La sirenita: Los comienzos de Ariel

Ever since Disney's "sequels" department has been under new management, there has been a HUGE upgrade in quality. There have only been two animated releases so far, Cinderella III and The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning. I am not sure if any more sequels are in production.

Consistent between both films is the very high quality animation. TLM:AB keeps CGI to a minimum and much effort has been made to keep the characters close to the original character models (and in many cases, character models have heavily improved over the original). This is probably as good as it will get without the original team of animators.

What saves this film is the fantastic hand-drawn animation in the age of ugly CGI and lazy flash-drawn cartoons. I would go as far as to say that the animation here is on-par or higher than the original 1989 release (the original was plagued with off-model animation). Unfortunately, the story is only so-so. The plot is very weak but effort has been made to develop all of the sisters' personalities, which I really appreciate (they are believable sister to sister relationships). I think Disney recognised that without Alan Menken, the music for TLM would not have charm or beauty. Disney did the right thing for this film by keeping songs short and to a minimum.

This film highly deserves a chance to be seen by many, unlike the rushed and horrible Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea.

The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning (2008) is the third movie in the Little Mermaid series, a prequel to The Little Mermaid (1989) and it was okay.

Positives for The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning (2008): It was nice to see Ariel back when she was starting to become the rebel she was in the original. The animation looks nice enough. The voice cast does a good job with their performances. The music is good enough for the movie. And finally, the movie has a good pace to the story.

Negatives for The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning (2008): The prequel sose of the story was really annoying. I always have the same problem with prequels as they tend to answer questions I wasn't asking and giving me answers I don't like. The reason for why music is banned in Atlantica is not enough to care an entire story. The new side characters are not memorable or interesting. And finally, the villain of the movie was remarkably forgettable.

Overall, The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning (2008) is a fine enough prequel that I won't hate rewatching, but it didn't blow me away.

This movie was remarkably refreshing and entertaining. The overall appearance of the film was pleasant. I really enjoyed the character design and animation; the film was very true to the original designs portrayed in the first Little Mermaid, and included just enough of modern 3d animation techniques to give additional depth to the 2d creations without spoiling its 2d nature. The story had a solid plot that supported other Little Mermaid films, as well as giving the viewer a touching glimpse of Ariel's mother and a deeper understanding of King Triton's character. The songs, while not as moving or masterful as Menken and Ashman's work on the first Little Mermaid film, were decent and fit in well with the overall theme of the movie. The movie flowed easily between the musical numbers and non-musical moments.

This is definitely one of those "Movie #3"s that rises well above the awful direction (plot, character, music, etc) that most sequels seem to follow.

The Little Mermaid is one of Disney's most lovable classics, it's one of my personal favorites, so I did want to see the sequel, which was pretty average. Normally most Disney sequels are lame or a waste of time, but it seems as if Disney is finally getting something right because The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning is a very sweet movie and was a nice prequel for Ariel to see what her life was like before she met Prince Eric and we learn a little bit about her family and how she came to meet Flounder. This is definitely a must see for the kids, it has fun music, cute characters, and a charming story that anyone could fall in love with. I liked that they chose a different story rather than continuing her life with Eric, I just like the "they lived happily ever after" and that's it, so this was a nice idea to get to know Ariel's sisters and mother.

In this Disney prequel, we explore Ariel's life before she became human, met Eric, met Ursela. Her father is heart broken after her mother is killed by a ship, he forbids music since it reminds him of her and her beautiful voice. Ariel and her sisters grow up in a very boring world with no music or life at all, but Ariel is thirsty for fun, to spice up her life. She comes along with friends who are also trying to make life a little more fun. But a mermaid named Marina is trying to take over the girls and their lives so she can eventually control the kingdom.

The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning is a fun Disney sequel and was a pleasure to watch. The songs are a lot of fun and the story just charms it's way into your heart. This isn't my favorite Disney sequel, but it was a huge improvement over the second Little Mermaid. I would recommend this for the family or kids, it's a charming film and of course who could resist Sebastian and his fun crazy life under the sea? He, Ariel, and Flounder bring life to this story and I'm sure you'll enjoy it as well.

6/10

I am a huge little mermaid fan since i can remember and i was definitely not disappointed it in this movie. It tells us how Ariel came to be and answered a lot of the questions we had in the first one like what happened to Ariel's mother and why King Triton hates humans. It also tells us how flounder and Ariel met but the one thing i did not like about flounder is that he beat boxed and was kind of out of character because he was a lot braver in this one which in the other ones flounder was always scared. I also liked that is showed us the different sides of the sisters because in the first and second ones we didn't really hear much about them only for brief moments but in this one we get to see their personalities. I also liked the music in the movie it was really great. Some of my favorites was Athena's song, Jump in the line, i remember, and i will sing. The only song i did not like was the one mistake because it didn't seem like a song to me just kind of a poem that Sally Fields talked through with background music. It was so cool to see Jodi Benson and Sameuel E. Wright returning as Ariel and Sebastion. I don't think you can have a Little Mermaid movie without them as the characters. All around good movie and i will watch it over and over again like i did the first 2.