{{Cinema/Ficha Técnica|
|título=The Little Mermaid
|título-pt=A Pequena Sereia
|título-br=A Pequena Sereia
|imagem=
|ano=1989
|duração=83
|idioma=Inglês
|género=animação, infantil, romance, musical
|direção=Ron Clements<BR>John Musker
|roteiro=Roger Allers<BR>Ron Clements<BR>John Musker
|elenco=Jodi Benson<BR>Christopher Daniel Barnes<BR>Samuel E. Wright<BR>Buddy Hackett<BR>Pat Carroll<BR>Ben Wright<BR>Rene Auberjonois
|código-IMDB=0097757
|tipo=LA
|país=
|cor-pb=cor
}}
'''The Little Mermaid''' (br / pt: '''A Pequena Sereia''') é 28.o Disney, lançado em conto homônimo do escritor dinamarquês Hans Christian Andersen.

==Sinopse==
Ariel é uma jovem sereia, filha do Rei Tritão, senhor dos sete mares, que se apaixona por um príncipe humano. Determinada a se tornar mortal, Ariel faz um acordo com Úrsula, a terrível bruxa do mar, que a transforma em humana. Ariel terá que conquistar o amor do príncipe sem o recurso da voz, se não quiser sofrer uma terrível maldição.

==Principais personagens e vozes==
{| class="wikitable" border="1" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3"
! Personagem
! Dublador EUA
! Dublador Brasil
! Dobrador Portugal
|-
|Ariel
|Jodi Benson
|Marisa Leal (diálogos)<br/>Gabriela Ferreira (canções, 1989) e Kiara Sasso (canções, 1998)
|Mila Belo (diálogos) / Anabela Pires (canções)
|-
|Eric
|Christopher Daniel Barnes
|Garcia Júnior
|Diogo Infante
|-
|Sebastian / Sebastião
|Samuel E. Wright
|André Filho
|Pedro Malagueta
|-
|Flounder / Linguado
|Jason Marin
|Patrick de Oliveira
|Guilherme Duarte
|-
|Úrsula
|Pat Carroll
|Zezé Motta
|Chucha Carvalheiro (diálogos) / Xuxu (canções)
|-
|Tritão
|Kenneth Mars
|Luiz Motta
|Paulo Alexandre
|-
|Grimsby
|Ben Wright
|Dario Lourenço
|Pedro Pinheiro
|-
|Louis
|Rene Auberjonois
|Telmo Perle Münch
|Victor Rocha
|-
|Carlota
|Edie McClurg
|Andréa Murucci
|Júlia Barros
|-
|Scuttle / Sabidão 
|Buddy Hackett
|Mário Monjardim
|Paulo Oom
|-
|Flotsam e Jetsam / Pedro e Juca
| Paddi Edwards
|Rodney Gomes
|Carlos Freixo
|}

==Principais prêmios e indicações==
'''Oscar''' 1990 (EUA)
*Venceu nas categorias de Melhor Trilha Sonora e Melhor Canção Original, por ''Under The Sea''.
*Indicado na categoria de Melhor Canção Original, por ''Kiss The Girl''.

'''Globo de Ouro''' 1990 (EUA)
*Venceu nas categorias Melhor Trilha Sonora e Melhor Canção Original, por ''Under The Sea''.
*Indicado nas categorias de Melhor Filme - Comédia/Musical e Melhor Canção Original, por ''Kiss The Girl''.

'''Grammy Awards''' 1991 (EUA)
*Venceu na categoria de Melhor Canção Composta para um Filme, por ''Under The Sea''.

{{Infobox Film |
  name = The Little Mermaid |
  image = Movieposterthelittlemermaid.jpg|
  caption = ''The Little Mermaid'' Original Poster  |
  writer = Hans Christian Andersen (fairy tale)<br>Roger Allers (story)<br>Howard Ashman (musical)<br>Ron Clements<br>John Musker |
  starring = Pat Carroll<br>Christopher Daniel Barnes<br>Kenneth Mars<br>Jason Marin<br>Buddy Hackett |
  director = Ron Clements <br> John Musker |
  producer = Howard Ashman <br> John Musker <br> Maureen Donley |
  distributor = Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures |
  released = November 15, 1989 (original release) <br> November 14, 1997 (re-release)|
  runtime = 83 minutes |
  language = English |
  music =  Alan Menken (music) <br> Howard Ashman (lyrics) |
  awards = Academy Awards 1989:<br>Best Original Score<br>Best Song ("Under the Sea" and "Kiss the Girl")) |
  imdb_id = 0097757 |
  | budget = $40,000,000<ref name=disneywar>Stewart, James B. (2005). ''DisneyWar'', p. 104. ISBN 0-684-80993-1. Simon & Schuster. Accessed June 4, 2007.</ref>
  | gross = $222,300,000 |
  | amg_id = 1:29563
  | followed_by = ''The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea'' (2000) |
}}
'''''The Little Mermaid''''' is a 1989 animated feature produced by Disney animated features canon, the film is based on the Disney Renaissance. A stage adaptation of the film with a book by Broadway.<ref>[http://www.playbill.com/features/article/97323.html Playbill Features: STAGE TO SCREENS: Chatting with Grey Gardens and Little Mermaid Librettist Doug Wright<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> 

== Plot ==
Prince Eric, eighteen years old, and his manservant Grimsby are aboard a sailing ship. From the sailors, Eric learns about Triton, the ruler of the sea who rules and controls the oceans.  He is the king of merpeople in the watery depths. 
 
Underwater, a sixteen-year-old Ariel is unsatisfied with life under the sea and curious about the human world. Ariel, with her best friend, a Flounder, collects human artifacts, and visits the surface of the ocean to visit a Scuttle, who offers comically inaccurate knowledge of human culture. Ignoring the warnings of her father, King Triton, and the court musician, Sebastian the crab, that contact between merpeople and humans is forbidden, she longs to be part of the human world; to this end she has filled a secret grotto with all the human artifacts she has found. 

Ariel and Flounder travel to the surface to watch a celebration for the birthday of Prince Eric, with whom Ariel falls in love. The birthday celebration is cut short by a massive storm, during which the ship is lost. Eric almost drowns, but is subsequently saved by Ariel, who drags him onto a beach. She then sings to him, but when he stirs awake, she dives underwater. Eric has a vague impression that he was rescued by a girl with a beautiful voice; he vows to find her, and Ariel vows to rejoin Eric.

Later, Triton and his daughters notice a lovesick Ariel. Sebastian tries to impress her with the wonders "Under the Sea", but Ariel sneaks off with Flounder midway through the song. Triton questions Sebastian about Ariel's lovesick behavior, during which Sebastian reveals Ariel's secrets. Furious, King Triton confronts Ariel in her grotto, during which he destroys her entire collection. A pair of eels, Flotsam and Jetsam, convince a distraught Ariel that to rejoin Eric, she must visit Ursula, the Sea Witch. 

Ursula- an ugly & overweight cecaelia- makes a deal with Ariel to transform her into a human for three days. Within these three days, if she plans to remain a human, she must receive from Eric the "kiss of true love"; otherwise she will transform back into a mermaid on the third day and be owned by Ursula. In exchange for her voice, Ariel is turned into a human by Ursula's magic which turns her tail into legs. However, she can't swim as a human and Ariel is helped to the surface by Sebastian and Flounder.

When she subsequently discovers that she has legs, she wiggles her toes on her right foot and smiles open-mouthed. She has a hard time walking and Scuttle helps her by covering her in a sail. She is eventually found by Eric when Max finds her, but when he learns that she cannot speak, he discards the notion that she is the one who saved his life. He helps her to the palace, where the servants think of her as a survivor of a shipwreck. As for Sebastian, he stumbles into the palace kitchen and narrowly escapes being turned into stuffed crab by Chef Louis.

While Ariel is enjoying life with Eric in her tour of the human kingdom, Sebastian, Flounder and Scuttle try to get Ariel and Eric to kiss so Ariel will become human permanently. They come close to kissing, but are thwarted by Flotsam and Jetsam. Angered at the close call, Ursula takes the disguise of a beautiful young woman named "Vanessa" and appears onshore singing with Ariel's voice, which is housed in a magic nautilus shell around her neck. Eric recognizes the song, and "Vanessa" casts a hypnotic spell of enchantment on Eric.

The next day, Ariel finds out that Eric will be married to "Vanessa" on a ship. She is left behind when the wedding barge departs. Scuttle discovers Vanessa's true identity and informs Ariel. Ariel and Flounder chase the wedding barge, Sebastian informs Triton, and Scuttle is assigned to "stall the wedding." With the help of various animals, the nautilus shell around Ursula's neck is broken, restoring Ariel's voice back to Ariel and breaking Ursula's enchantment over Eric. Realizing that Ariel was the girl who saved his life, Eric rushes to kiss her, but the sun sets and Ariel transforms back into a mermaid. Ursula reverts back to her true form and she kidnaps Ariel. 

Triton appears and confronts Ursula, but cannot destroy the contract Ursula made with Ariel. Triton chooses to sacrifice himself for his daughter and is transformed into a polyp. Ursula takes Triton's crown and trident and declares herself queen of the oceans, which was her plan from the beginning. Eric dives into the sea and throws a harpoon at Ursula. In her rage, she attempts to kill him using the trident, but Ariel attacks her, and Ursula accidentally kills Flotsam and Jetsam. Angered, Ursula subsequently transforms into gigantic proportions and stirs up a storm using the magical trident. A whirlpool is also formed, which disturbs several shipwrecks, one of which Eric later commandeers. Just as Ursula is set to destroy Ariel with the trident, Eric rams the ship's splintered bowsprit through Ursula's abdomen killing her in a huge explosion. 

When Ursula dies, her power breaks, and the polyps in Ursula's garden (including Triton) turn back into merpeople. Later, Triton willingly changes Ariel from her mermaid form into a human using his trident. She runs into Eric's arms, and the two finally kiss. 

The final scene is Ariel and Eric's wedding, with both humans and merpeople as attendees. The film ends with Ariel and Eric embracing.

==Divergence from the Andersen original==

This film is based on the original story (by Cinderella'' and ''Snow White'', since the original story does not feature a romantic happy ending: rather than winning over the prince, the mermaid dies after throwing herself back into the ocean, dissolving into foam on the water; but she happily learns that she had an immortal soul to begin with and that after a kind of Purgatory where she will spend her time as a wandering Spirit of the Air, she will then be in heaven with God. Changing the tale to conclude with a "they lived happily ever after" involved changing the basic philosophy underlying the Disney film from that of the Andersen original. The religious elements of the plot are entirely removed: there is no desire of the film's mermaid to gain an immortal soul, there is no related desire to attend religious ceremonies (unlike Andersen's mermaid), and much of the plot has been removed involving a rival convent religious girl (later revealed to be a princess) that the mermaid desires to emulate. Andersen had strong Christian religious elements in many of his stories, including "The Snow Queen" and "The Little Match Girl", but these were removed from Disney's version.

The original story is essentially a tale without a dominant villain. The Little Mermaid is faced with an inherently unjust world, where her love for the Prince and her wish to gain an immortal soul have a chance only through terrible sacrifices, privations and risks. And the Mermaid ultimately fails, though Andersen presents her as amply deserving of the Prince's love and of gaining a soul (or, rather, demonstrating over and over again, by her courage, compassion and noble sacrifice, that she has a soul already). Unlike the film, the Sea Witch in the original tale is not a dominant villain, but rather a "technician" implementing the harsh rules of this universe. In the original story, an attack on the Witch - such as forms the climax of the film - would have been pointless, since the Witch as depicted by Andersen did not cause the Mermaid's dire predicament and had no power to resolve it. In the end the Sea Witch is revealed to be a misguided villain as the Mermaid already had a soul to begin with, and the story is really about how great trials in life and striving for a soul can lead to eternal reward in the afterlife. Following the release of this film, many other adaptations of "The Little Mermaid" have also opted for a happy ending that differs from the original fairytale.

A lesser, though significant, difference is that Andersen chose to give none of his characters a name - they are "The Little Mermaid", "The Little Mermaid's Sisters", "The Sea Witch", "The Prince", "The Temple Girl", etc. Disney, on the contrary, bestowed on all characters a specific given name.   The story also has strong similarities to the opera ''Rusalka'' by Antonin Dvorak, possibly even more so than to the original Andersen tale, although this opera, like the Andersen tale, has a tragic ending.

The Disney sequel, ''The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea'', centering on the daughter of Ariel and Eric, obviously could not have been a sequel to the original Andersen story.

== Cast and characters==
* '''Princess Ariel''', voiced by '''Jodi Benson''', is the protagonist, a mermaid entranced with the human world.
*'''Sebastian''', voiced by '''British to Jamaican.
*'''Ursula''', voiced by '''Pat Carroll''', is the antagonist, a witch half-human half octopus banished by Triton long before the film's event. After getting Ariel's voice, she tries to marry Eric under the identity of '''Vanessa''' (Jodi Benson).
*'''Prince Eric''', voiced by '''Christopher Daniel Barnes''', is a prince that likes to sail, and with whom Ariel falls in love after she saves him from a shipwreck.
*'''King Triton''', voiced by '''Kenneth Mars''', is the ruler of Atlantica and Ariel's father.
*'''Flounder''', voiced by '''Jason Marin''', is Ariel's fish sidekick.
*'''Scuttle''', voiced by '''Buddy Hackett''', is a seagull which Ariel considers an expert in the human world.
*'''Flotsam and Jetsam''', voiced by '''Paddi Edwards''', are Ursula's eel pets/henchmen.
*'''Grimsby''', voice by '''Ben Wright''', is Eric's majordomo. This was Wright's final acting role before his death in 1989.
*'''Chef Louis''', voiced by '''Rene Auberjonois''', is the chef of Eric's house, whose favorite dish is fish and seafood in general. He tries to cook up Sebastian into a stuffed crab.

Other actors include Max''', and Mark Hamill.

== Significance == 
''The Little Mermaid'' is an important film in animation history for many reasons:
* It marked a return to the musical format that made Disney films popular from the 1930s to the 1970s, after a test run with ''Oliver and Company'' the year before. It featured seven original songs by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman, who also served as the film's producer.

* It was the return to fairy tales since ''Sleeping Beauty''.

* It had the most special effects for a Disney animated feature since ''Fantasia'' was released forty-nine years earlier. Effects animation supervisor Mark Dindal estimated that over a million bubbles were drawn for this film, in addition to the use of other processes such as airbrushing, backlighting, superimposition, and some flat-shaded computer animation.

* ''The Little Mermaid'' was a box office success and grossed over $200,000,000 worldwide.

* This film marked the one of the first uses of CAPS (Computer Animation Production System) in a Disney feature, seen in the movie's final scene. CAPS is a digital ink-and-paint and animation production system that colors the animators' drawings digitally, as opposed to the traditional animation method of tracing ink and paint onto cels (''see Traditional animation''). All subsequent 2D animated Disney features have used CAPS instead of ink-and-paint, with ''Home on the Range'' as the last one.

* This film signaled a renaissance in Disney animation; the films were popular and financial successes, causing Disney's feature animation department to begin significant expansion, from about 300 artists in 1988 to 2,400 by 1999.  In fact, ''The Little Mermaid'' was Disney's first significant animated success since ''The Rescuers'' in 1977.

* ''The Little Mermaid'' won the 1990 Academy Award for Original Music Score. "Kiss the Girl" and "Under the Sea" were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song; the Oscar went to "Under the Sea."

* The soundtrack, riding high on the heels of the film's popularity and the Academy, Golden Globes and Grammy Awards, went triple platinum, an unheard-of feat for an animated movie at the time.

*Ursula the Sea Witch is perhaps the first example of a sea witches'.

==Music==

''The Little Mermaid'' was considered by some as "the film that brought Broadway into cartoons".<ref>''Aladdin'' Platinum Edition, Disc 2: ''Alan Menken: Musical''</ref> Alan Menken wrote the Academy Award winning score, and collaborated with Howard Ashman in the songs.

;Songs
*"Fathoms Below" - Sailors
*"Daughters of Triton" - Triton's daughters
*"Part of Your World" - Ariel
*"Part of Your World (Reprise)" - Ariel
*"Under the Sea" - Sebastian & Sea Creatures
*"Poor Unfortunate Souls" - Ursula
*"Les Poissons" - Chef Louis
*"Kiss the Girl" - Sebastian & Chorus
*"Vanessa's Song" - Scuttle, Vanessa/Ariel & Ursula*
*"Part of Your World (Finale)" - Chorus

*Note: "Vanessa's Song" is not included on any official Disney Soundtrack of ''The Little Mermaid''. It is a reprise of "Poor Unfortunate Souls".

The compilation  ''red disc, "blue disc, and "green disc.
The compilation ''blue disc, "green disc, and "red disc.

== Production ==
The film was originally planned as one of Snow White'', but was put on hold due to various circumstances. 	 

In 1985, ''Splash''. But the next day, Walt Disney Pictures boss Jeffrey Katzenberg, green-lighted the idea for possible development, along with "''Oliver & Company''." Unknown to the production team at the time, the idea for the movie had actually been one of Walt Disney's favorites. While in production in the 1980s, someone found Walt's ''Mermaid'' script by chance. Many of his changes to Hans Christian Andersen's original story were coincidentally the same as the changes made by Disney writers in the 1980s.<ref>DVD - Making of Featureette</ref>

That year, Clements and ''Great Mouse Detective'' co-director John Musker expanded the two-page idea into a 20-page rough script, eliminating the role of the mermaid's grandmother and expanding the roles of the Merman King and the sea witch. However, the film's plans were momentarily shelved as Disney focused its attention on ''Who Framed Roger Rabbit'' and ''Oliver & Company'' as more immediate releases.

In 1987, songwriter Howard Ashman became involved with ''Mermaid'' after he was asked to contribute to ''Oliver & Company''. He proposed changing the minor character Clarence, the English-butler crab, to a Jamaican Rastafarian crab and shifting the music style throughout the film to reflect this. At the same time, Katzenberg, Clements, Musker, and Ashman changed the story format to make ''Mermaid'' like an animated Broadway musical. Ashman and Alan Menken (composer) teamed up to compose the entire soundtrack. In 1988, with ''Oliver'' out of the way, ''Mermaid'' was slated as the next major Disney release.

More money and resources were dedicated to ''Mermaid'' than any other Disney animated film in decades. The artistic manpower needed for ''Mermaid'' required Disney to farm out most of the bubble-drawing in the film to Pacific Rim Productions, a China-based firm with production facilities in Beijing. 
 
Principal artists worked on the animation - Glen Keane and Mark Henn on Ariel, Duncan Marjoribanks on Sebastian, Andreas Deja on King Triton and Ruben Aquino on Ursula. Originally, Keane had been asked to work on Ursula, as he had established a reputation for drawing large, powerful figures (the bear in ''The Fox and the Hound'', Professor Ratigan in ''The Great Mouse Detective''.) Keane, however, was assigned as one of the two lead artists on the petite, charming Ariel and oversaw the "Part of Your World" musical number.

Another first for recent years was that live actors and actresses were filmed for reference material for the animators. Broadway actress Sherri Lynn Stoner, a former member of Los Angeles' Groundlings improv comedy group, acted out Ariel's key scenes. Not all of Disney's animators approved of the use of live-action reference; one artist quit the project over the issue. An attempt to use Disney's famed multiplane camera for the first time in years for quality "depth" shots failed because the machine was reputedly in dilapidated condition.