predelection

I feel like one of the issues is probably that in the original, it was just taken for granted that Ariel would like Eric, because girlies be attracted to handsome men. Eric didn't have to actually do anything except stand around and be kinda sexy. Which, despite the obvious gender roles and heteronormativity of these movies, is part of their girlboss appeal IMO. Usually women are the characterless trophies for the main male protagonists, so it's kind of fun to have the male love interest be essentially just a prop for the female protagonist's plot-centric struggles.

I 100% AGREE. I don't need Eric to be deep...this is Ariel's story!

But I think discourse has turned against these kinds of stories, for understandable reasons, such as the aforementioned heteronormativity. But sometimes it makes sense to have a story like this, because the crux of the story really isn't the romance. Like in The Little Mermaid, the story is really about Ariel defying the laws that bind her, exploring the greater world, dealing with being a (hah) fish out of water, and learning to truly fend for herself without parental protection for the first time. Classic coming of age story! It's not really a romance story, it's just that her attraction and potential future life with Eric serves as a good vehicle for the coming of age stuff. So it's kind of a waste of cinematic focus to spend time and effort on Eric's backstory and personal struggles... this isn't about him.

YOU ARE SO CORRECT!! It's a movie not a TV show we just don't have the screen time to get into this! Isn't it ironic that a story about a beautiful young woman coming of age and finding her path in life gets boiled down to a "romance"... I wonder how much screen time is spent on romance with Eric vs other things in the original vs the live action.

Anyway, I think the liberal media zeitgeist has for now swung towards "umm all romance movies should have two well developed characters that have good reasons to Love each other".... that's what I'm at least partially blaming this Eric nonsense on.

I can't emphasize enough how much I disliked seeing Eric talk to Ariel about himself for hours on end...he was like "omg she's different she just gets me etc" and even though I thought the movie did a good job showing Ariel communicate and express herself while mute, I just could not with Eric. Even if Ariel liked it I was just thinking "typical Nice Guy"!