Scarlet Leigh said: "No contest. The Little Mermaid. I put it leaps and bounds over Tarzan and Frozen because Tarzan had the potential to be good from the songs and the book. It was poorly designed in how minimal they tried to make it BUT it has some redemption in afew really interesting technical elements were big wow moments in an overall middle of the road but ugly show. And Frozen just is too safe and does nothing to elevate the original material. It's as textbook as they come.
MERMAID on the other hand was bad on more than one level. It wasn't just poorly designed, it was the poster child for how to OVER design a musical even by Disney standards. The book was a disaster with changes to the story that not only are insulting to the original movieand it's fans but left the show anti-climatic and the theatre goer mind boggled over how dumb it was. "You know what this show needs MORE then an intense race against time and a battle that feels like it has actual stakes? Three words. Princess. Singing. Contest." Add on topa few very "off" casting choices and you have just a giant MESS with little to no redeemable qualities."
This. Like, ALL of this!!! The Little Mermaid is incredibly pedestrian and banal in its presentation; new songs that aren't super memorable (Scuttle having TWO new songs was a crime), and to top it all off, a horribly miscast Sherie Rene Scott as Ursula was just the cherry on top. Also, who the heck thought that hiring Francesca Zambello, a notable director of OPERA, was a good idea?
No wonder the shoes were the freaking best part of that show, because the rest of the set and costumes were just downright ugly!
And don't get me started on that stupid "singing princess contest" nonsense; just awful!
(I'm sure most that most of you have gathered that I really don't like The Little Mermaid. I don't even think I ever liked the original movie; give me a good adaptation of the original Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale and THEN I'll be happy!)
Updated On: 6/18/18 at 03:28 AM