Even more so than Ariel visiting Ursula the Sea-Witch’s cave, Disney swims into dangerous waters whenever it dishes out a live-action remake of one of its animated classics as the new movie will invariably be compared to the original — and torn apart any time it falls short of measuring up to the animation. In the case of The Little Mermaid, though, the filmmakers were very keen to switch things up from the 1989 version.
So says star Jacob Tremblay, anyhow, who voices the remake’s disturbingly photo-realistic Flounder. As the Wonder actor told People, director Rob Marshall and his crew took a look at the source material and immediately set about inserting fresh elements, altering others, and even wholesale removing some parts. As he put it:
“They are changing a few things, adding more details. What’s really cool about doing a live-action, the creators are able to just see the original and then kind of question, ‘Okay, what can we improve here? What can we do different? Is there anything we should take out? Anything we should add?'”
Tremblay went on to cite the example of the lyrics for beloved song “Kiss the Girl” being switched up for the remake, in order to remove any perceived issues of non-consent, as a reason why Disney’s reimaginings shouldn’t simply slavishly translate the original into live-action.
“I think that’s just how it should be now. I think we obviously moving forward as a new generation have to make sure things are more sensitive. So that’s always cool to be a part of that change.”
Speaking of changes to the soundtrack, while “Kiss the Girl” remains in the film, albeit with slightly different lyrics, we recently learned that another song has been completely removed — a prime example of Tremblay’s warning that certain things fans expect to see will be missing from the remake. We’ll find out exactly what made it in and what didn’t when The Little Mermaid floods into cinemas on May 26.
