John C. Wright's Journal

For the record, here is a summary of the Hans Christian Andersen story. It differs from the Disney version in all but surface features, and has very nearly the opposite theme.

I would ask those wishing to discuss this version the tale to leave their remarks here. The Disney Story is a separate story, to be judged on its own terms.

Note that the only way for the Little Mermaid to break the painful spell keeping her painfully on land is to stab the prince, which she refuses to do. That is the central act of divine love which leads to her being granted an immortal soul.

Andersen objected, for artistic if not theological reasons, to the traditional idea that a mermaid could gain a soul if she married a Christian man, on the grounds that this makes immortality depend on the will of a human, of another being, not on heaven’s grace toward her to reword her saintly self sacrifice.

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We are reviewing the Disney animated features in chronological order.

After a long, weary period of films from the Dry Spell, when the Disney Corporation lost their creative genius, two films GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE and OLIVER AND COMPANY showed a trifle of creative effort, but nothing able to reach the iconic and immortal status of Disney’s original golden age.

Finally, like a bomb burst or flash of lightning, came several films in a row equaling or exceeding the classics of the golden age.

THE LITTLE MERMAID (1989) is the first of this period, aptly called the Disney Renaissance, for it was like the rediscovery of classical forms and models after a long dark age.

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I have been watching or rewatching all the Disney full-length animated features in chronological order, which provides the prospective of seeing each work in the context of its film history. In this case, we have reached what is widely regarded either as the last film of the Dry Spell (a long period of uncreative and inferior works following Walt Disney’s passing) or the first of the Disney Renaissance (a welcome return to their old strengths and new inspirations.)

As with all Disney films, no criticism can touch a childhood favorite, regardless of merit, but, contrariwise, the mission of the critic is to review even beloved works by standards as dispassionate as the passionate nature of the subject matter admits.

For myself, this film came too late in my life to be a childhood favorite, for it premiered during my college years. I was unimpressed with it then, largely forgot it, and am unimpressed now, and found it largely forgettable, but not flawed.

OLIVER AND COMPANY (1988) is very loosely based on Charles Dickens’ OLIVER TWIST, but taking place in modern New York, and with cats and dogs instead of orphans.

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