#or on the other end of the spectrum they should’ve just gone full balls-to-the-wall disney satire

[spamalie]

i think the main issue with that ruby mermaid movie is that they tried to half-ass shrek. you can’t just half-ass shrek

#it feels like they have two completely different things going on with the family conflict and the mermaid conflict #and the place where they converge is just Well it’s messy and weird #there were a lot of times her mom/grandma said something and i went ‘i wonder where they’re going with this’ #only for the plot to completely vindicate them in the end #maybe it’s just because i don’t love the idea of an entire intelligent species being inherently evil but it’s just like… all kinds of wrong #best case scenario they were trying to go for the mermaids representing a privileged group? but it’s not conveyed very well at all #i feel like if they scrapped the ‘lol what if ariel evil’ thing they could’ve had a decent narrative about mother daughter relationships #or on the other end of the spectrum they should’ve just gone full balls-to-the-wall disney satire #like with the villain actually being a parody of a disney princess instead of a generic antagonist in an ariel skin #and maybe Uh. scrapping the lamp shading about grandma being royalty because this is maybe not the movie to do that in #idk as it is it’s way too easy to compare to better movies that were made BY the studio they were trying to make fun of #it’s just not a great look #and it would’ve gone over a lot better if this movie had been able to stand on its own without all the hype over the antagonist