YMMV / Song of the Sea

• Accidental Aesop: While Macha the Owl Witch is painted as a villainous Wicked Witch who turns people into stone in fictional folklore, as Ben finds out, the real Macha is revealed to be a grief-stricken Well-Intentioned Extremist who only turns people into stone to take their troubles away and who only turned her son into stone to save the world from being flooded by his tears and ease his pain. While probably not intentional, it does give the message that perspective matters and that you shouldn't base your knowledge of someone on fictionalized and indirect accounts, especially since people are far more complex and nuanced in reality than they are in fiction and people will have no qualms twisting someone to suit their narrative.
• Award Snub: The film was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 87th Academy Awards in 2015, but lost to Big Hero 6. This instance of Disney/Pixar winning generated particular antipathy as it was the first year Oscar Ballots were made public. Several voter ballots revealed they never watched some of the nominated films (one referred to Song of the Sea and The Tale of the Princess Kaguya as "two obscure freakin' Chinese fuckin' things that nobody ever freakin' saw") or didn't take the category seriously.
• Awesome Art: Of course! The animation is often considered to be even better than The Secret of Kells, which is saying quite a lot. And if you thought that was great...
• Broken Base: The film's conclusion. Some love it and find it lovely and fitting, others dislike the idea of Saoirse losing out on an eternity in paradise to live with a family that spent most of the movie either neglecting or mistreating her.
• Even Better Sequel: Has a higher Rotten Tomatoes score than The Secret of Kells which was also generally well received (99% from critics and 92% from audiences, while The Secret of Kells has 90% from critics and 85% from audiences).
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Song of the Sea is very popular in Japan, likely due to Saoirse, being a cute rare Irish Selkie-themed Magical Girl.
• Growing the Beard: The director, Tomm Moore, has said that the production team focused more on the story than they did with The Secret of Kells. There's also a huge Animation Bump in particular in human movement.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: We learn from Song of the Sea that the Fair Folk don't like being called fairies. Now watch Aisling's expression in The Secret of Kells when Brendan calls her a fairy.
• Moe: Saoirse.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Aisling's cameo◊ is surprisingly off-putting as she stares directly at the camera along with the fact that Aisling can be pretty terrifying all things considered.
  • Macha near the end of the movie. Even though she turns out to be an extremely sympathetic Anti-Villain, the way she gets enraged at Ben for defying her before draining her emotions into one of the jars so she calms down is very bizarre and unsettling.
• Signature Scene: The scene where Ben and Saoirse travel through the Irish countryside.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: While Ben is meant to be unlikable at the start, some think his initial behavior to Saoirse makes him a bit too unlikable, to the point that they would rather have Saoirse go out to sea with her mother than to stay with him because of his initial behavior, even though he has become a lot kinder by that point.

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