Beauty and the Beast, The Lion
King, Cinderella and Lady and the Tramp — have proven that
they also shrewdly have an eye on providing cinephiles with definitive, public
release renderings of their most cherished library titles. While I still don’t fully
grasp or condone their occasional limited-window offerings of such movies, the
fact remains that one literally can’t be disappointed in these releases, and
certainly not in the case of the new two-disc version of The Little Mermaid.

Arriving in 1989, at a time when animation had been ghettoized
and consigned to the cheaply produced, lightly imagined family bargain bin, The Little Mermaid felt like a splash of
cold water across the face — a vibrant, bouncy movie musical with memorable
characters and catchy songs that would not shame parents accompanying little
tykes, but would also pull in slightly older tween and teen audiences, helping
kick-start a creative and commercial renaissance within the medium. The
animation was great (it certainly helped that the titular Ariel was both wholesome
va-voomish, spawning a wave of clamshell bikini tops the following Halloween)
and the villainous Ursula (wonderfully voiced by Pat Carroll) effectively
loathsome, but it was Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s music which really helped
most sell the movie’s dual sense of mischievous adventure and adolescent
yearning.

Improving by leaps, bounds and further light years on a bare
bones, widescreen DVD edition that was released upon occasion of the film’s
10th anniversary, this two-disc special edition is a winning commercial release
as well as a scholarly document of cinematic triumph. The first disc contains
the feature, presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, and the color
improvement is more than just discernible, it’s literally breathtaking. The
last time I recall glimpsing The Little
Mermaid came several years ago on a well-worn VHS copy of a friend’s young
one, but I remember clearly the colors of “Under the Sea,” and they’re much
more striking here, with deeper greens, reds and blues. A music video for “Kiss
the Girl,” performed by Ashley Tisdale, follows, along with a sneak peek at a
forthcoming straight-to-video sequel and an audio commentary track by the
aforementioned Menken and co-writer-directors John Musker and Ron Clements. You
can also enable a Disney song selection feature which provides the lyrics along
the bottom of the screen.

A 45-minute documentary, Treasures
Untold, kicks off the second disc, and provides a frank look at the many
significant hurdles that the project faced in making its way to the screen.
Interviewees include Jeffrey Katzenberg, who cops to frustrated impatience and
talks about the learning curve involved in animation production. Tallying just
over 25 minutes, a cache of never-before-seen deleted scenes follows, with
clips rendered in storyboard form and introduced by Musker and Clements.

A hearty parade of featurettes follows, including an
eight-minute look at the movie’s special effects and animated storm work, and
an 11-minute bit that examines both the origins of Danish author Hans Christian
Andersen’s fairytale and the property’s first go-round at Disney (founder Walt
commissioned an interpretation in the 1940s, but it was never finished). As a
sort of companion piece to the latter, there’s also a seven-minute short film, The
Little Match Girl, which tells the story of another little girl motivated
by idealistic yearning. (No clamshell bikini there, though.)

Of the other supplemental bonus material — which includes
art galleries, a song demo and set-top game, among other tidbits — perhaps most
notable are two featurettes that delve into a theme park ride that was
developed (but never executed) by Walt Disney’s famed “Imagineering Department”
in the wake of The Little Mermaid’s
theatrical success. It’s resurrected here as a “virtual ride,” and there are multiple
options for viewing this material — straightforward with complete audio, with an
optional commentary track by one of the Imagineers, in storyboard design form
and, finally, in the guise of an illuminated viewing. It’s a fascinating peek
behind the corporate curtain, if you will. While not everything may interest
any given viewer, the cumulative portrait painted here of The Little Mermaid’s production and venerable slotting within the
Disney canon is a deep and complete one. A
(Movie) A+ (Disc)