The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning is the prequel to Disney's The Little Mermaid as well as the final direct-to-video sequel made by DisneyToon Studios.To critique, I will start with the bad and say the good afterwards to redeem the bad.The Bad: 1. Fairly inconsistent continuity, with Ariel's sisters arranged a little differently by age compared to the original film. 2. Flounder was really annoying, unlike in the original film where he was a likable and awesome character. 3. Marina Del Rey is a very hypocritical villain, therefore making her weak, because she was singing a song twice during the time music was banned in Atlantica, where she was as well.The Mixed: 1. The soundtrack has some pretty bad songs like Jump in the Line (Shake, Shake, Shake, Senora), which is no Under the Sea. 2. Just One Mistake sung by Marina Del Rey, who sung it under the music ban of Atlantica, being physically there while singing it, which makes her a hypocrite. 3. However, the soundtrack has some good songs like Athena's Song, which had a heartwarming feel to it. 4. I Remember, since we get to hear Ariel's beautiful voice and it made me feel genuinely emotional during the course of the song, becoming the next Part of Your World, the best song in the original The Little Mermaid. But I still think the original The Little Mermaid soundtrack is superior.The Good: 1. The animation, especially by the standards of direct to video Disney sequels, is really good. 2. It also has a deep and enthralling story about Ariel's past, especially with her mother, Athena, involved, which we did not see in the original film, has a lot of heartwarming and genuinely sad moments, as well as a fresh story. 3. We get to know a little more about Ariel's sisters, since they did not have a lot of screen time in the original The Little Mermaid. 4. The voice acting is singular, with Jodi Benson reprising the role of Ariel, and did a good job, as well as Samuel E. Wright reprising Sebastian, which are the only stars from the original to return to this film with other voices include Sally Field (Marina Del Rey), Jim Cummings (King Triton and Shellbow), Kari Wahlgren (Attina), Jennifer Hale (Alana), Grey DeLisle (Aquata and Arista), Tara Strong (Adella and Adrina), Jeff Bennett (Benjamin and swordfish guards), Andrea Robinson and Lorelei Hill Butters (Queen Athena, singing and speaking voice respectively), Rob Paulsen (Ink Spot and Swifty) and Kevin Michael Richardson (Cheeks and Ray-Ray), all do a pretty good job in this film, except Parker Goris, who voiced Flounder, who has a really annoying voice. This might come as a shock to many of you people, but I think that the voice acting here is much better than the English-language versions of Japanese animation, especially Studio Ghibli. Why? Because since this is an American animated film, where English is the original language, being a direct to video film keeps it true to its identity. Also, dubbed versions are highly institutionalised versions of any movie, which is a bad thing, since the original version, which is true to its identity, with subtitles, gives any movie, theatrical and direct to video, has international cohesion to it, which is a good thing. But I digress. The voice acting in this film is really good, that is the major point. 5. We get to reunite with the main protagonist we all know and love called Ariel, which is why this film is superior to The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea, since Melody was a terrible character, as well as a highly infantilised version of Ariel, both in terms of appearance and personality.Now, since I reviewed a direct-to-video Disney sequel, some people might think I am beating a dead horse on the subject. I think that haters who review the sequels are beating a dead horse since they still lambaste them, but DisneyToon Stuidos stopped making them seven years ago.Overall, this is a pretty good prequel. It is not the best prequel I have ever seen, but it is not the worst one either.

Giving my judgement on this film is not easy. A lot of people are torn between it being good or bad, and I'm somewhat in the middle. While it's not a horrible flick, it's not terrific either. Story: King Triton bands music from Atlantica (is that really the best name you could come up with?) because it reminds him of his dead wife and brings him bitterness and grief. But of course Ariel breaks the rules and kinda brings music back to Atlantica. Let's get the bad stuff out of the way: 1) The whole premise has nothing to do with the first (and better) movie. Sure it's a way to develop Ariel's backstory, but I don't see it developing that much; it just seems like it was randomly put together for a separate story. It was like the writers knew it was about a rebellious teenage mermaid who loves to sing, and they came up with a problem out of the blue. Don't get me wrong, it's an interesting conflict, for the king, but that's where the story should have focused more; it should have not really been about Ariel. Also, they don't bring up the human world at any time in the film, and that was Ariel's focus - she doesn't even show a hint of interest in the film. 2) Flounder, what have they done to you? Yes he's cute, but he's really OBNOXIOUS in this film! He never shuts up, he is always making music sounds when he knows it's forbidden, he talks modern ("Oh yeah, I'm hot", "Torpedo Tube", "Cork Screw", "We love you, Flounder"), he plays spy kids, he's not the "guppy" we know and love, the Little Mermaid TV series gave a better backstory on how he and Ariel became best friends, and he and Ariel have little to no time together alone, pouring their hearts out with each other, or exploring. 3) The villainess is fashionably annoying (literally)! It kinda would have been nice to see if this was how Ursula came to hate Triton, but no, she gets tossed aside for a fashion disaster mermaid with another unnecessary sidekick. 4) It's nice to see the mermaid sisters have character developments, but they're "like totally" valley girl teenage stereotypes. 5) Of all the songs, why did Sebastian have to sing an already popular song instead of come up with another awesome original song as he did "Under the Sea"? 6) The modern talk - wherever it is (includes being sworn in clubs)! 7) Trident is a jerk and isn't loving towards his daughters until the end when Ariel proves he's a jerk. 8) Her mother's death (being crushed by a pirate ship) would have explained why Triton says humans are barbarians and they never bring up the human world once. 9) Kinda a nitpick, but the band instruments are of the human world, they don't even look like they are made of coral. 10) The villain sings. Say what you want on it being a good or bad pair of songs, but the fact that she's singing should be questionable. Music/singing is banned and she's singing. Even if it was for just 4th wall pleasure it doesn't work. 11) The pointless shot replica of when the villainess sings out on a rock and gets splashed. That shot was forced for no other reason but to say that it can't happen in real life. Also that no mermaid visits the surface (aside from the beginning).Now what's good about it? 1) Triton is awesome again, emotional, though he's also more of a tyrant compared to the first film (which is a flaw). I still love how you see how much he is in pain over the death of his wife (for a few minutes), and there's a scene where he destroys the Catfish Club and it makes me glad to see him use his trident again. The whole story should have centered around him. 2) I won't falter - it's so nice to hear Ariel sing 3) Compared to other Disney sequels, this has some nicer animation - it's not as overwhelming as the first movie. It's computer animation, which is nice to look at, but in all honesty, I think The Little Mermaid looked better in hand drawn animation. 4) Sebastian knows how to make a hot crustacean band - even from already popular songs, and he is still the same protective/responsible guardian of Ariel. 5) The intro is heartwarming and tragic. I actually felt sorry for Triton losing his queen and felt his bitterness. 6) There were some really heartfelt moments.I kinda like it, but I wish they could have fixed the flaws. I was on the edge of comparing this movie the the awful Fox and the Hound 2 film, but Ariel's Beginning got a better premise. However it is inconsistent with the first movie, the TV series, and is making me tired of seeing Ariel over and over again. I really hate it when Disney Princesses are made into a constantly repeated franchise rather than move on. The TV stories gave us a backstory already, the first movie had nothing to do with banned music, and the sequel moved on with her life. I don't want to see Disney go backwards on her life, but either move forward or just stop altogether.

As much as I love The Little Mermaid but I can't understand why the sequences are wrong. Here we go back to when Ariel was a baby(hence the title of Ariel's Beginning)and we get to learn WHY Trition didn't want Ariel to see the human world. You see Ariel's mother died by humans and since that day Triton cannot stand humans.Overall the animation was great but this movie is all over the place as like I said before its out of sequence.There's NO Eric and there's not much to say about it its just not as good as the 1st movie. Bottom line i'll give this movie a miss if I were you. 2/10

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.