The Timing is All Wrong for The Little Mermaid

New Video Essay: Too Much, Too Late

The Little Mermaid live action remake wasn't a complete financial disaster (despite what you may have heard), but it did earn far less than its Disney Renaissance predecessors. In this video, I explain two reasons for the disappointment that no one else is talking about—time and timing.

If you’d like to support Too Much Film School, become a paid subscriber. You’ll get to see a longer version of this video essay, which includes a little more analysis of The Little Mermaid’s financial situation. Plus, some extra things that would likely have offended YouTube’s copyright bot.

This video took a long time, not because it’s so dang good, but because I was juggling a lot of things, especially for Amelia. I originally intended for it to come out the day Little Mermaid arrived on Disney+, but I obviously missed that self-imposed deadline. In fact,

Entertainment Strategy Guy

put out a streaming analysis before my video was done—

Putting The Little Mermaid’s “Record” Debut in Context

Nostalgia and the Adolescent Window

David Bordwell coined the Law of the Adolescent Window:

Between the ages of 13 and 18, a window opens for each of us. The cultural pastimes that attract us then, the ones we find ourselves drawn to and even obsessive about, will always have a powerful hold. We may broaden our tastes as we grow out of those years—we should, anyhow—but the sports, hobbies, books, TV, movies, and music that we loved then we will always love.

I think 18 is very young for the window to close;¹ we’re more likely to solidify our tastes in our mid-twenties. I’d really like to conduct a study to test my theory that, if you ask people for their top 10 films, the majority of them will be movies they saw in that decade and a half.

Bordwell also offers a corollary called the Law of the Midlife/Latelife Return:

As we age, and especially after we hit 40, we find it worthwhile to return to the adolescent window. Despite all the changes you’ve undergone, those things are usually as enjoyable as they were then. You may even see more in them than you realized was there. Just as important, you start to realize how the ways you passed your idle hours shaped your view of the world—the way you think and feel, important parts of your very identity.

TV Tropes calls this Two Decades Behind.

Cultural Nostalgia

You may be wondering how this theory is complicated by Jungle Book, Cinderella, and other remakes that were both financially successful and well-received. I believe they’re acting on a different level of nostalgia—call it “Cultural Nostalgia.” It’s a complicated topic, so I’m dedicating a full text post to it later on.

Race and Mermaids

The race conversation around Little Mermaid has been overwrought for a while, so I didn’t really want to get into it. That being said, this video (which I pulled a small excerpt from) offers an interesting, non-American perspective—

Indiana Jones and Nostalgia of Boomers

I don’t want to pick on Baby Boomers too much, but they really have been in charge of politics and culture for a long time. In a sense, their nostalgia has become my generation’s nostalgia, too, with Force Awakens being a carbon copy of Star Wars being a carbon copy of Hidden Fortress with World War II dogfighting mixed in.²

And, of course, let’s not forget George Lucas’ most famous collaboration with Steven Spielberg, Indiana Jones, has a lot of antecedents. Spielberg may be is the greatest filmmaker of our time, but he’s not immune to a little plagiarism.

By the way, I didn’t create that side-by-side clip of Spielberg and David Lynch as John Ford in The Fablemans. I cribbed it from this video—

Movies Cited

1. The Little Mermaid (2023)

2. The Little Mermaid (1989)

3. Mickey Christmas Carol (1984)

4. Aladdin (2019)

5. Aladdin (1992)

6. The Lion King (2019)

7. The Lion King (1994)

8. Beauty and the Beast (2017)

9. Beauty and the Beast (1991)

10. 21 Jump Street (2012)

11. 30 Rock, "The Tuxedo Begins" (2012)

12. Us Again (2021)

13. Super 8 (2011)

14. Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy (2004)

15. The Fabelmans (2022)

16. Stranger Things, “Trick or Treat, Freak” (2017)

17. Batman, the Animated Series, “Beware the Gray Ghost” (1992)

18. SpongeBob SquarePants, “Toy Store of Doom” (2009)

1. Although maybe that’s a generational thing; Millennials have been accused of arrested development, not without cause.

2. That side-by-side comparison of A New Hope and the documentary footage came from Empire of Dreams, which is available on Disney+.