and Flounder sent to the dungeon. Ariel protests but it falls on deaf ears. The girls are soooo totally grounded. Marina, on the other hand, get’s Sebastian’s job. As he leaves the club, Triton turns back and blows the joint with his trident.
While her sisters accept their punishment, Ariel snips. He says “You are confined to the palace until you understand what you’ve done” but she doesn’t understand how why Triton thinks they were doing anything wrong, and tries to say so. Oldest Sister pleads for her to leave it alone, but she won’t, and tries to make her father explain why music is against the law. He doesn’t of course, and gets his Triton Temper (trademark) on. Ariel tells him “I may not remember much about my mother, but I know she wouldn’t have wanted this,” and swims off while everyone else winces ‘cause ooooh, she used the M word on daddy!
Ariel cries in the bedroom, the only time in the movie she sits in one of the vanities that I can remember. Her sisters file in and go to bed sulky and angry that Ariel has made it worse. Ariel is distraught that her family is more miserable than ever. “We were finally happy!” “Look around, Ariel. No one’s happy.”
Marina, meanwhile, is very happy. She gets an absolutely fantastic celebration montage full of quick cut scenes of her giddiness, including Marina doing Ariel’s signature ‘mermaid on the splashing rock’ move from “Part of Your World”-which is hilariously interrupted by Scuttle’s half-second cameo. She immediately wakes Benjamin and starts redecorating her quarters and giving herself a makeover, complete with ridiculous outfits as she sings about how she wants more power and is never going back to being Sebastian’s underling. Marina is in her full, spazzy, delusional, super funny glory here and it’s awesome! I do feel the need to point out that if anyone thinks Marina is a little too ridiculous, you should remember human Ursula’s fight with the sea critters at the wedding, which is proves that LM can and does pull off silly quite well.
Ariel angsts at the bedroom window as Triton visits the now neglected gardens he and Athena and the girls used to play in. He looks sadly at the statue of him and Athena in the center of the garden as Ariel makes up her mind to run away.
Sebastian, Flounder and the band are in the dungeon. This is the point in the movie where Flounder starts to do downhill. Contrary to his earlier panic about getting sent to the dungeon, now that he’s there you wouldn’t think it bothered him any. Also this is the part of the movie where the band members start to become characters rather than just background…a move I didn’t care for, really. It wasn’t that there was a problem with the band themselves, I just felt that Flounder should have been more himself, and the primary screen time should have been him and Sebastian with maybe the band in the background if they really had to be there.
So the band members are freaking out about being in prison, and want Sebastian to crawl through the bars and get them out. Sebastian is being cool though, and really, where Flounder fails in this movie Sebastian is fantastic. He’s completely ON in this movie. He’s the guy who, when a bad thing might happen or is about to happen, he freaks out. But after said thing has happened, he cools down and has his head together about how to handle things. He wants the band to calm down and wait for his audience with the king so he can try and get them out that way-perhaps this sounds delusional, but Sebastian has been Triton’s friend for years and his confidence probably stems from trust in Triton to (at least eventually) do the right thing.
Sebastian points out that if they broke out of prison they’d be fugitives. The band is okay with this, except for Flounder, who doesn’t know what a fugitive is. Sebastian also implores them not to break out for Ariel’s sake, since he doesn’t want to leave her with the fallout after all the trouble she’s already in. As he’s saying this, Ariel uses a rock to bust the lock on the cell door and announces she wants to run away with them. The band is all for it, but Sebastian doesn’t want to take Ariel away from her family and break Triton’s heart. Ariel tells him “Without music, this place just isn’t home.” This has the desired effect, as Sebastian gets an idea and tells them he knows just where they all should go.
The next morning, Benjamin goes to wake up the girls and finds Ariel missing. The band is making their escape, sneaking quietly except for Flounder, who is scatting beat boxing making his own theme music. As far as I’m concerned this is where Flounder is as his most OOC, because the Flounder I know would be a nervous guppy for a while after a jailbreak. Anyway, the others yell at him to be more quiet as music is illegal, but he points out that they are outside Atlantica and therefore free of the law. The gang breaks into another rendition of “Jump in the Line” to celebrate.
Maria is trying to get Triton’s recognition with all the work she’s done in the full morning she’s had her job, hoping he won’t forgive Sebastian and take her new title away. Triton starts to express regret for being too hard on “them”, whether this them is the girls or the girls and jailfish I have no idea. As Marina tries to convince him otherwise, Benjamin tries to get her attention to tell her about Ariel, but Oldest Sister comes in and makes the announcement. To Marina’s horror, Triton wants Sebastian to help with the search, but Benjamin explains that Sebastian’s gone too so Triton calls out the guards and goes to head the search. Marina, ignored and fearful of her job, snaps.
Sebastian is leading Ariel, Flounder and the band somewhere, but we don’t know where. Flounder pesters him until they arrive at an open area surrounded by rocks. It looks desolate, and nobody cares for its look, but Sebastian defends the place for its acoustics. He later tells Ariel “Dere’s more to dis place than meets de eye” (or however you write a Jamaican accent). They settle down to sleep.
Marina is in full freakout mode, and chasing Benjamin around the room for the key to the electro-cage. He refuses, citing how she made him promise never to give it to her in a fit of rage. She eventually gets it off him and releases a cagefull of electric eels, which seem to be a different species than Flotsam and Jetsam of LM1. She wants to sick them on Sebastian. When Benjamin points out Ariel is with him, she decides that the eels can just get her too.
[At this point I’d like to say that when I was a kid I owned another animated version of The Little Mermaid, this version an anime that stayed truer to the Hans Christian Anderson tale, and in this movie the Little Mermaid’s name was Marina. So. Lolz there for me.]
Ariel wakes up as she hears a sound coming from the far side of the gulch or…plain, thing…wherever it is they ended up. It sounds like the echo of a song. She wakes up Sebastian and tries to get him to go look for the source of the noise with her, but he feigns sleepy grouchiness so she goes off on her own. Ariel finds some kind of crystal lined canyon and in it discovers her mother’s music box. We’ll have to reach out far and say that the reason she could hear the song was that the music box is slightly magic, but no, I don’t have any idea how Sebastian knew where to find it. Maybe he recovered it from Triton’s fastball and hid it here? They don’t mention. Plot hole.
Ariel opens the music box, hears her mother’s lullaby and watches the figurines of her mother and father dancing. Sebastian comes up and explains how it was an anniversary present for her mother. “When your mother died, the whole kingdom was heartbroken. The heart that never healed was your fathers.” [read with Jamaican accent] Ariel sadly observes that her father doesn’t remember how to be happy, and decides to take the music box back to him. It turns out this was Sebastian’s plan the whole time. And good for him in that it shows a sort of cleverness and how much he cares about the royal family-but the band wasn’t buying the low odds of Ariel actually finding the music box plot hole thing either. They don’t want to chance Triton’s temper, and decide to stay behind.
Flounder is insulted that the band would abandon Ariel and Sebastian like that, and decides to go with them…and here’s another badly done Flounder moment, because if they were really supposed to be showing the beginnings of Ariel and Flounder’s friendship then I’d have preferred to see Flounder’s decision based more on loyalty to Ariel than the ‘help out your fellow music lovers’ ideal. Anywho, Ariel, Sebastian and Flounder head back toward Atlantica. As they swim through some thick kelp, Flounder realizes that there are eels camouflaging themselves in the kelp. The eels close in and Marina appears wearing flamboyant army garb. A quick threat and the chase is ON.
Sebastian and Marina go at it one-on-one, claws versus crazy (and can I just say I love this. I love how Marina is Sebastian’s nemesis, rather than yet another overevil witch trying to zap the mermaids yet AGAIN. It’s new, unique, and ads up to something really fun). Ariel and Flounder are being chased by the eels. They get cornered and are saved by the band who have of course come to their senses to help out. Together, they take care of the eels as Sebastian pulls out his crab-fu and traps Marina in a coral tube.
Triton arrives just in time to see them celebrating their victory, though no one notices his presence yet. Marina, still trapped in her tube, aims her body as a batering ram and heads for Sebastian in a last ditch effort to crush him. Ariel notices this and swims to save him. Triton is horrified to see her get in the way of Marina’s charge as the parallels are obvious and…okay, while on all other occasions in this movie I support 100% Marina’s sillyness, this is the one point in the movie where it didn’t belong. They should have had Ariel save Sebastian from an eel or a large rock or something other than a crazy mermaid with a crazy look on her face because it detracted from the seriousness.
Ariel is knocked out, and falls down a small crag. Triton sees her out cold (possibly dead) with the music box and does the Oh Shits this is all my fault. He picks up Ariel and sings her mother’s lullaby. Ariel wakes up and asks to go home. The band and Flounder are relieved she’s alive, and Sebastian fetches the music box with a smug ‘I totally called it’ look on his face.
Epilogue time. Sebastian narrates briefly and we see the sisters asleep in their rooms again. But this time, it’s Triton himself who’s giving his daughters the morning wake up and with a big group hug we see the family has finally reconnected. Triton calls the merpeople to the palace to officially repeal the no music law, and Sebastian is named court composer. Ariel is a hero, Extra Blonde Mermaid Who Steals is given a flute? Pipe? and made a member of the band, and Sister Who Was Trying To Hit On That Hot Merteen kisses That Hot Merteen who is very happy about it.
While the Atlantica celebrates, Triton returns to the garden and puts the music box in front of the statue of him and Athena. The garden restores itself (and I get that the music box is magic, but I think this is a bit far and he should have restored the garden with the trident). Ariel comes up and asks for a dance. They waltz, but the other sisters quickly show up with the rest of the kingdom and demand a conga-hey! Why not? Sebastian narrates out as the music and love finally return to Atlantica.
The end!
Pre-credits: Merina and Benjamin are in the dungeon. Benjamin convinces Marina to loosen up a tad, and they dance in the jail cell.
Really the end!
Now, I like this movie a lot for what it is, but I also like it lots for what it isn’t. First of all, it isn’t trying to be just like its original. That’s the sequel syndrome, where the filmmakers try to copy the meat in hopes of getting pudding. LM3 is a sweet family comedy with enough drama to make it interesting and gorgeous animation, but it isn’t long enough (70 minutes) or larger than life enough to make it on the big screen…so they don’t try! They don’t try to stuff it with bigger and badder in hopes of hammering out a theatre hit. They accept it for what it is, and produce something quite nice. And the animation really is gorgeous. The Disney Channel could stand to air this one plenty of times; it deserves to be seen.
It also doesn’t suffer from over-prequelitis. That means that they don’t attempt to give the origin story for every. Single. character. you see in the first film. You know what I’m talking about. When I first found out LM3 was a prequel, I immediately feared it would try stuffing in the origin of EVERYONE. Like, how Ursula gets banished for example, and perhaps showing a young prince Eric. For a while I even feared that Marina was Ursula, and got turned into a…octomaid? by some magical mishap. Seeing the electric cage (obviously eels) made me nervous, thinking Flotsam and Jetsam were in there, but they weren’t and I was relieved like crazy. Scuttle makes a cameo, but it’s for all of half a second and it’s purely for funsies. No complaints.
And can I say again how I love the way Sebastian is so ON in this movie? He’s not as stressed as we’re used to seeing him, probably because he has yet to spend a few years chasing Ariel through her antics, but he never stops being in character. Flounder is…he starts well and ends on an off note. I’m still not sure what the mentality behind his characterization here is. He seems a lot younger in the second half of the movie, and more brave than he should be. Not that flounder isn’t brave! He does prove himself in LM1, but not without bouts of nervousness first. Where they trying to show a Flounder that’s so young he isn’t yet aware of his own mortality? That seems a little too deep. So the poor fish ends on a question mark.
But this really is a story about Ariel. Others are there, but it’s Ariel first. You see how she gets her musical start, why she’s so close to her father but also how they frustrate each other, and the how she’s just starting to get her preciousness going on. She’s her familiar headstrong self, but often there’s a lack of certainty in her attitude that’s right on par with her age. She was well done, and the movie earns its title of Ariel’s Beginning.
(I guess they thought Ariel’s Coming of Age or Are You There God? It’s Me Ariel would be too heavy handed)
And here's a clip if you're curious:
Click to viewI think the sheer length of that review is proof enough of why I don't do these things more often. I mean, can you imagine? I defy you to find another human being who has more to say than I do on this obscure direct to DVD movie. Hey Avi! I bet you wish you hadn't told me you were looking forward to reading it now, eh?
But in all seriousness and with ego included, I think its a fun read. I hearby dub myself the source of all Little Mermaid 3 knowledge. The end.