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The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning, a review by Tom

Title: The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning
Year: 2008
Director: Peggy Holmes
Rating: G
Length: 77 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78
Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1 , English: DTS 5.1 , French: Dolby Digital 5.1 , Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Stars:
Jodi Benson
Samuel E. Wright
Jim Cummings
Sally Field
Tara Strong

Plot:
See how it all started for one of Disney's most beloved characters in the all-new movie, 'The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning'.

Imagine a time long before Ariel met Prince Eric and walked on land - a time when music was banned from the underwater kingdom of Atlantica. Torn between family duty and her love of music, Ariel must make the most difficult choice of her life. With the help of her friends, Sebastian and Flounder, and her six amusing sisters, will the young mermaid be able to restore music, friendship and love to the kingdom?

An all-star cast returns, including Jodi Benson (Ariel) and Samuel E. Wright (Sebastian) - plus meet the deliciously wicked villain Marina Del Rey - in a marvelous musical adventure teeming with surprises, breathtaking animation and all-new songs.

Extras:
Closed Captioned
Deleted Scenes
Featurettes
Interactive Game
Scene Access
Trailers

I was a little disappointed with this outing. Previous Little Mermaid movies offered each a few memorable songs. This one hadn't even one memorable song in my opinion. The story is standard family movie fare. Nothing real original. Animation-wise it is better than the second movie and is good for a direct-to-DVD movie.

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Reviews on October 18th, 2008)

Saw, a review by snowcat

(From Emma's Film Reviews (snowcat) on October 20th, 2009)

"Stargate SG-1" Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis: The Odyssey has been heavily damaged by the Lucian Alliance and has been hijacked. SG-1 goes on a search for the ship but also walks into a trap. Now Cameron is the only one remaining and he has to find a way to infiltrate the Alliance in order to save the others.

My Opinion: It was cool how Cameron managed to make them fight against each other. The relationships between the Lucians were well portrayed given the nature of this organization.

Synopsis: Vala and Daniel believe that they've finally found the planet where Merlin's weapon is hidden. But when they arrive they learn that Ba'al has passed through three days ago. Additionally the warriors of the Ori arrive. The only way out is to find the way to the weapon.

My Opinion: While they've been in the village I didn't suspect anything. But as soon as they left I began to mistrust that old man. I also noticed the ring he gave away, yet I couldn't have known what it represented. The riddles were good, although I knew at once that the fire would require a "leap of faith".

Synopsis: The riddles are solved, now they have to face the dragon. But the weapon isn't there - instead they find Merlin. But Adria is closing in on them and time is running out.

My Opinion: I liked the second part, too. But we have seen people who have been in stasis for several millennia or have endured in a sarcophagus. That makes it somewhat illogical that Merlin's stasis chamber couldn't stop the decay, I especially liked the scene where Sam punches Ba'al, that was really cool.

Synopsis: With the help of "Arthur's Mantle" SG-1 tries to hide an entire village from the Ori. But the field collapses and Sam gets heavily wounded. Vala is caught and meets her husband again who has become a brutal commander of the Ori forces.

My Opinion: The interesting part of the episode is the question whether the Prior took matters into his own hands when he intended to destroy the village. His impressive staff couldn't help him to disable the device.
On the other hand that could be a standard rule: if dangerous then destroy it and find an excuse in the "Book of Origin".

(From "Stargate SG-1" Marathon on May 2nd, 2008)