FYI, In The New "The Little Mermaid" Scuttle Isn't A Seagull Anymore, And Here's Why

The Little Mermaid live-action movie is out, and it's about time because I feel like we've been talking about this movie for 72 years.

A month or so back, Disney showed us what the live-action characters looked like.

You probably remember Scuttle looking something like this:

He was a seagull.

Well, not anymore.

Disney/https://twitter.com/HightowerJn/status/1635139595070509057

Scuttle has been turned into a Gannet.

So, why did they do it?

Disney

The director Rob Marshall sat down with Indie Wire and explained why.

“I wanted to make it that Ariel had never ever been to the surface ever. That was the goal for me. She’s never broken that rule, [so that helps] raise the stakes for that moment when she finally does it," he said.

“After she sings ‘Part of Your World’ and she goes [to the surface] for the first time, it’s so shocking and so thrilling. It’s better storytelling,” he continued.

“But then I realized, well, Scuttle, how does she know everything that’s up there? We decided to make her a diving bird so that she could come down and Ariel could meet Scuttle in the water and get all that information there, not above.”

Seagulls never go underwater, so that's why they turned them into a Gannet.

Marshall explained: “They [Gannets] stay underwater for many, many minutes and then go back up."

Makes sense! Now that that's settled we can move on to more important things like Flounder.