THE LITTLE MERMAID

Many people of my generation cite ‘The Little Mermaid’ as a watershed film for them because of Ariel’s determination to be who she knows she needs to be, and looking at the film again now, it still gives me goosebumps seeing her look longingly at the surface, singing one of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s most perfect ballads.

It also helps that ‘The Little Mermaid’ is just such a charming, funny, rollicking piece of entertainment, bolstered by a terrific set of characters, artistry from a group of young animators frantically trying to prove their worth, and a score and songs that have become legendary (I still knew all the words to ‘Kiss the Girl’ and belted out with enthusiasm every syllable of ‘Les Poissons’). This is one of those eternal films, one that will always have an audience, and justifiably so. From the moment it begins, you know it can’t be anything other than a classic.

PICTURE & SOUND
The original 1080p release of ‘The Little Mermaid’ was gorgeous, but could never quite cope with inherent issues in the age of its source. This 2160p 1.78:1 transfer though is a different case entirely. In fact, this film has probably both never looked better or looked more like itself. Apart from its ending, ‘The Little Mermaid’ was the last film Disney made that didn’t extensively use the digital ink and paint system CAPS, meaning that unlike ‘The Lion King’, this transfer would have been taken from a 4K scan of the film negative rather than a direct digital source. As such, the first thing that struck me about this transfer was how much it looked like a film. There’s a very fine layer of film grain over the image, and while this was present in the 1080p transfer, it’s far more pronounced and richer in 4K. This alone makes the image feel more dynamic and alive. In terms of detail, many of the human errors in the animation are easier to see now, but again this works in the film’s favour. It looks more immediate, more like a piece of carefully crafted hand-drawn animation. In terms of colour, HDR10 gives the colours a richer and more subtle look. They don’t pop as much as you would expect, but they’re a lot more careful and more subtle, and the balance between light and dark colours is much stronger. Seeing ‘The Little Mermaid’ in this format was like seeing it through fresh eyes, and I do hope future 4K releases of hand-drawn classics are as rewarding an experience as this.

In terms of sound, "rich" and "subtle" are also good descriptors for the Dolby Atmos TrueHD 7.1 track. It doesn’t try and make something out of this 30 year old sound design that it isn’t, but beautifully supports what’s there with excellent balance and clarity. As with the image, I was hearing details in the sound design and orchestrations I hadn’t noticed before, and while this isn’t a track you’d use to show off your system, it does what a great audio track should do - present the original film as accurately and respectfully as possible.

SPECIAL FEATURES
Unfortunately, there are no special features included with this set at all, on account of Disney not including an accompanying Blu-ray with the set. With no extras on the 4K disc, this denies consumers of either the new material created for the U.S. release, or at the very least, the material on the original 2013 Diamond Edition release. This may be an anomaly, but hopefully Disney classic releases in Australia don’t follow in the footsteps of Fox by not including the Blu-ray disc with special features included, especially with the 'Captain America' films on 4K only a month away. So if you’re upgrading your copy of ‘The Little Mermaid’ to 4K then make sure, as seems to be so much the case now days, to hang onto your old Blu-ray copy.