November 17th, 1989. I have no idea if I actually went to see The Little Mermaid on the Friday it came out. I doubt it. But the film turns 25 years old today. What I do know was that this was the first movie I remember seeing in theaters. I remember it was cold outside, so it could’ve been that first weekend, however the film was only out from late November until late February, so it could’ve been during any of that time. The movie actually was never the number one grossing film of any weekend, only reaching as high as number three. I would’ve been just 4 years old, but I remember seeing it rather vividly. I remember sitting in the back right of the theater with my mom. I remember how Ursula absolutely scared the shit out of me. I had obviously watched lots of children’s films at home in the age of VHS and I remember having already seen The Wizard of Oz, where The Wicked Witch of the West and the flying monkeys scared the shit out of me too, but at this age I had no idea how much I would come to love film.
I think The Little Mermaid in a lot of ways was the perfect movie for my first moviegoing experience. You cannot go wrong with Disney. The Little Mermaid launched The Disney Renaissance which defined many of our childhoods. Before 1989 Disney had not put out many good animated films since the early 1970s and then boom. After 1989 we all got a string of greatness so amazing that we ended up pretty spoiled on animation. Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and The Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, and Pocahontas. After that I was sort of out of my Disney phase, but it was a great time. I remember playing an incredibly frustrating Aladdin video game on the Sega Genesis even. Disney continued making amazing films and then when they acquired Pixar cemented their animation pedigree in the 3D computer realm as well. Every year it never fails. This year they came out with Big Hero 6. I haven’t had the chance to see that yet, but by all accounts it’s something special again.
I’m not going to go into what makes The Little Mermaid great. Everyone knows it’s a great movie. When people have children and they are ready to watch a movie with a proper story this would be an excellent choice to show them first. This isn’t a movie just for girls. It’s 2014, 25 years after, it wasn’t a movie just for girls then and it certainly isn’t now. There is something for everyone in this. It’s not so much that this movie is great, it’s that it was my first. That will always hold a unique place in my memory because of it. I’ll be sure to watch this again soon to rekindle my memories even more than writing this little retrospective. In some ways it’s hard to believe that the movie is 25 years old and in other ways it seems timeless, like the Disney animation films from the early 1940’s. I think what we can take away from this most is to watch movies like we are kids again. Appreciate them for what they are and just sit back and enjoy. I did that recently with Interstellar and it was one of the best moviegoing experiences I’ve had and I plan to do it again in one month with The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Just marvel at the images and the sounds and the story. Just be a kid and smile.
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