Ngl, I would love to see a Lego video game adaptation of all the Disney Princess movies, although I have zero idea how the devs at Lego could make that work properly. If not that, then at least an adaptation of the Renaissance movies or even some of the Post-Renaissance/Experimental and Revival ones. A combo of the three eras, perhaps? The possibilities are endless!

“The Little Mermaid” (1989)

The history of Disney could honestly be split into pre-“Little Mermaid” and post-“Little Mermaid.” That’s how important an 83-minute kids’ movie was to the future of animated storytelling. The decades prior to its release had some hits, but none struck their audiences quite like this one. Almost instantaneously, Ariel vaulted into the pantheon of Disney princesses and the movie industry had its new modern model for how to warm the hearts of families everywhere (all while making bank at the box office, too).

I’ve been trying to think of what makes “Little Mermaid” so freaking good, and a large part of its success was its willingness to show its protagonists’ flaws. Unlike, say, Cinderella and Snow White, Ariel doesn’t arrive on our screens fully-formed as a flawless heroine. She’s the daughter of a king and thus ensconced in privilege, naive and a little careless of her actions. (Her pal, Flounder, is also put in danger on multiple occasions during her ocean travels.) King Triton and to a lesser extent, Sebastian, are not perfect, either. They see their lives as the only possible path for future generations, fear becoming more worldly, and are outwardly xenophobic to humans. Triton is also just a bad father, prone to angry outbursts that damage his relationship with Ariel, even before he destroys her collection.

It’s this capacity for growth that allows “Little Mermaid” to flourish. Ariel learns how her short-sightedness blew up in her face and threw the fate of the ocean into peril when Ursula leverages Ariel’s freedom to get Triton to sign his power away to her. Triton learns that his rage went too far and that he can’t close his daughter off to the world just because of his own biases. Sebastian gradually understands this too, resolving to help Ariel win over Eric since he realizes that an immediate return to the ocean would just make her miserable for the rest of her life. The only hero who doesn’t seem to have much to learn is Eric himself, but at least he’s a better-developed prince than any we’ve seen before in a Disney movie. Plus he has a good doggy! Max is the real hero, IMO.*

*Hey, if he wasn’t so insistent on finding Ariel wherever she happened to be, Eric wouldn’t have found her! Plus, he knew that Ursula in disguise was bad news. Bless him.

The music from Howard Ashman* and Alan Menken is outstanding. This is the greatest soundtrack since “Jungle Book,” and maybe even the best through 1989. “Under the Sea” gets the most attention and is still a banger. There are not many villain songs better than “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” and I wouldn’t begrudge anyone who said it was No. 1 for them. “Kiss the Girl” is a wonderful lovey-dovey ballad. Both “Les Poissons” and its sequence in the movie are hilarious. For me, “Part of Your World” takes the cake. It seems inconceivable that there was a debate about whether it should be cut from the movie. It represents its entire thesis! Bonus points for the people who fought to keep it in, and to the directors for later showing scenes on land where Ariel’s mentioned dreams from the lyrics become reality.

*Ashman would later contribute to “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin” before AIDS tragically took his life. This was his magnum opus, and what a work of genius it was.

One more thing: the animation also did an admirable job creating the aquatic world. Through painstaking effort, they brought Disney underwater and it looks incredible. I can’t imagine how much of an arduous process it was to get all the bubbles and oceanic settings to look just right, but they did it!

My only regret is that Ursula was defeated so swiftly. All it took was Eric steering a broken ship’s spar into her when she was enormous? I salute his athleticism, but she goes down like a punk and probably deserved something better. This is just me spitballing, but I like the idea of humans and the creatures of the ocean joining together to take her out. Maybe we see some merpeople guiding Eric’s ship? I don’t know. Although we get some of that with them disrupting the wedding, that’s small peas compared to what Ursula ultimately makes herself.

Anyway, that’s not a big problem. “Little Mermaid” is an inner-circle Disney classic and definitely enough to overtake “Cinderella” for the current No. 1 spot on my list. I respect it so much.

Best song: “Part of Your World”*

*Please listen to the recent Halsey cover because holy cats, does she nail Ariel’s character in 3 minutes.

Updated ranking

1. “The Little Mermaid” 2. “Cinderella” (review) 3. “Sleeping Beauty” (review) 4. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (review) 5. “One Hundred and One Dalmatians” (review) 6. “The Jungle Book” (review) 7. “The Great Mouse Detective” (review) 8. “Fantasia” (review) 9. “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh” (review) 10. “Alice in Wonderland” (review) 11. “Lady and the Tramp” (review) 12. “Pinocchio” (review) 13. “Robin Hood” (review) 14. “Oliver & Company” (review) 15. “The Rescuers” (review) 16. “The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad” (review) 17. “Bambi” (review) 18. “The Aristocats” (review) 19. “Dumbo” (review) 20. “Peter Pan” (review) 21. “Fun and Fancy Free” (review) 22. “The Fox and the Hound” (review) 23. “The Sword in the Stone” (review) 24. “The Three Caballeros” (review) 25. “Make Mine Music” (review) 26. “The Black Cauldron” (review) 27. “Saludos Amigos” (review) 28. “Melody Time” (review)