Featured Image Credit: Disney
Topics: Film and TV, Disney
Joe Harker
Plenty of scenes from the remake of The Little Mermaid look basically the same as they did in the classic animated version.
It's the latest in an increasingly long line of Disney remakes of their classic movies, so of course they're going to look similar in many ways but just how similar is pretty surprising.
The Little Mermaid is in cinemas now, as is leading star Halle Bailey in disguise so you could have Ariel herself sitting just a few rows away without ever realizing it.
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While there's been some backlash to the film (you know why) it's doing pretty well at the box office and should be yet another mega-money hit for the House of Mouse.
The original animated version which released in 1989 was pretty darn popular when it came out so it's no surprise that the remake has decided to take some serious inspiration, even right down to how individual shots look.
Insider has gone through six iconic shots in the movie and found that the remake definitely used the animated classic as a blueprint in deciding how key shots ought to look.
The kinds of moments which really get etched into the memory look almost the same, only not rendered in 2D animation.
One of the movie's iconic movies during the 'Part of Your World' song is practically identical, right down to Ariel's right hand extending longingly up at the surface.
The hair flip when the mermaid breaks the surface of the sea is also in there just as it was in the cartoon, though it was apparently difficult to do.
Bailey that her hair feels 'like wool' when wet so being able to flip it up and over when getting out of the water took a whole day before there was a take director Rob Marshall really liked.
In the end they pulled the trick off by having a stuntman hold her hair for her while underwater and then throw it when she rose above the surface.
Even on shots which were slightly different like the moment Ariel gets up on a rock while water cascades behind her all that's really changing is the direction she's facing.
Still, with so much of the same thing happening in the movie as occurred in the animated classic it's hard to argue against doing it like this.
Plenty of people watching The Little Mermaid have a pretty clear idea of what they think it's supposed to look like so putting these scenes in will reassure fans they're watching the thing they want to see.
There are going to be bits of the movie which look a little different, not least because the live action remake is a decent chunk longer than the animated film it's based on.
That's been a tad controversial among fans as the film is not just reshooting the animated version, it's adding new scenes, songs and plotlines in too.
Some Disney fans have been split over whether this is a good thing or not, as a remake ought to bring something new to the table but there's a risk of trying to make The Little Mermaid something it's not.
The comparison between shots does show that certain things about the movie have been changed even when it's adapting the same material.
On top of that certain things will just look different now that the remake has aimed for a more 'realistic' style of animation.
While Flounder and Sebastian could be cutesy cartoon characters in the 1989 version there's the simple hurdle that sea creatures don't actually look like that.
To be honest it would look a bit weird if you had the human actors performing alongside very anthropomorphized versions of real animals.
It's the approach Disney has gone for in their spate of remakes, ditching the charming 2D animation for a more 'realistic' look rendered in CGI alongside human performers.
The Little Mermaid is in cinemas now.