When Disney prequels retcon the existing story line so bad it no longer makes sense:
My favorite Disney movie of all time is the Little Mermaid. Find me a little girl born in the 80's who doesn't know all the lyrics to "Part of your world" and I will show you a seriously deprived person, or someone who's parents maybe didn't believe in TV or happiness. Needless to say I have seen The Little Mermaid more times than any person should reasonably watch a movie, and at 27 I still know all the words and sing along very loudly when Ariel laments about the horrors of living under the sea. Recently, actually not so recently more like 2008. I had to Wikipedia that. Anyways, Disney came out with a prequel to The Little Mermaid called Ariel's Beginning. Now I've only seen the prequel a few times despite it existing in my house, it just doesn't have the same magic the original had. Either way I know the story line and its basically about how Ariel's beautiful voice brings the magic of singing back to the underwater kingdom of Atlantis.
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| Side note: I'm not actually totally certain that Triton's kingdom is called Atlantis, but in my head it always has been so I'm gonna keep calling it that. |
However, somewhere around the beginning of the movie we the audience learn that the reason there is no singing or music allowed in Atlantis is because Ariel's mother had a beautiful voice and King Triton can't bear to be reminded of his late wife. Why you ask? Well in the movie the mermaid sisters and their royal parents are all hanging out in a lagoon on the surface (fans of the original will gasp now, as Triton is vehemently opposed to all things "surface" in the original movie) when suddenly a pirate ship comes upon them and starts flinging harpoons. All the children and the king escape but their mother doesn't make it. Its not shown on screen but I'm going to go ahead and assume she was harpooned.
Taking this new information into account the entire premise of the original makes no sense. Why on earth would Ariel ever risk going to the surface? This is obviously something she does often since she is best buddies with a seagull, did she forget her mothers horrific death? With no (sane) reason to ever go to the surface Ariel would never have become to enamored of humans and the whole idea of her falling in love with one is laughable since, wait for it, they harpooned her mom!
So now not only does the entire movies premise no longer make sense but we have this totally confusing exchange between Ariel and her father when he discovers that she's been splashing around above water.
Triton: "Contact between the human world and the mer world is strictly forbidden, Ariel you know that! Everyone knows that!"
Ariel: "You don't even know him!"
Triton: "Know him? I don't have to know him! They're all the same, spineless, savage, harpooning fish eaters, incapable of any feeling-"
Given what we now know thanks to the magic of retconning that first line should read something more along that lines of "Contact between the human world and the mer world is strictly forbidden,because they harpooned your mother! Ariel you know that! Everyone knows that!" And boom! Argument over. Sure it may seem a little heartless for him to bring something like that up, but given that he then goes on to destroy all her stuff and is pretty clear about the fact that he is desperate to convince her to stay away from the surface, it would've been much easier to just remind her of that part of her history that Disney has seen fit to give us.
In conclusion, Disney is shooting itself in the foot with all the prequels, children may not care being so excited to see their favourite characters in new movies and such. But us life long fans? We're dying over here Disney, there is only so much nonsense a person can handle. So from the bottom of my heart Disney, please no more prequels!
PS. Did you notice that I discovered the font controls in this post? Behold the magic of italics and bold type :)
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