"Up where they walk, up where they run, up where they stay all day in the sun."

[nausicaa83]

I finally got The Little Mermaid bluray! The Little Mermaid was the first movie I ever saw in a cinema, back when I was 6. I still remember that afternoon as it was yesterday. My father cried all through the ending, and when we bought the VHS he made us watch it thousands of times. We had the soundtrack on tape, the sticker album, the dolls. When he set a dolby surround system in our living room the seagulls were the first sound we ever heard on those beloved, enormous speakers. Hope this intro can give you a glimpse of what that movie means to me.



So this afternoon I grabbed a bowl of yogurt, sat on my favourite armchair, and proceeded to be completely blown away. Besides the obvious (the original aspect ratio, instead of the VHS one, the soundtrack loud and clear in every scene), I wasn't expecting all those details, the raindrops, the grains of sand, the paintings in the castle. There was a lot of crying, obviously, but also such a warm feeling, like meeting a part of me that I had long forgotten.

And now, on to That Scene. In case you haven't heard, this bluray version comes with an 'error'. At the end of Part of Your World, in the cave, two shots are inverted. Here's a video to show you the difference:

Now, I read about this a few days ago. At first, judging from everyone's anger and the scandalized reviews, I thought the entire scene was mirrored, or something crazy like that. Then I found the video. I saw the error, it was weird, but not as tragic as I thought. I thought I would just cringe for a moment, and then go on with the movie. There was one thing, though: ever since I was a kid, that shot of Flounder bothered me. I thought it ruined the scene, that was supposed to be all about Ariel. Yes, I noticed that kind of stuff when I was a kid. Details were everything to me - don't get me started on continuity errors or dubbing mistakes, I was a nitpicking nightmare.

Anyway! When I sat down and watched the scene, I held my breath the whole time. I knew it was coming, I was worried. And then the scene happened, and it was better than the original. There, I said it. I know, I'm a purist, I should be horrified too, but I can't lie here, the scene flows better this way. It just does. I have no idea why they decided to wait so long to change that detail, but it doesn't bother me at all, if anything I like it. It's crazy, I know.

Anyway, my advice is, BUY IT. Definitely buy it. The quality is amazing, just like it was back in 1989, it's like time-travelling to our childhood. And if that little change bothers you, it's so minor you won't actually notice it at all. You'll be too busy marvelling at all the details in Ariel's cave anyway. ;)

E per gli amici italiani, il doppiaggio è quello originale, del cinema e della prima versione vhs. Niente ridoppiaggi cretini con la voce della serie tv, grazie al cielo. *____*

Comments

[sunshine1112.livejournal.com]

I love the little mermaid. I saw it at the cinema, I think it came out 1989, which makes me 9. The first film I saw at the cinema is the jungle book. I have to but the DVD of the little mermaid. Now.

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

It was January 1990 here, so I was 6. And I remember everything from that day. Wow.

If you don't have a bluray player, here (http://torrentz.eu/93c475cc483d2b71d1bff2cf95f0a24edfba9f53)'s a link to a torrent for the 1080p version. Definitely worth it. *______*

[frozen_delight]

I know just how you feel - though my first cinema experience was The Lion King a couple of years later. Those Disney films from our childhood are just so good, aren't they? I think I need to buy that DVD, too. :)

Oh, and I simply love your Robin Hood icon! :)

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

It's weird watching them with adult eyes, like Ursula's song, for instance. Holy hell, it's really explicit and sexist, she truly is a villain. O_O

Like, when I was a kid I never realized the people in Aladdin were Muslims. I was convinced they were a fantasy people who sort of acted like Muslims but weren't actually... anything. After all, almost no one wears a veil, and they don't have prayer mats, or muezzins, or anything. Not to mention the Italian dubbing never mentioned Arabian nights, it was way more generic. So it was quite a shock re-watching it as a grown-up, and realizing it was quite offensive.

I think I have my parents to 'blame' for this. When I watched Bambi as a child, I thought the skunk was a girl, and that she fell in love with another girl skunk. After all she was called 'Flower' in the Italian dubbing! My parents told me I was right, and even bought me a skunk plushie that I called Fiore, and was a girl in love with a girl, and I never thought there was anything weird with it. Until I re-watched it a couple of years ago, and realized my parents spent my childhood bending over backwards trying to build a better world for me. ^^

[tati81.livejournal.com]

Mah ti dirò, è strano, averlo visto sempre in un modo e poi confrontarlo...però non è sto gran cambiamento... quello della scena invertita intendo.

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

Confrontandolo, come nel video, si nota tanto, e stride anche. Vederlo nel film invece lo fa sembrare tanto fluido. E' stranissimo!

[7veilsphaedra.livejournal.com]

The Little Mermaid marked a huge and welcome change for Disney, although it was part of the stream of changes that had been gradually evolving with Don Bluth's work and The Adventurers Down Under, which is to say, a lot more casual and connected to modern times, a lot less slavish about classic depictions of fairy tales. Later on, I found the adult subtext and modern-era sensibilities started outweighing the important point of providing innocent delight to children in some of the later movies, and of course, I never knew about Sea-Witch Ursula being a cypher for drag queens, since I had no idea she had been portrayed by Divine. But for one brief shining moment ....

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD I HAD NO IDEA!!! That's really offensive...

Watching it now that I'm a grown-up, I realized that the message isn't really progressive. Ariel has all these dreams of adventure, but as soon as she falls in love she doesn't care about anything else and just wants to get married. Not to mention she's quite shallow: she falls in love with Eric literally because he's pretty. At least Eric falls in love with her because he enjoys her company and had a nice time on their date.

Tangled, for example, is a much better movie in that regard: Rapunzel has a dream, she achieves it, and only after that she falls in love. It's her story, and the love story is only an appendage. Much better message for little girls.

And Mulan? It's such a great message for little girls, until the end, when, as her grandma says, "she goes to war and she brings a man home". It's supposed to be a joke, but it's exactly what she does. Would it have killed them to make her tell the Emperor "I'd love to take the job at the Council, I just have to go home, tell my parents I'm alive, and then I'll be back here ready for my new job!".

Let's face it, the best modern animated movies are those by Studio Ghibli, end of story. Then Pixar, although they almost always tell stories only about male characters, and then everyone else.

[7veilsphaedra.livejournal.com]

It's hard because you love what you love and there is no rational reason for something like that. Ariel's glee and irrepressible high spirits and gumption are so infectious (terrible word, but apt), the movie will always be one of my favourites, but Disney sure makes things hard for their audience. I want my children's movies to be wholesome, earnest and squeaky clean on the inside, which is why I love Miyazaki, whereas with Disney, if it isn't the whole manic pixie dream princess thing, it's something else appallingly sexist or racist and ... headdesk over and over. Why do they get these things so wrong? And not just wrong, but damn! wtf! wrong. It shouldn't be that hard, but somehow, they keep striking out.

Why, Disney? Why must you fail so completely?

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

Speaking of which, a couple of weeks ago I re-watched Mary Poppins for the first time in years, and I had these crazy flashbacks of watching it with my dad. He was crazy about that movie, loved it to pieces, but every single time Mrs Banks ends her song about suffragettes by telling the maid to hide her ribbons because her husband doesn't like her cause, my dad would always hit pause, turn to me and tell me "that's wrong, her husband should always support her, and women's rights are very important".

Obviously when I was a kid I had no idea why it was so important to him, I would just nod and wait for the songs and the cartoon fox and the dancers on the rooftops. But now that I'm an adult, I can see why that scene (and the whole relationship between Mr and Mrs Banks) would bother my dad so much.

As the movie progresses I think it becomes clear that Mrs Banks is just humoring her husband, who's a weak person who needs to know he's in power, while he actually isn't. And by the end of the movie he grows up, and I think a good representation of that is the kite: the parts made by the kids, the newspaper that represents the dad, and the Votes for Women ribbon, for the mom. And the husband doesn't comment on the ribbon at all. So yep, there is a good message at the end, but holey moley I can see how difficult Disney made it for our parents. O_O

[stardust-made.livejournal.com]

Oh God, that looks so amazing on your (awesome) TV! I cannot WAIT to finally have my flat's expenses sorted out one day, so I can start saving for glorious things such as this. For me, it's a bit of a reverse experience to yours, but only in one sense: I was the 'grown up' in the equation, watching all of these with my little sister who is a year younger than you. Much like for you, it's an intensely rich emotional memory of both the films and the shared experience.:)

I now want to buy ALL of them on Bluray - having the player and my own awesome TV, I think it'll be like a major journey of re-discovery and re-connection to the past. 'Ariel' and 'Aladdin' are the two films I remember we watched the most and there were books, dolls and stickers involved.:)

[nausicaa83.livejournal.com]

There's a bluray version here (http://torrentz.eu/93c475cc483d2b71d1bff2cf95f0a24edfba9f53), just in case. ;)

Don't get me started on Aladdin, when we were kids my sister and I saw that movie a billion times! I can't even imagine what it would be like on bluray. *______* I usually wait for the italian versions to come out (Disney movies are the one exception where I must watch them with the Italian dubbing), but I think the german version has the italian track too... *eyes amazon.de hopefully*

I try to be a grown-up and watch them with an adult critical eye, but five minutes in I'm always singing along out loud, sniffing and cheering and dancing around the room, it's great. :D

[stardust-made.livejournal.com]

I think there's enough time spent looking at the world with a critical adult eye as it is; the child's eye deserves some time, too, so good for you!:)