The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea | |
|---|---|
| Image:The Little Mermaid 2 Poster.jpg | |
| Directed by | Jim Kammerud Brian Smith |
| Produced by | Leslie Hough David Lovegren |
| Written by | Elizabeth Anderson Temple Mathews Elise D'Haene Eddie Guzelian |
| Starring | Jodi Benson Samuel E. Wright Tara Strong Pat Carroll Buddy Hackett Max Casella Stephen Furst Clancy Brown |
| Music by | Danny Troob |
| Distributed by | Buena Vista Home Video Walt Disney Home Video |
| Release date(s) | September 19, 2000 |
| Running time | 75 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | The Little Mermaid (1989) |
| Followed by | The Little Mermaid III (2008) |
| IMDb profile | |
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea is a 2000 Disney animated feature film, a direct-to-video sequel to the 1989 animated film The Little Mermaid. In this movie, Jodi Benson reprised her role as Ariel, the "former" Little Mermaid.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
[edit] Introduction
A few years after the events of the first film, Ariel and Eric have given birth to their first child: a daughter, named Melody, after Ariel's love of singing. A celebration is held on a ship at sea, attended by humans and merpeople alike, including Grimsby and King Triton, who presents baby Melody with a magic locket of Atlantica Castle.
However, the party is interrupted by the sea witch Morgana, the sister of the deceased Ursula. Morgana attempts to gain control of Atlantica by stealing Triton's Trident, and even goes as far as to blackmail Triton by offering baby Melody as food to her evil shark, Undertow. Thanks to Ariel's timely intervention, Melody is safely rescued and Triton turns Undertow into a tiny shark, much to Undertow's fury. Morgana leaves, but not before swearing that she will eventually avenge her sister's death.
Triton conducts a search for the sea witch, but they are unsuccessful, and Ariel decides to take extreme measures by keeping any sort of knowledge of the seaworld from Melody, even having some men build a wall to separate the castle from the beach. Triton asks Sebastian, his confidant crab, to look over Melody, and sadly tosses Melody's Atlantica Locket into the depths of the sea.
[edit] Like Mother, like Daughter
Exactly twelve years later, a birthday party is being prepared for Melody, who has grown into a headstrong girl. However, much to Sebastian's dismay, Melody seems to have a liking for the underwater world, and regularly sneaks under the wall to swim around in the sea, which Ariel doesn't know. At one point, she even stumbles across the locket that Triton had abandoned, but she doesn't see her engraved name on it, since it was covered in sand.Sebastian and Scuttle the seagull finally manage to get Melody's attention and inform her that her birthday party is underway, and she immediately swims back home, but sneaks in through a window so as not to reveal her sticky long hair to Ariel.
Eventually, Melody makes it back to her room after accidentally embarrassing herself in front of three guests her age. There, with Ariel's help (Melody cleaned her hair in time), Melody prepares herself for the party, and eventually goes down to attend, unaware that she has accidentally tied Sebastian to the back of her gown.
At the party, while Melody dances with a handsome boy, the boy puts his arm by the small of Melody's back, and accidentally suffocates Sebastian, who pinches him in order to survive. Unfortunately, this starts a chain reaction of events that eventually ruin the dance and get Sebastian thrown into Melody's giant birthday cake. The enraged chef, Louis (Louis had had a few frolics with Sebastian on the first film, and still remembered him) tries to kill Sebastian and ends up ruining the party. The humiliated Melody buries her face in her hands and runs to her room, where she tries to cry herself to sleep.
To make things worse, while she is crying, Melody takes a look at the locket, and accidentally cleans and opens it just as Ariel comes to comfort her. Here, Melody finally reveals that she has been visiting the sea from under the wall, and after a cold argument with her mother, Melody snatches the locket and runs off.
But unknown to Ariel and Eric, Melody takes a small boat and sails out to sea to find some answers despite Sebastian's pleas for her to do otherwise, unaware that she is being watched by Morgana, Undertow and Morgana's twin manta-rays, Cloak and Dagger.
[edit] The New Little Mermaid
As she sails to sea, Melody is encountered by Undertow, who claims that Morgana is the only one who can help her out. Delighted, Melody agrees, and is taken to Morgana's lair by Undertow and the flatsos.
Melody meets Morgana, who tells her that Atlantica castle in the locket is a part of her destiny, and that she is only half of what she really is. To Melody's surprise, Morgana says that she is actually part-mermaid, something that Melody believed to be an "old fish-tale". Using Ursula's old magic, Morgana turns Melody into a red-finned mermaid, and the delighted young girl jumps around for joy, unaware that she is just being used for a trap.Meanwhile, Sebastian informs Ariel and Eric that Melody has run away to sea, and Ariel contacts her father, Triton, immediately. Eric prepares a search fleet on land, and Triton starts the sea search. With Eric's advice, Triton agrees to turn Ariel back into a mermaid so that she can help in the search for her daughter.
After enjoying her new power for a while, Melody revisits Morgana to thank her, but Morgana tells Melody that the spell is only temporary, and that the only way for her to become a permanent mermaid is to use the power of "her magic trident" which was "stolen years ago by an insane klepto-maniac". Melody agrees to try and get the trident back for Morgana, and Morgana gives her a map to Atlantica.
[edit] Old Friends and New Friends
During the journey, Melody meets and befriends a duo of close friends: "Titanic" Tip, a penguin, and "Daring" Dash, a walrus. Teaming up with the little mermaid, the three friends venture off to find the trident and take it for Morgana (in reality, Tip and Dash just want to be heroes).
Meanwhile, Ariel, along with Triton and Sebastian, is reunited with her childhood friend, Flounder, who has raised a family but will still aid Ariel in her search. As they decide to take a rest for a while (other merman soldiers are searching for Melody throughout the ocean), they don't notice Melody, Tip and Dash sneak into the castle, determined to steal the trident from the one Melody does not know is her grandfather.
Avoiding Triton, Melody manages to take the trident from its stand and flees with Tip and Dash, but accidentally leaves behind her locket. Immediately knowing that Melody is somewhere nearby, Triton commands the search to continue, but Ariel and Flounder notice the flatsos swim off nearby, and tail them.
Eventually, Ariel and Flounder hightail the flatsos to Morgana's lair, and ask Scuttle the seagull to get backup, for they know that they will need it.
[edit] Morgana; Sea Queen
Melody returns to Morgana with the trident in her hands (Undertow scared Tip and Dash off), and prepares to hand it over to the witch just as Ariel and Flounder swim onto the scene. In humorous moment, mother and daughter stare at each other, and both stammer "You're a mermaid?!"
As Morgana and Ariel try to persuade Melody to handover the trident respectively, Morgana tells Melody that Ariel was the one who had lied to her all these years, and Melody, still heartbroken for her mother's discretion, hands the trident over to Morgana, and immediately realizes that she has made the wrong choice.
Morgana wraps Ariel in a tentacle, and blows Melody and Flounder into a hole where she traps them behind a trident-made layer of glass, but not before telling Melody that her mermaid time is almost up. Laughing maniacally, Morgana and Undertow leave the scene with Ariel, leaving Melody to die in front of Flounder.Outside of the lair, Tip and Dash debate over fleeing and living the rest of their lives as cowards, or attempt to rescue Melody and live for two minutes as heroes. Then, before their very eyes, an enormous ice palace emerges from the sea, with Morgana seated on top with the trident in her hands and a struggling Ariel in her tentacles.
The defence squads come to help at last in the form of Triton's sea army and Eric's cavalry. But Morgana easily makes quick work of Eric's boat, and they all jump onto nearby ice (listen hard & you can hear the Wilhelm scream). As Sebastian attacks Undertow, Morgana returns him to his original huge size, and Undertow fends off Triton's army.
To make things worse, Morgana commands the flatsos to pull Eric into the water and drown him. Sebastian swims after them, and Scuttle manages to distract Morgana long enough for Ariel to get free and rescue her husband from death. Sebastian lures the flatsos into a trap, and gets them tied to an icicle.
Meanwhile, Tip and Dash finally decide to rescue Melody and enter Morgana's lair, where they are confronted by Undertow. Dash bravely attacks Undertow and tells Tip to find Melody, but Undertow chases after Tip with Dash holding on to his snout.
Inside Morgana's traphole, Melody's mermaid time expires, and she comes close to drowning, since Flounder is not strong enough to break the glass. Then, they are rescued as Undertow suddenly comes crashing through the glass and bashing himself into the wall. With Tip and Dash's help, Flounder gets Melody to the surface in time.
Morgana is busy making everyone with fins bow to her with the trident. Even Ariel is struck by lightning bolts and forced to bow down; her father resists a little longer, but eventually falls, too. Melody, though, uses her legged opportunity and climbs the ice palace. Just before Morgana kills Triton, Melody snatches the trident and throws it to Triton, but the enraged Morgana mercilessly knocks Melody off the ice palace, and Melody is saved by Dash. Triton catches the trident, and uses it to encase Morgana in a block of ice. With Morgana gone, the ice palace crumbles like the destruction of Krypton in Superman, taking the Morgana block with it to the depths of the ocean and her picture of Ursula sinks with it.
Melody is then reunited with her family, and now that she is safe, Melody uses the trident to disintegrate the hated wall separating her home from the sea.
A party is held, and the humans make friends with the merpeople.
[edit] Voice Cast
- Jodi Benson as Princess Ariel
- Samuel E. Wright as Sebastian
- Tara Strong as Melody
- Pat Carroll as Morgana
- Rob Paulsen as Prince Eric
- Kenneth Mars as King Triton
- Cam Clarke as Flounder
- Buddy Hackett as Scuttle
- Clancy Brown as Undertow
- Max Casella as Tip
- Stephen Furst as Dash
- Rene Auberjonois as Louis the Chef
- Edie McClurg as Carlotta the Maid
- Kay E. Kuter as Grimsby the Valet
- Frank Welker as Max the Sheepdog
[edit] External links
| Characters |
|
Princess Ariel | King Triton | Prince Eric | Flounder | Sebastian | Ursula | Flotsam and Jetsam |
| Films |
|
The Little Mermaid | The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea | The Little Mermaid III |
| Other |
|
The Little Mermaid television Series | The Little Mermaid video game |
