The Little Mermaid is a 1992 adaptation of The Little Mermaid created by Golden Films and GoodTimes Entertainment.
Princess Lena desires to live in the "above world" and marry a prince more than anything. Shortly after celebrating her birthday, Lena spots the handsome Prince Stephan also celebrating onboard his ship and knows he is the one. Lena saves Stephan after his ship gets wrecked in a storm, and upon briefly catching a glimpse of Lena, the Prince falls in love with Lena too. But will Stephan's Arranged Marriage get in the way of his newfound love? And will Lena, who gains legs thanks to the help of a sea witch named Cassandra, be able to convince Stephan that she is the same girl from the sea who saved him before she gets turned into sea foam?
Tropes applying in this version of The Little Mermaid are:
- Animal Companion: Vink is Lena's "Official Royal Pet" and he'll never take up a chance to let you forget it.
- Arranged Marriage: Stephan's engagement to Princess Anna.
- Artistic License – Ships: The ship's captain orders the sails unfurled when a storm hits. But doing so in real life would only make the ship more likely to go to Davy Jones' Locker.
- Big "NO!": When Lena drinks Cassandra's potion to trade her voice for legs.
- Cool Big Sis: Tris.
- Cosmic Deadline: Due to the film's short runtime, the movie ends up rushing through to an extremely anticlimactic ending, while leaving a number of other plot points hanging.
- Determinator: Lena will stop at nothing to marry a human prince one day. Why she is so motivated to do this, the audience never finds out.
- Dumb Blonde: Lena can come off as this due to her slow reactions to things, not unlike another blonde Golden Films fairytale protagonist.
- Large Ham: Cassandra.
- Marry for Love: Stephan wishes to do this.
- Missing Mom: Lena's mother is never seen nor mentioned.
- Mythology Gag: One of the lyrics in the opening song is "I'll be much more than foam on the sea"; a nod to the original fairytale, where the mermaid dissolved into seafoam at the end.
- Pair the Spares: Stephan's original fiancée Anna quickly decides to call off the marriage after becoming attracted to another prince on board, conveniently freeing up Stephan to pursue Lena.
- Plucky Girl: Lena.
- Rebel Prince: Stephan refuses to follow through with his arranged marriage to Anna.
- Rebellious Princess: Lena continues to visit the surface world, though her father is against it.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: The opening titles misspell Hans Christian Andersen's name as "Anderson".
- Royal Blood: Stephan's parents explicitly state they hope Stephan will marry a girl with this.
- Spared by the Adaptation: In the original HCA story, the mermaid dies when she is turned into seafoam at the end. Here, the mermaid survives and lives happily ever after.
- Unscaled Merfolk: Cassandra from The Little Mermaid has an eel tail, something not particularly common when it comes to depictions of merpeople.
- Water Is Air: Cassandra somehow brews a potion and pours it into a glass for Lena under the sea.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- Cassandra gives Lena legs and then... is never seen or heard from again.
- Lena gives her voice to Cassandra in exchange for legs, but is never seen trying to get it back.
