The world premiere of The Little Mermaid (live action redux) was last night in Los Angeles. Everyone turned up: Halle Bailey, Melissa McCarthy, Javier Bardem, Awkwafina, Jacob Tremblay—grown up!—Daveed Diggs, who voices Sebastian in the film, and Viscountess Bridgerton herself, Simone Ashley, who plays one of Ariel’s sisters. Halle’s sister, Chloe Bailey, was also there, as was Heidi Klum and drag queen Nina West, in an Ursula-inspired look. 

 

The Disney-adjacent were also there, including Marsai Martin, Stephanie Beatriz, and the OG Ariel, Jodi Benson. She has been nothing but gracious and encouraging toward Halle Bailey portraying the live-action Ariel:

 

Ever since the first teaser, people have been talking about how dark the film looks, but director Rob Marshall is obviously pursuing some kind of aesthetic with the contrast between “real” and fanciful elements. More concerning is that he obviously didn’t know how to properly light Halle Bailey’s skin tone. But during what passed for the MTV Movie & TV Awards on Sunday night—it was basically a clip package after the writers’ strike caused a bunch of people to pull out of appearing live—they showed a clip of “Kiss The Girl”, and everyone went on about how dark it is, but I MUST talk about whatever the f-ck that THING is at the end of the clip.

 

THAT’S SEBASTIAN? Never mind how f-cking freaky a singing fish looks, THAT IS SEBASTIAN? No, that is a MONSTER. A SEA BEAST, RISEN FROM THE DEEP. It is horrible. It is hideous. It’s so bad I almost didn’t clock how terrible the new rendition of “Kiss The Girl” sounds, but no, I did catch that. They’re going to ruin “Part of Your World”, aren’t they?

What I’m saying is, how dark The Little Mermaid looks is the LEAST of our problems. We have CRAB MONSTERS and BAD MUSIC on tap, folks. Brace yourselves.