Review: The Little Mermaid Home Video Release
Disney’s Live Action The Little Mermaid film has arrived on home video digital formats and various disc formats. Rob Marshall and his team have reimagined the classic Disney animated film into a new format with live actors and animated characters. The story follows the animated film story including the well known songs. Alan Menken teams up with Lin-Manuel Miranda for the music in this version.
This initial home video release includes about an hour of bonus features, a sing-along version of the film and a direct jump to each song in the film. For a synopsis and full specifications here are the release details.
A quick summary of the bonus features:
- Hotter Under the Water is a five part featurette clocking in at about 26 minutes. This fairly traditional bonus feature exploring the making of the film including the music, characters, cast and story. I appreciated being able to play all with one click and thought it covered a good assortment of topics. As with most bonus features I always want more.
- Song Breakdowns – Featurettes about four of the songs in the film and some of the challenges encountered to translate them for the live action version.
- Wild Uncharted Waters (4:17) – Prince Eric song added for this version of the film. This is his “I want” song.
- Under the Sea (5:18) – Looking at the reference footage for the classic show stopping number and how the animated film was adapted for this live action version.
- Kiss the Girl (6:02) – A look behind the scenes at the process and set that was used for this number. I thought it was interesting see what physical elements were built and what was left for post production.
- Poor Unfortunate Souls (6:41) – How Melissa brought this version of Ursula to life and how this song was performed in the film.
- Featurettes – A trio of traditional featurettes looking at different aspects of the film and blooper reel.
- The Scuttlebutt on Sidekicks (6:49) – An introduction to Scuttle, Sabastian and Flounder
- Passing the Dinglehopper (3:55) – Featurette about Jodi Benson’s cameo in the film.
- Bloopers (2:00) – A standard montage of bloopers from production
This home video release of The Little Mermaid includes a fair assortment of bonus material and options. I found it interesting how they translated the film for live action and staged the various scenes. If you are a fan of bonus features this is a title worth considering adding to your library. If you want to learn more about how this film was made and gain some insight from the creative team and cast the included features deliver.
The Little Mermaid was released on Disney+ on September 6th. The Disney+ version includes the film and four bonus features at this time. The trailer, an Outtake, Passing the Dinglehopper and the “Under the Sea” song breakdown.
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** A review copy of this book was provided to us
