All spoilers for The Little Mermaid are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Ten years ago, a mermaid dreamed of life on the land. Now, her daughter dreams of the sea.
— Trailer
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea is the 2000 Direct-to-Video sequel to the Disney Animated Canon hit The Little Mermaid. It was directed by Jim Kammerud, with the screenplay by Elizabeth Anderson and Temple Matthews. The film was released on September 19, 2000.
Melody (Tara Strong), the newborn daughter of Ariel (Jodi Benson) and Prince Eric (Rob Paulsen) and the first child born of land and sea, is presented to her grandfather, King Triton (Kenneth Mars). However, Ursula's sister, Morgana (Pat Carroll), tries taking Melody and using her as a hostage to gain Triton's power. Ariel decides to hide Melody from her mermaid past to prevent her making the same mistake she did.
Twelve years later, Melody finds evidence of her seaborne ancestry, and decides to go find out about it, thus playing into Morgana's plans, and forcing Ariel to become a mermaid again to save her daughter.
The film's voice cast also includes Samuel E. Wright as Sebastian, Buddy Hackett (in his final film appearance) as Scuttle, Cam Clarke as Flounder, Max Casella as Tip, Stephen Furst as Dash, Clancy Brown as Undertow, René Auberjonois as Chef Louis, Kay E. Kuter as Grimsby and Edie McClurg as Carlotta.
Followed in production order by The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning.
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea provides examples of:
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- Action Girl: Ariel shows a bit more of it than in the first film. Melody also.
- Actor Allusion: Tip's being a Timon Expy is even more blatant when one remembers that his voice actor, Max Casella, played Timon in the Broadway adaptation of The Lion King.
- The Alliance: Atlantica and the human kingdom of Prince Eric are this.
- Alliance of the Alienated: Melody becomes friends with Tip and Dash as she has similar experiences with being an outcast as the two of them. Despite being the princess of her father’s kingdom, Melody is considered strange by other children her age due to the fact that she can talk to fish and other marine animals. Tip and Dash on the other hand are outcasts when they try to be heroes but end up acting like cowards in real danger.
- Alternative Foreign Theme Song: "Someone"
by Eiko Matsumoto is the theme song for the Japanese version. - Always Someone Better: This is how Morgana sees her older sister Ursula, because of how their mother favored Ursula over her.
- Ambition Is Evil: Like her sister, Morgana wants to rule the ocean and is also obsessed with being better than Ursula.
- And I Must Scream: This seems to be Morgana's fate, as she is trapped in a block of ice. Her eyes can move, but her body can't. Also, her last spoken line is "Mommy?".
- Armor-Piercing Question: After tricking Melody into stealing Triton's trident, Morgana asks her "Is being a mermaid everything you dreamed? Was it worth it?"
- Artistic License – Marine Biology: Depicts sea turtles, hammerhead sharks, barracudas (which apparently sound like grizzly bears), and various tropical fish living in the Arctic, where they would realistically die from the colder temperatures. Also, there are penguins there.
- Avenging the Villain: Subverted. Morgana initially claims that she's coming after Ariel and Eric to avenge the death of her sister Ursula. However, as it turns out, Morgana always hated Ursula for being their mother's favorite and her goal is more about proving herself better by accomplishing what Ursula failed to do.
- Ax-Crazy: It's worth noting that between her and Ursula, Morgana is considered the crazy one.
- Because I Said So: Ariel says this to her own daughter when Melody questions why she isn't allowed to go into the sea.
- Beware the Nice Ones:
- Triton takes on a look of apoplectic fury when Melody is put in danger, then he launches a bolt of lightning and freezes Morgana into ice. If you value your life, things you do not do include harming any of his family.
- Ariel, for her part, uses a goddamn sword to bring down the rigging of a ship onto Morgana to save her child.
- Big Damn Heroes: Tip and Dash use Undertow to break down the ice wall holding Melody and Flounder captive just in time to save her from drowning.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Ariel and Eric kiss each other at the end.
- Big "NO!":
- Ariel yells "No!" shortly before Melody gives the trident to Morgana.
- Melody shouts this when her mermaid transformation wears off while she is still underwater. Notably the last thing she says before losing the ability to talk underwater and beginning to drown.
- Morgana yells "No!" when Melody gives the trident back to Triton.
- Big, Thin, Short Trio: Tip (short) and Dash (big) form a strong bond with Melody (thin).
- Birthday Party Goes Wrong: While Melody is getting ready for her birthday ball at the castle, Sebastian, while trying to avoid being noticed, gets unknowingly tied to Melody's belt, and isn't seen by anyone until the moment Melody is dancing with one of the guests. Sebastian chomps on her partner's finger, causing him to be tossed into her birthday cake, and when Melody tries to reason with him, the guests all laugh at her as Sebastian is chased by Chef Louis, leaving Melody embarrassed at her own birthday.
- Bookends: The film's opening and ending songs ends with King Triton using his trident to create a rainbow.
- "Both Sides Have a Point" Remark: A conflict is enacted when Melody, Ariel's daughter, ends up falling on the opposite path of her mother's (wanting to be a mermaid instead of a human), but Ariel has explicitly kept her in the dark about this side of her heritage due to Ursula's sister Morgana threatening her life (with said withholding of Melody's heritage being born from a well meaning but ill advised attempt to protect Melody). When Melody gets turned into a mermaid by Morgana, Ariel returns to her old mermaid form to track down her kid, leading to the two encountering each other and causing Melody to turn over the stolen trident to Morgana out of frustration for her mother's blatant hypocrisy. In such a case, Melody was right that her mom blatantly hid her true heritage from her for years, and had been lying about it when she could have just told her what was going on. Yet, as immediately demonstrated once Morgana finally has her hands on the trident, Ariel had every right to fear for Melody's safety when Morgana ends up using the trident to almost take over Atlantica and nearly drowns Melody in the process by turning her back into a human, showing that, as wrong as Ariel's approach to the situation was, Morgana was just as much of a threat she feared her to be when she nearly drowned her daughter as a baby. Once Morgana has eventually been dealt with, both mother and daughter acknowledge their mistakes and reconcile, with Melody apologizing to Ariel for her disobedience and giving Morgana the trident, only for Ariel herself to counter that she's the one who should be sorry and that she and Eric truly should have told Melody the truth from the beginning.
- Bullying a Dragon: The party guests who ridicule Melody as her birthday party collapses thanks to Sebastian. At best, that's no way to curry favor with royalty, especially with her parents watching. At worst, she could order them to be thrown in the castle dungeons—or worse. Luckily for them, she's nice enough not to do such a thing.
- By the Hair: Scuttle attempts to stop Morgana by pulling her hair with his talons.Scuttle: You are a very! Bad! Lady! (Morgana whacks him in the face with the trident) Very bad.
- Call-Back:
- Morgana calls Ursula "poor and unfortunate," a reference to the latter's song in the first movie.
- Sebastian laments having to watch over Melody for Triton, just like what he did to Ariel in The Little Mermaid.
- Jacques Offenbach's "Can-Can" from Orpheus in the Underworld once again plays when Chef Louis chases Sebastian, just like in the first film.
- In the first film, Triton lectures Ariel for deliberately disobeying him after discovering her visit to the surface. In this film, Ariel does the exact same thing to Melody after discovering the latter's visit to the sea.
- Melody making a deal with a sea witch after Ariel caused her to run away harkens back to when Triton unwittingly caused Ariel to make her own deal with the sea witch's sister.
- Several bits of Melody's animation mimics Ariel in the first movie, such as when she throws her head back in the same fashion as her mother when she reaches the surface, or in "For A Moment" when she copies some of Ariel's motions from "Part of Your World."
- When Ariel's looking for Melody, she briefly encounters the very same spot where her grotto (very likely rebuilt by Triton) used to be and the very same places where the "Under the Sea" and "Part of Your World" songs took place, as well as the sunken ship where she and Flounder got chased by Glut.
- When Morgana sends Melody on her quest to Atlantica to retrieve the trident, the scene ends with Morgana having a Fade Around the Eyes, mirroring Ursula's introductory scene in the first movie.
- A lot of shots of Melody swimming are exactly the same as Ariel in the first movie. The scene when Melody turns back into a human is also reminiscent of the first film. If compared to Ariel becoming a human side by side, they are exactly the same.
- The Cameo: Many background characters from the first movie show up.
- Child of Two Worlds: Melody is referred to as the first "child born of sea and shore."
- Choose Your Own Reward: King Triton commends Melody for the bravery she showed fighting Morgana and rewards her with "a most precious gift"; the choice of living in Atlantica as a mermaid or returning to her human parents. Instead, she uses his trident to destroy the castle seawall, reuniting the realms of land and sea so they can all live together.
- Chromatic Arrangement:
- The three snooty kids have their own, signature colors: the skinny boy (green), the fat boy (blue), and the blonde girl (orange).
- Alex and his two merteen friends each have different colored fins: Alex (green), the brunette girl (pink), and the Asian boy (purple).
- Contrived Coincidence: Ariel vows that no one will tell Melody about her underwater heritage; at the same time, Melody stares at the ocean and begins sneaking out of the castle to go swimming through the years, and she doesn't tell her parents about that.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: The whole plot could have been avoided if Ariel just simply told Melody that Morgana would kill her if she were to explore the sea. Or if they were to just move inland, away from the ocean. Ariel does lampshade that she should have told Melody the truth.
- Couldn't Find a Tissue: When Sebastian tearfully breaks the news to Ariel that her daughter Melody ran out to the sea, he blows his nose on the hem of her dress.
- Counterpoint Duet: Melody and Ariel sing such a song, "For a Moment".
- Cover Version: Chely Wright's rendition of "Part of Your World" plays over the first half of the ending credits.
- Damsel in Distress:
- The baby penguin who Tip and Dash try to save.
- Lampshaded by Dash in regards to Melody.
- Dances and Balls: Ariel and Eric arrange a ball to celebrate Melody's birthday.
- Dartboard of Hate: Morgana uses starfish to hit a picture of Ursula out of resentment.
- Deal with the Devil: Melody makes a deal with Morgana to use one of Ursula's magic potions and become a mermaid. It doesn't work out so well.
- Didn't Think This Through: Eric builds a huge wall to separate the castle from the ocean to protect Melody; however, neither he nor Ariel thought of making something hard to get past under the water; as Melody manages to maneuver the iron pipes to swim right through and sneak out.
- Disney Villain Death: Many interpret Morgana's fate as this; after being frozen, she falls into the ocean and sinks to the ocean depths, never to be seen again, with her picture of Ursula falling after her.
- Distant Duet: Ariel and her daughter Melody duet from across the sea in "For a Moment". Melody is excitedly trying out her new mermaid tail, and Ariel is looking for Melody, who had run away from home after her disastrous birthday party.
- Distant Prologue: Return to the Sea begins with Melody's birth. The main plot takes place twelve years later.
- Dramatic Irony
- In Ariel's reprimand for Melody going into the sea despite it being forbidden for her, she states that the sea is dangerous. Melody angrily shouts that Ariel couldn't know that since she's never been in it.
- Her frustration over being left in the dark leads Melody to run away the very night her parents decided she was old enough to be told the whole story.
- Evil Is Deathly Cold: During the twelve-year Time Skip, Morgana and her minions hide out in an ice fortress up north. When she gets the trident, she uses it to create massive spires and structures out of ice, in an apparent mockery of Atlantica.
- Fade Around the Eyes: Morgana does this when Melody starts her quest for Atlantica. Maybe being dramatic runs in the family.
- Fantastic Racism: The humans have a low opinion of the merfolk, in contrast to the merfolk and sea life in the first movie towards humans.
- The three snooty kids are blatantly racist towards merfolk and sea life. They can be interpreted as getting over it in the ending.
- Morgana, Undertow, Cloak and Dagger seem to be a case of Hates Everyone Equally. They don't enjoy each other's company very much either.
- Failed a Spot Check: Apparently, Melody, Ariel, Eric, or anyone else at the party didn't even notice Sebastian stuck to Melody's dress sash; by the time he ends up pinching the finger of the handsome boy Melody dances with, it's too late.
- Fearless Infant: Baby Melody laughs and giggles for all of her screen time, including when she is held hostage by Morgana and threatened to be fed to Undertow.
- Feminine Mother, Tomboyish Daughter: Ariel, who used to be a Tomboy Princess as a teenager, is here a proper queen who often gets worried about her rambunctious and tomboyish daughter Melody.
- Forgotten First Meeting: Justified. When Melody meets her grandfather (Triton) after twelve years, she doesn't remember him because she was only a baby when he had to leave. She did, however, get a feeling that he didn't seem like a bad guy.
- The Freelance Shame Squad: Exaggerated at Melody's twelfth birthday party, where all the guests laugh at her, reducing her to tears.
- Friendless Background: It has been implied that Melody did not have any friends and the only person she talked to was Sebastian. Also, she's shown to be mocked for talking to sea creatures.
- Furry Confusion: During Dash and Tip's song, a realistically-drawn crab appears, as opposed to a cartoony one like Sebastian.
- Girliness Upgrade: Ariel's come quite a long way from her curiosity/teen rebel phase, to the point where her own daughter has superseded her when it comes to the Tomboy Princess trope.
- Good Parents: Despite how they handled keeping Melody's true heritage, there is no doubt that Eric and Ariel deeply love Melody and raised her right.
- Graceful Ladies Like Purple: Ariel's dress for Melody's party has a purple color.
- Grim Up North: The villainess Morgana (Ursula's twin sister) makes her home in a polar sea after she's banished from Atlantica.
- Happily Married: Ariel and Eric. This movie shows that they have a stable and loving marriage, despite any dangers they face.
- History Repeats: The movie's conflict happens when Melody's parents decide she can't know anything about the sea—just like King Triton wouldn't let Ariel go onto land. In both cases, the child finds out about it anyway, and hiding it did no good.
- Identical Stranger: Melody dances with a young man who is creeped out by her when he sees her talking to Sebastian. Later, she meets a merboy named Alex, who looks just like him in Atlantica and runs off just after meeting him.
- I Knew There Was Something About You: Melody tells her new fish friends that she's really a human. Tip responds with: "I knew there was something un-fishy about you!"
- Inconsistent Coloring: Ariel doesn't look the same in some scenes. The updated re-release solved this, though. In the scene where Melody and Flounder are trapped beneath Morgana's ice trap, Flounder briefly looks exactly like he did in the first movie, whereas all the other scenes show him as bigger and fatter since he's an adult now. Several background characters from the first film appear here but with the wrong colors; for example, the snails that sing in the "Under the Sea" music number, and the tuba-playing fish (the one which says "yeah") appear in the final song, but their colors are all mismatched.
- Incorrect Animal Noise: During Tip and Dash's eponymous musical number, Tip briefly encounters a barracuda that growls like a grizzly bear.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: Most of the merfolk females and some of the human females are this. Ariel and Melody are this as well.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Melody has close friendships with her mother's friends: Scuttle, Sebastian, and Flounder.
- Interspecies Friendship: Because she is the only half-human/half-mermaid hybrid, all of Melody's friendships would be classified as this. There is also Tip (a Walrus) and Dash (a penguin).
- Interspecies Romance:
- It's pretty clear that Melody and Alex, the merboy she meets in Atlantica, have feelings for each other.
- The failed one she was developing with the blond human prince.
- Intimate Hair Brushing: Ariel and Melody have a heart-to-heart while Ariel is brushing Melody's hair before her birthday party.
- Invisible Parents: Who the mother of Flounder's children is remains a mystery, as she never makes an appearance and is never brought up by Flounder.
- Kill It with Ice: Once King Triton regains his trident, Morgana is frozen in ice and sunk to the depths of the ocean.
- Kneel Before Zod: During the climax, Morgana forces all Sea Folk present to bow before her, including Ariel and Triton.
- Liberating Transformation: Melody has always felt drawn to the sea, but her mother Ariel forbids her from going in it for her own safety, because Morgana tried to kidnap her when she was a baby. Since Ariel never told her about Morgana or what she looked like, Morgana is able to gain Melody's trust by using a tiny drop of Ursula's magic to temporarily turn her into a mermaid, and it feels wonderful and freeing to her, naturally swimming in the sea and breathing underwater.
- Like Parent, Like Child: After a near-death experience out in the open sea, Ariel decided to keep her daughter locked away and hide the knowledge of the mermaid world, like Triton did with her except from the human world.
- Limb-Sensation Fascination: Reversed in the sequel, when Ursula's sister Morgana turns Ariel's daughter Melody into a mermaid. She gets a musical number about figuring out her new fins.
- Load-Bearing Boss: Morgana's entire ice fortress shatters and collapses upon her defeat.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Deconstructed. After Morgana threatens Melody's life for Triton's trident, Ariel decides it's best to keep Melody's mermaid heritage a secret and forbid her from going into the sea. This comes back to haunt her 12 years later since Melody goes to Morgana for help and the sea witch uses Melody's ignorance to her advantage; Ariel even acknowledges that if she had just told Melody the truth in the first place, the entire mess could have been avoided.
- Loophole Abuse: In their argument, Ariel finds out that Melody went over the wall. Melody retorts she went under it.
M-Z
- Magic Pants: Melody's pants disappear when her legs are replaced with a tail, but they reappear when she regains legs.
- Mama Bear: Ariel uses a goddamn sword to bring down the rigging of a ship onto Morgana to save her child and then, when Melody runs away, scours the entire goddamn ocean to find her.
- Maybe Ever After: Melody meets up with Alex again at the ending, and his mutually awkward, loving smile implies he is attracted to her.
- Mermanity Ensues: The entire plot revolves around Melody desiring to become a mermaid, which she accomplishes thanks to Morgana's manipulations.
- A Minor Kidroduction: The protagonist, Melody, is seen as a newborn infant in the first few minutes of the movie before the twelve-year Time Skip.
- Misplaced Vegetation: The film features a massive tropical coral reef beneath a friggin polar ice sheet.note Actual polar marine ecosystems can sometimes appear quite lush, but definitely not tropical coral reefs with colorful fish. That's a pinch from the movie's big geography mess-up. Wait...complete with ice-hating giant clams.
- Misplaced Wildlife: There aren't any polar bears in this movie, but the map Morgana gives Melody clearly shows that the sea witch's hideout is north of Atlantica, so it must be in the Arctic. However, there are penguins living in the area; penguins are only found in the Southern hemisphere. Also, sea turtles, hammerhead sharks, barracudas, and tropical fish shouldn't exist in polar waters.
- Missed Him by That Much: During the search for Melody, Ariel and Flounder make a move on away from Atlantica to find Melody who arrives at where they left shortly after. King Triton and Ariel also return back to the throne room just after Melody left.
- Missing Mom: The wife of Flounder and mother of their guppies doesn't make an appearance.
- Mistaken for Betrayal: Ariel, who was once a mermaid herself, and has married a human, Prince Eric, longs to introduce her baby daughter Melody to the sea. However, because of Ariel's ties and history with the ocean, Melody is almost eaten as a baby by the henchman of Ariel's deceased nemesis's sister Morgana. Ariel feels responsible and horrified she almost lost her daughter so she orders Melody to have absolutely no contact with the sea to protect her, even having a wall built around the castle. However, Ariel's attempt to protect her ends up making Melody even more fascinated with the sea and it gets her into trouble with Morgana. Morgana turns Melody into a mermaid at her wish with the request that she get her Triton's trident to make the change more permanent. Being evil, she has no desire to help Melody and merely wants the trident to rule over land and sea. When Ariel turns back into a mermaid to try to find and help Melody she comes across the two and implores Melody give the trident to her. Morgana manipulates Melody, telling her she's given Melody everything she's ever wanted while Ariel was only lying to her about the sea being dangerous all these years. While Melody does end up giving the trident to Morgana and nearly dooming her family, she didn't think that Morgana actually had it out for them to start with, and her emotional hurt over her mother's misguided attempt to protect her made her act rashly.
- Mood Dissonance: Baby Melody somehow smiling and giggling all while Morgana is holding her hostage.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Melody realizes what she's done after Morgana, holding the trident, reveals her true evil nature and takes her mother hostage and imprisons her in an ice cave. Given to the fact that she let her anger against Ariel driving her to hand over the trident to Morgana, Melody holds herself responsible for dooming her family.
- Ariel gets this when she realizes that Melody had run away from her without even learning about her heritage. Made even worse when Melody finally learns about the truth and confronts Ariel for lying to her before handing over the trident to Morgana, which made Ariel even more guilty than ever. She eventually apologizes to Melody for this following Morgana's defeat in the end.
- Near-Villain Victory: Happens when Morgana succeeds in obtaining the trident by tricking Ariel's daughter Melody into delivering for her in a false promise to make her a permanent mermaid. Upon gaining the trident, Morgana locks up Melody in a underwater cave to drown while taking Ariel prisoner. Even when Triton, Eric and their forces arrive to the rescue, Morgana uses the power of the trident to sink Eric's ship and force Triton and his army (including Ariel) to bow down to her against their will; she even reverts Undertow back to his normal size, much to his delight. However, Undertow ends up crashing into the underwater cave thanks to Tip and Dash, allowing them to rescue Melody, who then nabs the trident and returns it back to Triton, who then encases Morgana in ice.
- Never Say "Die": Keeping in tone with the usual Lighter and Softer treatment of Disney sequels, though it was done in a fairly decent way.Morgana: Ursula would've loved to have come, but something came up.. now what was it.. oh yes, you all SHISH-KEBABBED HER!
- Never Trust a Trailer: In the original trailer, the scene of Melody becoming a mermaid actually consisted of reversed animation of her changing back into a human.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: While Melody did make the mistake of letting the Obviously Evil sea witch talk her into stealing Triton's trident, it is Ariel's own decision to keep Melody's entire heritage a secret from her for her whole life that prompts her daughter to run away out of spite and in turn take Morgana's word over her mother's. When Ariel finally reveals her true mermaid self to Melody, it is the last straw for Melody, and she angrily gives Morgana the trident before realizing the severity of her mistake. If not for Ariel's shortsighted decision, everyone might've been spared a lot of trouble.
- No Man of Woman Born: Morgana's taunt: "The end begins for all of you with fins!" Melody, having legs, is exempt and this leads to Morgana’s defeat.
- No Name Given: We don't know the names of a few vital characters:
- Tip's main family, who are implied to also be Dash's adopted family.
- The three snooty kids at Melody's birthday party.
- Flounder's children.
- The two other merteens, not including Alex, that Melody befriends.
- Not Allowed to Grow Old: Ariel, Eric, Grimsby, Carlota, Louis and the other castle folk don't age one bit between the 12-year Time Skip.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Ariel, Eric, Triton and their friends, especially Sebastian, at the start when Morgana captures the newborn Melody.
Sebastian: URSULA’S CRAZY SISTER!- Ariel, when she realizes that Melody has found her locket in the ocean.
- Sebastian, upon realizing that Melody is going to run off into the sea.
- Ariel, Triton, Flounder, and Sebastian have a Mass "Oh, Crap!" moment when Melody steals Triton's trident.
- Ariel and Melody, when the latter realizes that she has doomed themselves and Atlantica to Morgana's wrath.
- Sebastian screams in shock the moment Morgana returns Undertow to his original size.
- Melody panics when she realizes that she is about to be transformed back into a human.
- Morgana when Melody stabs her tentacle with the trident, coupled with a Big "NO!" when Melody returns the trident to Triton. Then again seconds later when Triton freezes Morgana into a block of ice.
- Papa Wolf:
- Eric was ready and willing to take on Morgana with a sword when he learned she had something to do with Melody's disappearance.
- Want to make Triton angry? If so, hurt Ariel. Then, he'll utterly own you. If you want to really piss him off, hurt his granddaughter. Then, he will utterly own you and make you pay for all eternity in a MAHOOSIVE block of ice.
- Parental Favoritism: Morgana revealed that her older sister Ursula was favored over her and that she was always compared to Ursula, and in the climax of the movie, it's shown that Morgana had Mommy Issues over it.
- Pimped-Out Dress: Ariel has a white and gold dress at the beginning of the film. She and Melody wear similar dresses for Melody's birthday, except Ariel's is purple and Melody's is pink.
- Piranha Problem: Morgana's minion Undertow, who is really a giant tiger shark, spends most of the film trapped in a piranha-like form thanks to King Triton's magic. However, as he is the only piranha in the movie, he doesn't do much in the way of swarming and devouring.
- Polar Bears and Penguins: Melody traveling up north to the Arctic, where she encounters penguins along with the standard Arctic fauna such as narwhals, harp seals and walruses. In fact, she befriends a penguin and walrus duo, Tip and Dash.
- Poor Communication Kills: Melody is never told why she's not to go beyond the seawall. This becomes extremely problematic once Melody finds her grandfather's gift to her.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Triton yells "Never again will you or yours threaten my family! There will be no escape for you... ever!" as he freezes Morgana in a block of ice.
- Princesses Prefer Pink: Melody's party dress is pink.
- Protagonists Become Bad Parents: Ariel and Eric keeps Melody's mermaid heritage a secret to protect her from being taken hostage by Ursula's crazy sister Morgana, and try to keep her away from the sea. Melody becomes very upset when she learns her parents have kept such a vital part of her heritage from her. Sebastian even lampshades how Ariel is acting as overprotective as her father did to her.
- Race Against the Clock: Melody faces this dilemma. She made a deal with the devil with Morgana. While Melody was able to become a mermaid with Morgana’s magic, it would have only been temporary. This is why Morgana instructed Melody to find King Triton’s trident and give it to her before Morgana’s magic wore off and Melody would turn back into a human.
- Really Royalty Reveal: Ariel's daughter Melody figures out she is descended from mermaids when she discovers a locket with her name on it in the ocean that was actually a gift for her as a baby showing the kingdom of Atlantica.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: After obtaining the trident, Morgana reveals she tricked Melody into stealing from Triton and giving it to her and calls her out for being so desperate for her dream that she let herself fall victim to her Evil Plan, and not listening to her mother when she tried to warn her.
- Reconstruct the Remains: In the previous movie, King Triton destroyed Ariel's collection of human objects in a fit of rage upon learning that Ariel fell in love with the human Eric. In this movie, after Ariel is turned back into a mermaid, we see her in her old grotto at one point with her human collection fully restored, presumably rebuilt by Triton.
- Red Filter of Doom: At Melody's birthday party, when she looks around and the camera swivels in a wide circle to show everyone laughing at her.
- Redhead in Green: One of the teens at Melody's birthday party is a redheaded girl wearing a green dress.
- Rejected Apology: During the climax, when Ariel tries to apologize and explain herself to Melody for lying to her about her mermaid heritage her whole life, Melody tells her point-blank that it's "too late" and spitefully hands the trident over to Morgana. Immediately afterward, Morgana reveals her true colors to Melody and why Ariel did what she did. In the end, Melody does accept the apology.
- Remember the New Guy?: "Ursula's crazy sister" Morgana is introduced as the Big Bad. Of course, she was never shown in the first movie. There wasn't even a clue to Ursula having a sister, and the old characters already know her.
- Retcon: At one point in mermaid form, Ariel sings in her grotto—which Triton destroyed in the first movie. However, it's possible he fixed it up as a token of apology.
- A Rotten Time to Revert: After tricking Melody into handing over her grandfather's trident, Morgana seals her in an underwater cave blocked by a thick layer of ice, while warning her that her temporary transformation into a mermaid is about to wear off, leaving her to drown. She almost does, but Tip and Dash are able to save her.
- Running Away to Cry: Melody runs away crying to her room after being embarrassed at her birthday dance and everybody laughing at her. Later, she discovers the necklace that has her name on it and Ariel scolds her for going outside of the wall and into the ocean where it's not safe for her. Melody calls out on Ariel for never being in the ocean, but she doesn't know that Ariel was a mermaid before she became human. Melody takes the necklace from her mother's hand and runs out of her room crying.
- Safety Worst: Melody almost getting killed by Morgana and Undertow as a baby makes Ariel and Eric decide that they should hide Melody's mermaid ancestry from her completely and forbid her from swimming in the sea, even building a giant wall between the palace and the ocean. They had a right to be worried about her exploring the ocean unsupervised, but cutting it off completely just needlessly gave Melody trust issues and made her more susceptible to getting tricked by Morgana with her lack of knowledge on Atlantica.
- Same Plot Sequel: Ariel's daughter Melody goes through the same plot as her mother in The Little Mermaid, only with the land and the sea inverted this time: teenage girl wants to live in the other element, overprotective parent stops her from doing so, she rebels and makes a deal with a power-hungry sea witch.
- Screams Like a Little Girl: Sebastian does this thrice when he gets thrown from Melody's belt in her party, when he reports to Ariel that Melody ran away and when he encounters something terrifying under the sea.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: After regaining his trident, Triton ultimately gets rid of Morgana by encasing her within a big block of ice that promptly sinks into the dark, frigid arctic waters. She's completely conscious and aware of everything happening around her. Yep, don't mess with Triton.
- Shown Their Work:
- In the opening sequence, Morgana uses her ink the same way real octopi do-as a Smoke Out.
- The harp seal family whom Melody briefly encounters are correctly colored. The mother has a grey coat with dark spots, while her cubs are all white.
- Sickly Green Glow: When Morgana finally has the trident in her possession, it turns from sunlight gold to sickly green. Bizarrely enough, the trident didn't change color when Ursula had it in the original film (just glowed with an even brighter yellow).
- Silence Is Golden: The only dialogue exchanged during the scene where Melody discovers her locket in the ocean are Sebastian's grumbling, and a fish saying "Hi, Melody." This is justified, as Melody cannot talk when underwater, but once she becomes a mermaid, she can.
- Sinister Stingrays: Ursula's sister Morgana has two stingray minions named Cloak and Dagger who each sport a Slasher Smile.
- Sinister Suffocation: The Big Bad reveals her true nature by trapping Melody in an underwater cave. To further distress the young girl, she mockingly says that the spell that turned the heroine into a mermaid is about to wear off and she is doomed to drown.
- Smoking Barrel Blowout: Morgana does this with the trident after returning her minion to normal size.
- Speak in Unison: Ariel finally finds Melody under the sea and both mother and daughter, shocked at each other's forms, exclaim "You're a mermaid?"
- Stock Scream: A Wilhelm scream can be heard when Morgana uses Triton's trident to sink Eric's ship.
- Strong Family Resemblance:
- Melody combines her parents' features, such as having her mother's face and hair shape, but her father's eyebrows and hair color. She and her mom also have the same nose and similar ears, as well as the same mouth and same eyes.
- One of Flounder's sons looks exactly like the younger Flounder. In fact, the guppy looked so much like Flounder, Ariel initially mistook him for Flounder.
- Surprise Sibling: Ursula's crazy sister, Morgana. In spite of being her sister, it was never mentioned by Ursula in the first movie that she had a sibling, possibly due to Morgana's status as The Un-Favorite to their mother, as Morgana proclaims frequently.
- Take a Third Option: At the end of the film, King Triton offers Melody a choice to either live with him in Atlantica as a mermaid, or stay human and live with her family. She chooses neither. Instead, she uses his trident to dissolve the castle's seawall so both humans and merfolk can live together, with her presumably getting to spend her teenage years switching between human and mermaid form.
- Teeth Flying: Happens to Morgana's pet tiger shark Undertow near the end of movie after accidentally hitting a wall and is presumably killed. Since sharks inevitably grow their teeth back immediately if they all were to fall out of their mouths, it's possible that Undertow may have actually survived.
- Tentacle Rope: Morgana grabs and holds Ariel using her tentacles.
- Terrible Trio: Morgana's henchmen: Undertow, Cloak, and Dagger.
- This Is Gonna Suck: In the first half of the film, Undertow laments "This is gonna hurt." shortly before he's subjected to Morgana's experiments to try and restore his normal size.
- Those Two Guys: Tip and Dash, a walrus and a penguin provide a couple of comedic shenanigans in the film.
- Time Skip: The film opens with Melody's birth and then skips ahead twelve years.
- Token Trio: The merteens Melody meets in Atlantica: Alex is Ambiguously Brown, the brown-haired brunette mergirl is white, and the black-haired merboy is Asian.
- Took a Level in Badass: Flounder. In the first film, he was terrified of everything, but in this film, he refuses point blank to leave Ariel and tells her that "wild seahorses couldn't keep [him] away" when she asks for his help. He even gets himself into a head-match with Undertow by calling him up a pipsqueak, refusing to either back down or run away despite Undertow's threats.
- Took a Level in Kindness: The snooty kids who marginalize Melody end up playing with Melody in the water at the end. This implies Melody forgave them, and the trio made amends.
- A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: Like her mother before her, Melody's impatience and unwillingness to listen to Ariel's advice cause her to make a Deal with the Devil with Morgana and almost doom the kingdom.
- Transformation Exhilaration: Both Ariel and Melody turn into mermaids in a calm, pleasant manner. Melody is particularly excited, since she has dreamed of being a mermaid for a long time, but even Ariel, who is worried about her lost daughter, smiles as she becomes a mermaid again.
- Triumphant Reprise: Near the end, when Melody removes the wall between land and sea, a triumphant version of "Part of Your World" plays in instrumental briefly.
- Two Guys and a Girl:
- An interspecies example: Melody (mer-human), Tip (penguin), and Dash (walrus).
- The snooty kids at Melody's birthday party.
- Alex and the other two merteens that Melody befriended.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Sebastian getting stuck in Melody's belt is what leads to her getting humiliated on her birthday.
- Unwitting Pawn: Melody becomes one to Morgana, who was intending to use her to get King Triton's trident and rule the seas.
- Updated Re-release: The Special Edition DVD tweaks a few scenes to make Ariel look less Off-Model.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show:
- Morgana tries to feed a baby to a shark.
- She was also willing to commit slavery and genocide against both the merfolk and humans in order to get her own way.
- Villainous Face Hold: Morgana has Ariel caught in one of her tentacles and grabs her jaw to make her look at her in order to mock Melody.
- Villain Has a Point:
- Undertow can be surprisingly insightful. He tells Morgana that she cannot keep trying to blame Ursula for her own failures, and he asks Melody what kind of friends Tip and Dash are if they would abandon her at the first sign of danger.
- Towards the end of the film, Morgana notes that it was wrong for Ariel to cover up the truth about her heritage, since it caused Melody to make a Deal with the Devil with Morgana and ultimately doom Atlantica.
- The Voiceless:
- Morgana's henchmen, Cloak and Dagger, don't speak. However, they do cackle.
- The short, fat snooty kid at Melody's birthday party also has no lines.
- Warm-Hearted Walrus: Dash the walrus is a kind-hearted simpleton, the sea mammal version of Pumbaa.
- Water Is Air: It appears that Tip and Dash can breathe underwater. Though they often do spend a great deal of time underwater, penguins and walruses cannot breathe in it and need to surface regularly to do so.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Just like her father, Ariel's motives were to protect her daughter.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Melody calls out Ariel after learning that the latter was a mermaid and covered it up (along with the existence of Atlantica) from her, which made Ariel extremely guilty.
- You Are Too Late: Melody says "Too late, mom" to Ariel after learning that she covered up her heritage as a mermaid and the existence of Atlantica from her, driving her to give the trident to Morgana to spite Ariel for this. She instantly regrets it though.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Melody's protection also meant Ariel would be unable to visit Atlantica again, not without the risk of revealing her true origins.
- "You!" Exclamation:
- Chef Louis to Sebastian, who follows up with a squeak of "You!" when the former recognizes him.
- Morgana also does one to Melody when Melody sneaks up on the sea witch and takes the trident back.
- Youthful Freckles:
- One of Flounder's kids has freckles.
- The fat, short kid of the snooty kid trio also has freckles.
