Did The Shape of Water Draw Inspiration From "The Little Mermaid?"
A couple of weeks ago, director Guillermo del Toro released his latest masterpiece, The Shape of Water . Though not exactly a princess movie, del Toro tends to draw inspiration from fairy tales and mythology. His 2006 blockbuster Pan's Labyrinth was an "Alice in Wonderland" inspired movie set in the midst of a Spanish war. Like The Shape of Water , it was very much its own story, even though the fairy tale elements were still present. Del Toro is better at using fairy tales as a jumping off point and putting his own spin on his films, which might be one reason that his adaptation of "Pinocchio" got canceled . In the same way that Pan's Labyrinth borrowed elements of "Alice in Wonderland," I think that The Shape of Water borrowed from "The Little Mermaid." Let's take a moment to explore this theory. To begin, drawing inspiration from a story is very different from being an adaptation. Disney's The Little Mermaid was a ...