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"I sold my soul for a vagina and a man I don't even know!"
—The Nostalgia Chick
Entry #28 in the Disney Animated Canon, from 1989.
This movie is widely considered to be the start of the animated feature film renaissance of the 1990s, particularly for Disney. A loose adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's Tear Jerker fairy tale, the title character is Ariel, one of the daughters of the Sea King, Triton. Apparently unique among her kind, she is fascinated by the human world, although Triton has a hatred for humans that makes pursuing her interest quite difficult. One night, a forbidden visit to the surface leads her to fall in Love At First Sight with human Prince Eric, and she ends up rescuing him when his ship is destroyed in a storm. Now desperate to become a human, she agrees to barter her voice to the sea witch Ursula to become a human for three days; if she can receive True Loves Kiss from him within that time, she'll be permanently human. Otherwise, she will be Ursula's slave. Indeed, Ursula is actually manipulating her to turn her into ransom for Triton's crown, and she knows that the only thing Eric remembers about Ariel is her beautiful, beautiful voice...
The surprise hit of the 1989 holiday season, it won Best Song and Score Oscars. It spawned a CBS Saturday morning prequel series in 1992, a direct-to-video sequel in 2000 ( Return to the Sea), and a DTV prequel in 2008 ( Ariel's Beginning). The characters also figure in the Kingdom Hearts video game series, and other tie-in merchandise and media appearances are going strong with Ariel as an official Disney Princess. A stage musical adaptation was launched in 2007.
The film shows examples of the following tropes:
- Accidental Public Confession - "Humans? Who said anything about humans?"
- Almost Kiss - Twice.
- Badly Battered Babysitter: Sebastian's part in the movie is a fleshed out version of this plot. The fact that his charge is sixteen does not make things any easier.
- Bare Your Midriff - By default.
- Berserk Button - Ursula grows to giant size after she accidentally kills her Mooks Flotsam and Jetsam.
- Be Yourself
- Big Friendly Dog - Prince Eric's dog Max.
- Big Lipped Alligator Moment - Chef Louis and his musical number, "Les Poissons".
- Bittersweet Ending - The original, printed-page Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale has a big fat Downer Ending. Disney version, not so much... unless you're King Triton, of course.
- Brainwashed - "Vanessa" does this to Eric for... some reason, despite already having Ariel's voice.
- It's kind of implied he's falling for Ariel's looks and (silent) personality as well, so Ness is just being careful.
- The answer is technically in the song she is singing in front of the mirror. She is effectively stealing Eric from Ariel thereby punishing Ariel even more and she is also punishing indirectly (and more importantly) Ariel's father, King Triton.
- This troper agrees and thinks she is just using Eric to get at both Ariel and Triton although if her plan had succeeded who knows what she would have done with Eric.
- Broken Aesop - I believe it was Hal Sparks in the "I Love the 80's" VH 1 special who put it best:
"And the lovely little moral of this story is: Girls, give up your voice so you can have legs that you can spread for your man. ...What!?"
- Not to mention Ariel essentially disobeys her father's every command, runs away from home, and makes a Deal with the Devil, all to snag herself a husband. And they marketed this movie towards young girls! (Seriously, though, This Troper loves the hell out of this movie and admires Ariel's moxie.)
- Buffy Speak - Ariel is foreign enough to human life to call her collections "thingamabobs", "whatsits", "whosits", and "gizmos".
- Scuttle uses more original words for the same reasons, such as his name for a fork: "dinglehopper".
- Don't forget "snarfblatt" (a tobacco pipe).
- Car Fu - Ship Fu in this situation, utilized on Ursula.
- Carnivore Confusion
- Compelling Voice - How Ursula brainwashes Eric. Special mention must be made to the fact that it isn't even her voice that brainwashes him but his love interest's, Ariel. Although since Ursula is now using said voice it's justified how she can brainwash him.
- Crowning Music Of Awesome - Especially some of the new pieces from The Musical, to the extent that it makes this bank geek troper squeal whenever she hear the overture.
- Crystal Ball - Ursula has a bubble that serves as this.
- Daddys Girl] - Inverted; while Ariel does love her father, the two of them rarely see eye to eye.
- She does appear to be his favorite though.
- Dead Unicorn Trope
- Deal With The Devil - Ariel trades her voice to Ursula for legs. Ursula actually specializes in this kind of deal, and has a "garden" full of merfolk who were turned into polyps when they weren't able to fulfill the terms of their contracts.
- Depth Deception
- Development Hell - Walt Disney himself commissioned an early storyboard that hedged much closer to the Anderson original, which the crew of the final version eventually discovered. You can see these sketches on the recent DVD.
- Disneyfication - Obviously.
- Disney Animated Canon - But of course.
- Disney Princess
- Disney Villain Death - Averted, possibly because it would be tough to have someone fall off a cliff to their doom underwater. Instead, Ursula gets Impaled With Extreme Prejudice.
- Ensemble Darkhorse - Sebastian was so popular that voice actor Samuel E. Wright recorded two albums as the character. There was even a tie-in Disney Channel special.
- Estrogen Brigade Bait - Whilst not as popular as Philip from Sleeping Beauty, Eric nevertheless has his fair share of fangirls.
- Even The Dog Is Ashamed
- Everything's Better With Princesses
- Everything's Better With Sparkles - When Triton returns Ariel to human form, she emerges from the sea before Eric in a sparkling silver dress.
- Evil Detecting Dog - Max again.
- Evil Overlooker
- Fairy Tale
- Falling In Love Montage - Ariel and Eric touring the kingdom.
- Feather Fingers - Notable in that the fish characters avert the "fish can walk on their tailfins" subtrope completely — Until the "Under the Sea" number, where it looks awkward. Scuttle doesn't exactly avoid the Trope Namer either.
- Fee Fi Faux Pas
- Fetish Fuel - The seashell bikini, how she enjoys her new feet when totally human, the fact that when totally human that seashell bikini top is all she's wearing...
- Fiery Redhead - Ariel.
- Fish Out Of Water - Ariel's a near literal example — she even jokingly calls herself this in Return to the Sea.
- Foot Focus - Ariel's aforementioned feet.
- Fourth Date Marriage - And never to be with her father or sisters again, either.
- To be fair it seems that for her dad, changing merfolk into humans and back is pretty easy, and Ariel still lives on the coast.
- Freud Was Right - The original VHS cover...oh, the grief that one (just one) of the coral spires on Triton's castle caused...
- Fridge Logic - The Prequel. Both of Ariel's parents are/were redheads. Ariel is the only one of her siblings with red hair. Red hair is a recessive gene, meaning you need to inherit the gene from both parents. Meaning, red hair is the only hair color the child of two redheads can have. Either merpeople's genes for hair color work completely differently from humans', or Ariel's mother has been less than faithful...
- And on that subject, just how exactly do Merpeople reproduce?
- In the stage musical, the daughters are also different races.
- It would explain why Ariel is Triton's favorite...
- Genre Turning Point - Started the animation renaissance.
- Giant Poofy Sleeves - Ariel's wedding dress.
- Girls Need Role Models - Ariel was created as a Rebellious Princess in part because of this, especially compared to her predecessors in the canon. Then all her male supporting characters protect her and save the day, creating something of a Broken Aesop. Return to the Sea overcompensated for this — Ariel and Melody got all the action scenes while the previously heroic and capable men were pretty much helpless.
- Glamour Failure - Scuttle discovers Vanessa is actually Ursula when he sees the reflection she casts in a mirror.
- Grass Is Greener
- Hans Christian Andersen - The much disturbed author of the original story.
- Impaled With Extreme Prejudice - Again, Ursula's death.
- Innocent Flower Girl
- I Want Song - "Part Of Your World".
- Jonas Quinn - Morgana, Ursula's sister, is the Big Bad in the sequel. She's thin rather than fat like Ursula, but the personality is the same. They also share a voice actress.
- Kick The Dog - In human form, Ursula does this literally.
- Large Ham - Ursula has a few of these moments. "YOU POOR, UNFORTUNATE SOOOOOOUUULLLLLLLL!!!!!"
- Love At First Sight
- Love Hurts - Much less than in the original version.
- Loves Me Not - With... an underwater flower. (Technically there are underwater flowering plants [the seagrass], but they don't produce such noticeable flowers.)
- Make My Monster Grow - Ursula in the climax.
- Misplaced Wildlife - Flamingos and fireflies during the "Kiss The Girl" sequence.
- Missing Mom - The DTV prequel explains why.
- The Musical - In fact, one of this troper's Disney favorites. It gives Ursula another awesome Villain Song as well as more background, making her and Tritan both siblings and children of Poseidon.
- Musicalis Interruptus - Some of the best around.
- Nightmare Fuel - Courtesy of Ursula, not once, not twice, but probably about five different times in the movie.
- The scene where Triton destroys Ariel's possessions.
- Non Human Sidekick - Flounder, Sebastian, Scuttle, and Max for the goodies, Flotsam and Jetsam for the baddie.
- Our Mermaids Are Different - Ariel definitely popularized mermaid characters for an entire generation.
- Parental Abandonment - Ariel has no mother, and her father is so misguided in his attempts to protect her that she feels emotionally abandoned.
- Parental Favoritism - Despite their personality conflicts, Ariel is Daddy's favorite. According to the DVD Commentary, the directors and producers were a little uncomfortable with the idea, but rationalized it out as Ariel being the most like her father in temperament.
- Peek A Boo - Two words: Nude. Ariel.
- Pimped Out Dress - The dinner dress Ariel is given, her wedding dress, and a few more dresses in the sequel.
- Power Hair - Ursula. Poor Unfortunate Implications.
- Princesses Prefer Pink - Ariel's dinner dress and nightgown are both pink, despite complaints that the color clashes with her red hair.
- Rebellious Princess - Ariel fits this to a T.
- Recycled The Series
- Red Headed Hero
- Rescue Romance - It goes both ways too.
- Romance Genre Heroines
- Rule Of Three - "Before the sun sets on the third day..."
- Sealed With A Kiss
- Seashell Bra - And how!
- Sequelitis
- Shallow Love Interest - Prince Eric, although this one is debatable. One of the early scenes shows that he prefers the life of a common sailor to a prince, hates a statue of him as a idealized ruler, has refused to marry because he wasn't in love with the princess, when his ship is sinking and on fire he saves not only his snarky attendant, but goes back into the burning ship for his dog, and then searches the shores obsessively for the girl who saved him, oh yeah, and he does sail a rather large ship, by himself, in a violent storm, to impale a giant monstrosity to save the woman he loves. Give him a little credit.
- Shout Out - One of Ariel's sisters is named Alana, after composer Alan Menken.
- Squick - The fact that Ariel is identical to her mother in everything but eye color has not escaped some fans. Might explain why she's Triton's favorite.
- Tentacle Rope - In the sequel.
- Theme Naming - The Daughters of Triton: Ariel, Aquata, Andrina, Arista, Atina, Adella, and Alana. Their mother is named Athena (hopefully she isn't Triton's aunt like in mythology).
- Aunt? No. The Triton and Athena in mythology are cousins.
- All of the sisters' names starting with the same letter is lampshaded in Ariel's Beginning.
- To Become Human - Ariel's I Want Song is a passionate declaration of this desire. The desire becomes uncontrollable after her encounter with Eric, who could be said to represent the human world she's always longed for. Even after she becomes human, she is just as, if not more focused on exploring as she is on kissing Eric and saving her own life.
- True Loves Kiss - This appears in many Disney movies, but this particular kiss is the Trope Namer.
- Two Person Love Triangle
- Under The Sea - Although it's about video games, this is the Trope Namer.
- Unscaled Merfolk - Ursula and her sister.
- Villainous Glutton - Ursula.
- Villain Song - "Poor Unfortunate Souls".
- Watching The Sunset
- Water Is Air - The animators worked their butts off to make the underwater physics at least more believable than usual, so we'll chalk up Ariel gasping and crying as a Translation Convention.
- Wedding Smashers - Scuttle rounds up every critter in the area to crash the Vanessa/Eric nuptials, buying Ariel time to get to the wedding barge.
- Wicked Witch
- Youngest Child Wins
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