With all the ingredients of classic Disney animation and a return to the tradition of making fairy tales come true, The Little Mermaid has been praised by critics as a masterpiece.
Fairy tales have been a favorite source of inspiration for Disney animators dating back to the studio's earliest days. Walt Disney had remembered the story of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" from his childhood and felt it had all the classic elements of good versus evil that he was looking for in his first feature project. "Cinderella" was said to be a personal favorite of Disney's because the rags to riches tale was reminiscent of his own humble origins. The universal theme in "Sleeping Beauty" that true love conquers all also lent itself to the Disney philosophy.
"When people think of Disney, they think of classical fairy tales," observed Peter Schneider, senior vice president of feature animation. "That is the heritage of this company. The Little Mermaid was a perfect project for us in that it met our two primary goals of having a great story and great characters. Being a classic fairy tale, it also had the strong value system and view of the world that has always made Disney animation special. In a sense, the moral here is that children have to grow up and be who they are. The problems of parents trying to hang on too long is a very contemporary one."
What makes fairy tales so suitable for animation? According to director John Musker, "Fairy tales are usually set in a fantastic landscape, and animation, by the very nature of the medium, can create its own world from scratch. For example, The Little Mermaid, as we've approached it couldn't have been done in live action.
"In terms of the stories themselves," continued Musker, "great fairy tales can speak directly to children and teach them things about life they can use later on. They also tend to have a timeless and universal quality that appeals to practically everyone in some way or another. With ‘Mermaid,' we're hoping that kids and parents will identify with the relationship between a father and daughter and that the story will stay with them long after the film is over."
Co-director Ron Clements believes that another great aspect of fairy tales is their ability to instill hope. "They tend to be uplifting and offer some hope of success no matter how impossible the dream," he observed. "Many great fairy tales also deal with coming of age, like the transitional period from childhood to adulthood. In The Little Mermaid, Ariel goes from being a teenage girl to a young woman, overcoming problems with her father and traumas along the way."
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