Talk:The Little Mermaid (live action film)/@comment-25345262-20171227213248/@comment-1672596-20171231220958

To be fair, the Expanded Universe materials for The Little Mermaid has hinted at lengthy lifespans for the merpeople anyways (the episode where Triton basically gets turned into a kid has Triton when sealing away the Sorceress "See you next century", implying that he was at LEAST over a century old since he sealed her away as a young man. Plus, Ariel seems to have barely even aged a day in Return to the Sea).

As far as the original tale and the remake, I agree, Disney wouldn't dare touch the ending subject matter of that tale for the remake since... well, it doesn't really end well. You want a good idea of how audiences will react to the ending? Just show them Senator Kelly's demise in the X-Men Movie and pay for the resulting psychological counseling. Besides, honestly, I found Ariel to be far more virtuous than that brat from the original tale. At least Ariel goes out of her way to save her friends and actually cleans up her messes, unlike the mermaid who pretty much just ditched her family, and even when given the opportunity to save them chose to off herself. And she's the only one who gets a happy ending. Yeah, I really hated the original tale, and not because it had a sad ending (I can handle sad endings. After all, I liked Batman: Under the Red Hood and Mega Man Zero 4), but because it came across as encouraging someone acting like a selfish brat and basically being rewarded for it (had it been me in God's shoes, let's just say that I wouldn't be so merciful to her for what she did).