What could improve this musical?

[Zavi]

Since the tour is in a mysterious limbo stage, I was wondering what y'all thought could make this musical stronger. While I love it to pieces, there were definitely issues that weren't fixed through the changes from previews to Broadway. And some things I missed that IIRC were cut for time. "Her Voice Reprise," anyone?

Thoughts?

[fridamoonbeam]

LOL, we've had a few talks about this on MSN haven't we?

Anyway, I would have started with an entirely different director, writer for dialoge and art director for one. I don't think it would be THAT unattainable to improve what they have.

As I've mentioned before I don't like Eric's personality very much in this, he comes across as a sailory none-funny Naveen. Now as much as I like the carefree irresponsible characters with hearts of gold (getting to be over-used right now imho) there are time when they work better then others. Eric, does have a carefree side to him, but its more of a desire to be carefree then an actual pursuit of his and it seemed to sacrifice a bit of his masculinity.

I know that Eric was supposed to be more like Ariel in the musical but to me it pretty cliche and not needed. And now I feel the broken record thing I do coming on so I'll stop talking about character development for a bit.

The sets could have been so much better. Here are some links Jess gave me a while ago. Its Disney World's production of Finding Nemo, and let me tell you the sets are better then TLM, and I like the puppetry of the fish so much better then them trying to make fish look like people. Its fine for shows like BATB where they are supposed to be human but trapped as objects that aren't. Keeping the fishyness seems like such an important element to keep. And hey they could have kept the shark chase too. I mean it didn't scream "THAT looks like the ocean!" to me, even after the revamps it still looked a tad plain to me.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXpOurhps64

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBaCXWsKXHY&feature=related

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxc59DSAhjU&feature=related

Also, I don't like the tails they used in the musical. They are pretty ridiculous looking to me. I don't like how it looks like they're just kind of growing out of their bums. I mean when Sierra is passing the ship and you just see the top part, it's pretty cool looking but when they drop that part of the "water" we're left looking at that awkward mess.

They could have made the costumes just really elaborate skits. I mean there was no need to have the tails set up the way they were.

[WickedElphie]

Wordy Mcword Word Re the visuals. The concepts just did not work.

As for the script itself:

Ariel needs more of her Action!Girl personality from the film (Looking at how the two versions are introduced- treasure-hunting in a sunken ship followed by shark chase VS singing, it really says it all.)

Eric suffered a lot in the transition as well. I think the writers were trying to give him more of a visible character arc but with adding the new insecurity and losing: The statue reaction, Max, saving anyone during the storm scene, and meaningful participation in the battle against Ursula, it goes too far. The audience needs to believe that he's worthy of Ariel for the story to relaly work and while the film got that across, the musical doesn't.

I think casting was also an issue. Now, *as the role was imagined* Sean Palmer and Drew Seeley both did a nice job but I think it would have been better to have an Eric with "dirt under his fingernails" rather than so much of the perfect prince. In the film we see Eric pulling on a rope with the other sailors and the sense is that it isn't out of the ordinary for him to get down and dirty and take part in some of the manual labor. I can't picture Musical!Eric doing that. He needs to have a bit of a "Regular Joe" vibe underneath the royalness. I think vocally having a bit of rock and roll grit to his voice would have helped.

5-10 years ago I would have cited Adam Pascal as my number one choice for the type I had in mind. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O4zH6f0BBY

Now-Darren Criss with a big ol Gold Star. www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Mnc1L9ev3U

(Second video is better but has some swearing) www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAx2Gsiw4LM

[Coral]

I couldn't hear him in either of those videos, so I can't weigh in. But I like the way he looks.

Visuals: Definitely needs improvement!! I get the whole vibe they were going for and the concept was cool. But execution was sorely lacking.

Alan needed to team up with somebody besides Glenn. He hit some beautiful lyrics, Her Voice, If Only, She's In Love. But he hit some stinkers too.

I would have preferred a much stronger script. I understand the whole ditching the battle with a massive Ursula because that is expensive to do on a stage. But they could have done a lot better than they did.

And that's about all I can weigh in on because I only saw it the one time and it's been 3 and a half years now.

[WickedElphie]

Oh God the ending. Yeah, it needed to do several things.

1) Eric needed to do something besides getting whooshed up on his ship. I think the best thing would have been for him to take some blasts from the trident and be injured while trying to help. It establishes that he's brave enough to want to fight while still letting Ariel be the one to win the battle and would add some much-needed drama as well as justify Ursula going down. Because in the show she never actually attempts to commit deathly harm to anyone, while in the ending of the film she was murderous.

2) Ariel needed a "Sailor Moon moment" where she articulated what she was fighting for, why what Ursula was doing was wrong, and she owned her power. Maybe even toss in the idea that if she destroyed Ursula she'd die as well and have her be willing to make the sacrifice. Of course there'll be a happy ending, but a brief fake-out where she was unconscious could be potentially dramatic.

3) Do something small to offset the "Yay! Return to the patriarchal norm! Because women with power are evil psychos!" vibe. Either give Ariel the shell necklace and/or make it explicit that one of Ariel's sisters is going to be Queen after Triton.

[faya27]

While I enjoyed the musical, I'm completely annoyed with Act 2's climax scene. I would have preferred if they kept the movie's climax scene by having Eric and Ariel defeat Ursula instead of having just Ariel be the hero. Like everybody else said, make Eric's personality be very accurate to how he was in the 1989 film. He came off as an annoying prince Edward whereas in the film, he was a romantic but also manly. And Eric is a straight man-not a goof man like Naveen and Edward.
Put Max back in the play. I know they had a problem with "animals on stage" but they could have had a human play Max-just like how in Broadway!Peter Pan, someone played Nana. I felt that drowning from shipwreck because you were saving your dog is more understanding than because you got thrown off. Is Eric really that clumsy? Eric may be a little bit clumsy but he still has more balance compared to Mulan and Hercules.
I felt like there were some parts of the play where Ariel and Eric came off as idiots in an unfunny Giselle and Edward way. In the movie, they were not dumb-Ariel's just simply wowed at human customs and Eric was just simply someone who has the characteristics he was looking for in a wife.