Plenty of Disney aficionados have seen The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea
But the third Mermaid movie, the prequel Ariel's Beginning, is less known.
Everything starts out fine and we get to meet Ariel's mom, the lovely Athena...
...right before she gets murdered by pirates in front of her children
King Triton then falls into a decade-long depression potentially characterized as Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder.
Under the oppressive thumb of an all-powerful king, rebel movements spring up with sleeper agents living within the castle walls.
And the King's daughters act against their father by visiting a forbidden speakeasy, an action punishable by sea-death.
There's also the "villain" Marina, a mermadam who displays the ability to —wait for it— change her tail?
In the end everything works out (after Ariel almost gets killed like her mom), but man — Ariel's Beginning sounds a lot like an undersea nightmare version of Footloose.