The Little Mermaid Live has been quite a stir in the entertainment area lately. In a recent announcement by ABC, there will be another format of the classic movie. It will be performed on a grand musical stage.Â
This is in commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the Little Mermaid. This movie may have been in the industry for so long that both adults and kids could relate to watching this movie. ABC promised that there would be a feeling of nostalgia when they watch this mixed media live play.
What does a hybrid format look like?
In this case, this is half musical production and half animated film. This story from Hans Christian Andersen has been adapted. The difference is that it would be without the tragic ending. It’s supposedly to capture the hearts of the children and young at heart through the original version, as well as some new artistic portrays of this movie.
Auli’I  Cravalho portrayed as Little Mermaid, Queen Latifah as the sea witch Ursula and Graham Philips as Prince Eric. Shaggy, the reggae performer, played as the comical crab Sebastian.  Cravalho has already worked with Disney. He lent his voice to another movie, “Moana.”
These performers have played reasonably well all their roles and handled the dialogue with utmost care. They could sing and do their stunts well. Queen Latifah gave in and sung the song “Poor Unfortunate Souls majestically.Â
What do they think of the Little Mermaid Live?
Some of the audience thought that this might have been a hit or miss. Reviews didn’t rave a lot about the whole hybrid format. In fact, it would have been a not so good idea to watch the movie the first time. The stop-start of the live approach gathered various criticisms. ABC didn’t consider the annoying animated part, and they knew that the viewers would get bored. This seems to be a musical play relying on a lot of background video.
This musical stage performance was using an LED Screen proscenium, which made the production glow. The lighting, costumes, aquatic landscape, oceans, pyrotechnics were all complementing to each other. These made some delight for the viewers.
Some of the comments made were “Boy, I thought the music was inferior, especially Shaun Spicer like Sebastian and John Stamos, but the visuals were terrific, especially the jellyfish over the audience.
In Disney fashion, the graphics effects were outstanding, but the voices and the off-pitch songs that had no musical climaxes and the audience overriding the audio were amateurs. Inadequate production but a good idea “. Another one commented that “It is a classic movie, a delight. This presentation was not entertaining, in fact, annoying”.
Although many of the viewers still found the play entertaining to watch, especially for kids. Some even found this to be the best live television musical ever. The Little Mermaid Live may have gotten a lot of negative reviews, but the ABC boss responded from a backlash on Twitter with “I don’t care what anyone else thinks, my man Edward Sanchez said it’s the best, and that’s good enough for me.”
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