Sebastian the Lobster
I watched The Little Mermaid (2023) with my friends yesterday against my will. There are a lot of things I hate about this remake, but the crabification of Sebastian the lobster is just criminal. Also, I kept wondering how this version compares to the original, if the 2023 version did the 1989 version justice. But that’s the thing. The original wasn’t misunderstood or underrated in the slightest to have been “done justice”.
Animation is what made the 1989 version of The Little Mermaid (literally and figuratively). In “Under the Sea”, the animation of sea creatures as instruments and performers made the sequence so fantastical. Its whole purpose was to make you want to live under the sea, and judging by the fact that Sebastian convinces me to become a mermaid every time I watch it, the film definitely succeeded. But all of this, the vibrance, the magic, and the wonder of the sea, were all lost in the remake. After seeing that yesterday, I’d kinda rather stay human.
Sebastian was so memorable in the 1989 film, the expressions, the voice, it was just a great performance by a 2D drawing. Now, imagine a boiled looking monotonous crab saying “Teenagers. They think they know everything.” I said imagine because he doesn’t even say this line in the 2023 version! They even skipped “Les Poissons”, which was the best part of the original and its erasure is one of the worst parts of the remake. The movie was over two hours long, I’m pretty sure there was time for a two minute song. Also, what did Flounder do to the CGI artists to look like that? Flounder was so adorable in the original and I know fish don’t look like that in real life, but now he looks like he’s about to get pinned onto a bait and tackle shop sign.
Nothing disappointed me more than Ariel’s costumes. Where’s Ariel’s pink gown she wears to dinner, the blue sightseeing dress from her outing with Eric, and my personal favorite, the sparkling purple dress when she walks out of the water? All these dresses in my opinion are integral to the story, to the main character, but they weren’t treated as such in this version. Colleen Atwood, the costume designer, did a decent job with Ariel’s tail but clearly didn’t so much regard her human outfits with the same respect. The blue dress with the pink headband was so clearly mismatched that I was distracted by it the entire time Halle Bailey was wearing it. If they weren’t going to remake the original outfits, they could’ve at least tried to match the new outfits with the Caribbean setting, maybe incorporating elements of traditional Caribbean clothing. It’s so evident that there was little to no thought behind everything in this movie. The only plus point in the costume aspect of this film is that it doesn’t have its own version of Emma Watson’s mellow yellow, non-gold, anti-corset, shapeless, droopy dress in Beauty and the Beast (2017).
Every critique of these live-action remakes are meant to direct the next one to be better and remain true to the original film, but I truly think the best critique is to not make these pointless, soulless remakes. Otherwise you face so many issues like trying to achieve CGI to be as fantastical as hand-drawn cartoons, casting the right actors (and voice actors. If a film also needs voice actors for a live-action remake, it is clearly unnecessary!) who capture the essence of the characters, and just overall invoking the fondness people had for the original movie to the new one. Any live-action remake Disney releases can never do justice to the original film because the originals are beloved on their own. It's just frustrating to see movies I loved since I was a kid be carelessly reinterpreted just to make more money. To the executives in charge of green-lighting all these remakes: adding a few more millions to your existing millions won’t make much of a difference.
