Why does Disney think photorealistic animals are a good idea? No, really?

Disney should have learnt its lesson from The Lion King, but instead, it’s forging ahead with one of the worst choices in animation.

It’s 2023 and we thought we’d settled the whole debate over the uncanny valley. We don’t like it. It’s weird.

And while the animation studios have stopped trying to foist photorealistic CGI humans on us, it hasn’t stopped them from doing the same with the animal kingdom. Please, have mercy on us, it’s been a tough few years. We can only take so much.

The upcoming live action version of The Little Mermaid has real-life humans in it (phew) but the design for beloved characters Flounder and Sebastian are provoking the kinds of responses that were once reserved for The Polar Express.

Instead of the adorable guppy and the comically exasperated crab, there are two marine creatures that look like they really could belong in an aquarium tank in a Las Vegas casino. But realism isn’t the point. We don’t want realism in our Disney fairytales, so please stop.

We don’t want Flounder looking like a dead grey fish or Sebastian as something that would actually be served at a buffet, surrounded by suspicious sashimi.

Not the Flounder we know and love. Picture: Disney

Sebastian could almost be served at a buffet. Picture: Disney

And considering there’s something seriously odd about The Little Mermaid’s dark colour grading, they don’t even look like enticing seafood.

Where’s the colour? Where’s the life? Where are our cute sidekicks?

The backlash was ferocious when the first trailer and character posters for the film, directed by Rob Marshall, dropped last month, but now with the release of a clip from the song, Kiss the Girl, this week, it only reinforced that this could be a nightmarish enterprise.

Look at these two shots of Flounder and Sebastian from the clip. Flounder has less life than a Big Mouth Billy Bass belting out, “Don’t worry, be happy.” Flounder looks sickly, and about two seconds from being belly up. Why do they keep doing this?

Flounder looks on the verge of death. Picture: Disney

The colour grading looks not right. Picture: Disney

The lesson from the live action remake of The Lion King should not have been, “We can make anything and it’ll still pull in $US1.66 billion”. It should have been that photorealistic animals are not fun to watch. Lions don’t physically emote, and neither do crabs and fish.

You know who does emote? Cartoon Flounder. Nemo. Even Blinky from The Simpsons was more animated.

OK, so the movie hasn’t been released yet, and there’s every chance that maybe it works within the longer context, instead of a glimpse here or there in a trailer and some song clips.

And the voice actors – Daveed Diggs as Sebastian and Jacob Tremblay as Flounder – are both talented thespians, so maybe when you marry the two, it won’t be so ghoulish.

Not they put Flounder on Ozempic! Why he so skinny??? This fish look like Steve Buscemi pic.twitter.com/GuUvJ8HwGO

— Meech (@MediumSizeMeech) April 26, 2023

Tremblay, who also voiced the title character in Pixar’s Luca, has argued that audiences should give it a shot. He defended the design to The Hollywood Reporter.

“I thought it was really cool, because I liked how they were kind of doing it, like make them look like real animals.

“Then in the rehearsal too, I had seen the other characters’ designs. I thought it was really cool. And then I got to see the movie last night, and I thought they worked really well, and I can’t even imagine a different way, if that makes sense.

“I think it worked perfectly, I think they were smart about it. I think people should see the movie and then make the judgment.”

The Little Mermaid is in cinemas on May 26.

Originally published as Why does Disney think photorealistic animals are a good idea? No, really?