The Little Mermaid might not be swimming to the kind of cinematic success that it looked like it was going to at first glance, but there’s still every chance that Disney will franchise the heck out of this sucker. This is, after all, the same studio that’s currently looking to turn The Lion King into its next Star Wars (*sigh*).
It’s too early to tell if there really are any concrete plans going on behind the scenes, but one sneaky Easter egg in the new movie offers a tuneful tease that The Little Mermaid 2 is a distinct possibility. Composer Lin-Manuel Miranda is no stranger to clever lyrics that go over our heads on first listen — the hidden meanings in Encanto‘s “We Don’t Talk About Bruno,” for example — and it looks like he’s done it again in the TLM remake.
In an especially sly move, Miranda hid the Easter egg away in the film’s worst song so we wouldn’t notice. Though you’d be forgiven for skipping it when listening to the soundtrack on Spotify, you might want to give Prince Eric’s big solo number “Wild Uncharted Waters” another go, despite it being whatever the opposite of an ear-worm is (an ear-spider? No, wait, forget that, that’s a terrifying image).
During his dreary melodramatic longing for Ariel, the second verse sees the royal mention how “All I do is wonder who you are and where you’ll be / In my mind, your melody goes on…” If they haven’t already nodded off by that point in the song, the eyebrows of hardcore Mermaid-verse fans everywhere should rise up at this line as it could be seen to be an allusion to Melody, Ariel and Eric’s daughter in 2000’s animated sequel The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea.
I’ve already made my personal case for why I think it would be a terrible idea to use this as the source material for a live-action sequel (despite there being the perfect villain casting available), but it’s just possible that Miranda had a secret agenda in his choice to include this melodious nod to the future in the film.
Published: Jun 5, 2023 11:59 am