Under The Sea Was The Most Complex Sequence To Film In The Little Mermaid
In John Musker's and Ron Clements' 1989 feature film "The Little Mermaid," the title character Ariel (Jodi Benson) has fallen in love with a human, a stringently verboten act in the mer-world. She longs to attract her human paramour's attention, much to the chagrin of the crab Sebastian (Samuel E. Wright), a servant to the king, her father. In order to convince Ariel that life under the sea is better than life on dry land, Sebastian launches into a hummable (and Academy Award-winning) song called "Under the Sea." He sings about how all the nearby ocean creatures are musically gifted, can all dance, and can all play instruments. The entire vicinity breaks into music hoping to convince Ariel of her misplaced desires. While the Academy may have been convinced that "Under the Sea" was a great song, Ariel was not. She swam away to pursue the man of her dreams.
In 2023, director Rob Marshall helmed a remake of "The Little Mermaid," a near-identical film with live-action actors and CGI sea creatures. Ariel is now played by Halle Bailey, and Sebastian by Daveed Diggs. The story matches the original's beat-for-beat, and, at the right moment, Sebastian has to convince Ariel to stay under the water with a rendition of "Under the Sea."
Unlike the 1989 film, however, the animals around them don't sing along or play instruments. Instead, they merely march and dance and swim in elaborate patterns around the little mermaid. Curiously, the lyrics still allude to instruments and the creatures' ichthyoidal virtuosity on them.
/Film's own Jenna Busch recently attended a press conference with Marshall, Producer John DeLuca, and songwriter Alan Menken, and they said the new rendition of "Under the Sea" was, in fact, the most complicated sequence they conceived of for their movie.
Choreographing CGI animals
It should be noted that actress Bailey spent most of her time on set acting opposite characters that hadn't been animated yet. She was, in many shots, completely alone and acting against a green screen. This meant that Bailey had to move in such a way that would accommodate the fish, octopodes, and whelks that had yet to sing. DeLuca said that the scene was so complicated that Marshall was essentially afraid of it, putting off the choreography as late as he could so that more ideas could come. In DeLuca's words:
"[It was complicated] to conceive and shoot and just to have an idea of what we were going to do and then how we were going to do it. The logistics of that was ... I remember Rob and I put it aside for a long time. [...] 'We'll get to that.' And it kind of was the last one."
Marshall, for his part, was intimidated by the effects, pointing out that he only had one actor in what was meant to be a show-stopping visual feast. "It was so daunting," Marshall said, "because there's one live actor, one live actor in this massive production number." After all, "Under the Sea" is already a well-known number and it already won an Oscar. Marshall felt the pressure to make it right.
Luckily, he said, he had Halle Bailey to back him up. Although Ariel doesn't sing in the original "Under the Sea," the new rendition gave Bailey a few phrases previously sung by fish or lobsters. Because the actress has such a beautiful singing voice, the filmmakers were all ultimately more comfortable with the scene. After writing her phrases, Menken was elated.
"It's what I do," he said. "It's what I live for."
Songwriters of the Caribbean
DeLuca also noted that the film's location informed some of the music, including "Under the Sea." The 1989 film is set in a fictional, undefined geographic location that sports European princes and mermaids with American accents (?). The 2023 film is equally fictional, but is clearly evoking a real-world Caribbean locale. Actual human history may not be referenced "The Little Mermaid" — it's set in the mid-19th century-ish — but it seems having real-world bedrocks aided everyone. DeLuca said:
"[W]e did scout a lot of places and ended up with this. To me, I love this small beach we found in Sardinia. And thankfully, Rob went along with it. And it helped not only us in our imaginations with the tale, but it helped when the actors arrived there. It grounded us in a place and let us tell the Caribbean feeling of the song ... It was very important for Rob, having 'Kiss the Girl' and 'Under the Sea,' with the flavor of those songs, to give it that Caribbean locale. And they have the most beautiful waters and the most beautiful beaches."
A talented voice cast, a definite locale, and a gorgeous beach eventually made everyone more secure and confident while making the movie. "Under the Sea" was capably sung by Daveed Diggs and Halle Bailey, and the dancing sea creatures spun and gesticulated with aplomb. It's just a pity none of them played musical instruments; not having an octopus play the drums was a missed opportunity.