C’mon, the live-action Little Mermaid’s CG animals look fine

Here’s a controversial opinion about Disney’s new live-action remake of The Little Mermaid: In spite of all the complaining, the CG animals don’t actually look that bad.

Make no mistake, I don’t think they look GoodIt is a great movie, but it’s even better when you compare it to the original. This is not the case! But they don’t look as off-putting in the actual movie as they did in some of the trailers. The majority of clips used for promotion were aimed at recreating animated scenes as accurately as possible. This meant inserting real-looking creatures like Sebastian the crab and fish into situations where the characters are mainly reacting to humans (and the mermaid). And realistically rendered animals just won’t have the same evocative expressions as their cartoon counterparts.

Watching a regular, realistic crab respond to a yearning song isn’t all that visually interesting. But watching a realistic crab skitter around trying to keep up with walking humans, while frantically waving his little claws in order to get Ariel’s attention — that’s actually hilarious on screen. The 2023 Little Mermaid feels like it’s CloseIt’s funny when a human actually talks to a fish or crab and then expects a response. It works well when Rob Marshall, the director of the film and his animation team embrace their absurdity.

Image: Disney

These interactions are what make the movie work. Some of the bigger set-pieces, like the performance of “Under the Sea,” don’t land as well as the more comic moments, because the focus is on a bunch of animals dancing around without any expressions to indicate that they’re enjoying it, so their behavior comes off as stilted and forced. The big musical number in this version looks more like an anatomy lesson from high school. Turns out, when sea creatures don’t have expressive faces, they kinda look like organelles.

That’s the reason the live-actionLion KingLooked so bad. It was just CG, without anything to compare it with. It felt as if you were watching a nature document with Donald Glover narrating. Combining those animals with people is comedic gold.

It isn’t clear whether those scenes in The Little Mermaid are intentionally hilarious or if it’s just a side effect of the photoreal animals. The realism in the film is often played to make people laugh, so it’s easy to believe that the first option. Javier Bardem’s Triton leaning down to have a serious heart-to-heart with a crab is wonderful. So is the scene where Flounder gasps for air and flops on the deck of a ship while trying to tell Ariel something, until Sebastian, who doesn’t have time to watch over You can find out more about this by clicking here.The wayward child is pushed off the boat into the water. Scuttle is not without her own moments. She makes loud and obnoxious noises like a seagull and flapping and generally getting in people’s way as do seagulls.

All of it works out in a strange and illogical way. The live-action version doesn’t feature the gYou can also find out more aboutgeous drawings of the 1989 original. And the animals aren’t expressive in the way modern audiences might expect from an animated film — or even from live-action movies like Sonic the Hedgehog or Alvin and the ChipmunksThe animal companions in this film are cartoonish and can express large, emotional expressions. The filmmakers of the new film chose to create a look that was more cartoony, and therefore expressive. Little MermaidThey have developed their own style of talking animals companions. Like with so many things, their approach isn’t actually as disastrous as vocal internet backlash might make it seem.

The Little Mermaid It’s out!