Beauty and the Beast
I don’t know why, I guess I’m on my Disney right now. Either way, this film might actually be one of my favorite classic Disney animated films. Being the first ever animated film to be nominated for a best picture Oscar, I think it’s safe to say that I’m not the only one. Sure it came out during the Disney Renaissance and not in the early days of the studio to necessarily be considered a classic in that sense, I still think it’s deserving of a lot of praise even 33 years after its release. From great hand-drawn animation, lovable characters, fantastic songs, and a tale as old as time, this movie really does have many things to appreciate in it. Not only that but several layers to it that most kids may not pick up on at first (namely me as a kid), but adults can respect and enjoy all the more.
To put it in a different light, I’ll tell you that my first time re-watching this movie for the sake of this review I was actually playing a game while I had the movie on in the background. Usually I at least like to do something like this so I can give myself a bit of a ‘refresher’ so to speak before I start analyzing the content. However, about one third of the way into the film, I actually turned my game off and opted to watch the movie straight up. Clearly the movie is doing something right if it got a Gen Z’er like myself to turn away from my video-game to sit down and stare at a screen for an hour and a half. I want to keep this intro relatively short since I’m sure most people reading this already know this movie fairly well, but maybe we’ll all discover some things we didn’t notice when we were kids watching this movie. Let’s find out together!
Remember to give your roses plenty of sun and show some respect for your local kooky inventor, because this is Beauty and the Beast!
We open on some gorgeous shots of this castle where we’re instantly introduced to the genre of film that we’re watching as a narrator begins talking with his first words being “Once upon a time.” As soon as he says those words, heck, even when you see the hand drawn shots of the castle you know exactly what kind of movie you’re watching. This is going to be a classic fairy tale as retold by Disney which of course is going to be much brighter in tone than the original source material. There are definitely moments of that in the movie where it leans pretty heavily into humor and lightheartedness, but I think that despite being a Disney-fied version of the original story, it does still have dark moments in it which make me appreciate it more.
Either way the narrator gives us the backstory, which is cleverly only a few minutes long, about how a selfish prince who tried to turn an old woman away from his castle for being too ugly gets turned into a beast since the old woman was actually an enchantress the whole time. Also she’s hot. I mean it’s a bit hard to tell given the stained glass artwork, but they say she’s beautiful so she’s beautiful. She gives him a rose and if he can’t learn to love and be loved in return by another before the rose dies, he’ll stay a beast forever. This also brings up one thing that most people who’ve seen this movie point out as a plot hole: why did everyone in the village forget the castle existed? Clearly it was a prosperous kingdom before this happened, so you’d think the castle that’s a horse’s ride away from the town Belle lives in would be hard to forget about, but I ultimately give it some leeway considering the fact that it is a fairy tale.
Sure I could nitpick aspects like that, which there’s another one I’d like to discuss when it comes up, but this is still the same movie where the magic hot chick turns a prince into a monster only Deviantart could love and the rest of his staff into furniture, silverware, and cooking tools. Clearly this setup isn’t trying to be the most logical. Also, considering the story they’re working with, it’s surprising they got it to be as believable as it is, even when accounting for that detail. It’s at this point that we cut to our protagonist Belle ‘Last Name Unknown’ (played by Paige O’Hara) in her little town full of little people who love to wake up and say: “What, you thought this wasn’t a musical?”
Honestly, a lot of the songs in this are pretty great. Of course this first song titled 'Belle’ is very hummable and gives us a lot of insight on the town, who Belle is, why she doesn’t fit in, and the kind of person Gaston is (played by Richard White). We all know the titular song ‘Beauty and the Beast’ played later as well as ‘Be Our Guest’, but even the smaller song that’s only meant to be a transitional aid during the romantic development, ‘Something There’, is decent in its own right being sung well, orchestrated nicely, and animated playfully. One thing I especially enjoy about ‘Belle’ is that the song more or less foreshadows what would likely attract her to the Beast. She mentions in the library how her favorite book involves magic spells and a prince in disguise while she sings to the sheep by the fountain about how her favorite part of the book is when the princess meets the prince but doesn’t realize it’s him until later. Another thing I enjoy in this sequence is how Gaston isn’t introduced as a straight up villain like Maleficent, the Evil Queen, or Claude Frollo. When we first see him he’s just kind of an ass and only throughout the events of the movie we see how cruel he can be.
On that note, he and his buddy LeFou (played by Jesse Corti) laugh a bit too hard at Belle’s father’s latest inventing mistakes causing Belle to scold them and run off to help him. Her father Maurice (played by Rex Everhart) is just tuning up his biggest project yet but has hit a bit of a snag until Belle comes in to give him a pep talk. Sure enough that’s all he needed because he gets his wood chopper fixed allowing him to bring it to the fair so he can win an award and become a world famous inventor. However he ends up getting lost on his way which is what leads him to the castle. Not before setting up the wolves that’ll chase Belle later. Here’s where I’d like to mention that I feel like the pacing in this movie is spot on. It never feels like any of the moments here are pointless or aren’t progressing the story, all of the scenes in this film are needed for the purposes of telling the story, setting up the characters, developing those characters, creating tension, and building chemistry between our leads. By the time Maurice makes it to the castle and is introduced to Lumiere and Cogsworth (played by Jerry Orbach and David Ogden Stiers) only 15 minutes have passed.
Despite being only an hour and a half long movie, it in no way feels rushed or cut down even when comparing the extended cut to the original theatrical release. The only difference between these two versions is the inclusion/exclusion of the ‘Human Again’ song sung by the castle staff when they’re preparing the castle for Belle’s and Beast’s big night together. Even without the inclusion of that song it’s so well edited that you could assume that’s how the film was always intended to be watched. I could tell only because I only ever watched the extended cut on DVD as a kid while they only have the original theatrical release available on Disney+. Personally I prefer the extended cut including the ‘Human Again’ song because I really enjoy getting to see more of the staff, how they interact with each other, and watching them do their jobs along with the ‘Be Our Guest’ sequence.
All that aside, Maurice is welcomed warmly by the castle’s staff with the exception of Cogsworth who’s constantly worried about what’ll happen to him at the hands of the Beast and uptight about everything which is pretty funny. That along with the contrast between his and Lumiere’s character who’s more outgoing, friendly, and proud of his work makes Cogsworth even funnier. Even with being introduced to characters like Mrs. Potts (played by Angela Lansbury) and her son Chip (played by Bradley Pierce), this can’t save us from the wrath of the Beast (played by Robby Benson) who enters and is not happy with anything that’s going on. His entrance, despite having already seen what he looks like earlier in the intro, is still pretty intimidating with the animation, music, and voice work that accompanies it. We also get the perfect idea of what he’s like in these few moments.
While he may seem unnecessarily cruel (which he is) in this scene where he ends up throwing Maurice in a cell in the prisoner tower, you can totally understand why he’d be like this. In ‘Be Our Guest’ one of the lyrics mentions how they’ve been cursed for 10 years at this point. We’ve also learned from the intro that the Enchantress intended for the curse’s cut-off time to be during the year the Beast is 21. This means that the Beast got cursed, conservatively, when he was 11 years old! Not only has he been like this for an inordinate amount of time, but this happened to him when he was only a kid, so it kinda makes you wonder what the motives of the Enchantress were. Given this information you can reasonably assume that the Beast is essentially a terrified child trying to live with the reality of his situation as best he can, but also that since it’s been as long as it’s been he’s just resigned himself to the ‘beast lifestyle’ on account of it being so close to the time when the curse’s cut-off time is said to be. I don’t agree with his decision to lock Maurice up, but what I’m saying is I understand why he would do it.
After this scene we cut back to the village where Gaston is attempting to propose to Belle. Kinda weird he hasn’t proposed to her yet but he’s still invited the entire town, procured a band, set up seats, gotten food prepared, and more given he doesn’t know what her answer is going to be. During this sequence as Gaston enters Belle’s house we see how much of a creeper he can be as he consistently backs Belle into corners trying to prevent her from saying no to him until she cleverly kicks him out into a mud puddle. It’s here we also see his cruelness emerge as he angrily says to LeFou that Belle will be his wife and storms off covered in mud. Meanwhile Belle is pissed Gaston would even present the idea of them getting married so she runs to her backyard and sings her frustration away until Maurice’s horse Philippe (played by Hal Smith) runs up to her worried about his master. Belle instantly understanding that something is wrong takes Philippe back to where he left Maurice.
We make our way back to the castle and we see Belle get steadily led to the location of her father by Lumiere and Cogsworth where she also comes in contact with the Beast for the first time. This sequence is probably one of the most emotionally intricate of the film as we see Belle think for a moment before she proposes that the Beast let Maurice go and take her instead, the Beast hear’s her proposal and thinks for a moment about what this could mean for him while also being stunned by Belle’s altruism and love for her father. After the Beast sends Maurice off, we come back to the tower to see Belle crying about how she didn’t get to say goodbye to her father which causes the Beast to feel a twinge of guilt. Spurred on by Lumiere’s suggestion of giving Belle a better room he invites her to come follow him while still being ill-tempered and domineering. Also Belle’s reaction to this suggestion is pretty funny too. In the process of leading Belle to her new room he sees her crying silently to herself and tries again to be hospitable by allowing her to go wherever she wants in the castle except the west wing. She tries to ask him why, but he cuts her off quickly and suspiciously establishing that he has an uncomfortable connection to it. Once in Belle’s new room the Beast invites her to dinner in his beastly way before slamming the door in her face causing the weight of Belle’s decision to finally hit her in this moment where she collapses on her new bed and sobs her eyes out.
I know I spent a lot of time breaking down that previous scene, but it really does get a lot of information across in very little time and mostly just through the animation and voice work. It’s this kind of storytelling that really gets me engrossed and also makes this film one of my favorites of the classic Disney lineup. However, back in town Gaston is upset after being rejected by Belle so LeFou sings a nice little song to cheer him up, literally called ‘Gaston’. Once again we see how Gaston, while not the most conniving or cunning type of villain, at least has his physical strength and intimidation factor that makes him a worthy one among other Disney villains. ‘Gaston’ as a song is really funny and playful while also being mildly disturbing.
And every last inch of me’s covered with hair!
During this sequence we see Maurice burst in screaming for someone to help him rescue Belle from the Beast. Everyone there doesn’t believe he actually saw a beast though so they boot him out which is when Gaston hatches an idea. We’ll see this come back into play later, but I’ll save that for later as well. Back at the castle, the Beast is waiting for Belle to come down for dinner while Lumiere and Mrs. Potts give him a crash course on being a gentleman. Probably one of my favorite things about the Beast is that while he’s rough around the edges on the outside, he’s still a pretty big dork on the inside which gets some pretty good laughs out of me whenever I see this scene. Cogsworth comes down though and tells the Beast Belle isn’t coming which is what causes Beast to lose it and run upstairs to Belle’s room. They get into a heated argument and while this scene is mostly uncomfortable it’s also pretty funny with how the Beast tries to calm himself down and be polite. In the end the Beast says Belle won’t eat if she doesn’t eat with him. Not long after this encounter though, Belle sneaks out of her room ready to eat and the staff, except Cogsworth, fix her a dinner which starts off the showstopping song: ‘Be Our Guest’.
Much like the first time you saw this scene, it’s still just as fun and visually stunning as you remember it. It serves as a much needed levity after a lot of the tense/uncomfortable scenes we’ve seen before it and is what most people take away from the movie after seeing it. One thing I should add is that this sequence along with the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ sequence later has a few moments of early 90’s CG that can be a bit dated, but it’s not really the focus and is often in the background which makes it easier to overlook as the stellar hand-drawn animation is still at the center of both of them. With dinner finished, Belle convinces Cogsworth to give her a tour of the castle which she uses as an excuse to sneak into the west wing where we see why the Beast was so adamant about Belle not going in it. Sure we’ve seen this place a couple times in the movie already, but it’s obvious that this is where the Beast goes to be a tortured soul since everything is destroyed and ravaged, so it serves as a jarring moment for the audience. Paintings are torn, furniture strewn about, cobwebs everywhere, with the only thing untouched being the enchanted rose. Belle tries to get a closer look but that’s when the Beast comes in and doesn’t take her being there well.
GET OUT!
This results in Belle leaving. Yeah, she just straight up leaves. I like how they have this romantic progression seem so believable because I know I wouldn’t want to stay after something like this either. Also the Beast told her to get out, so she’s at least following directions. She hops on Philippe, because he was so nice to wait there for her the whole time, and she tries to get back home only to be stopped by the wolves from earlier. It looks like she might be done for until the Beast shows up and fights off the wolves. Before Belle ran out, we saw a brief moment of the Beast back in the west wing after yelling at her where he looks guilty for what he did. This also comes back into play later in the movie which I think is pretty clever showing more growth on his part. Him coming to rescue her was probably the Beast realizing that Belle is his last hope for becoming human so he has to do what he can to make her like him. Once the wolves are gone we catch a glimpse of blood in a G-rated movie before the Beast passes out and Belle has a change of heart after seeing him rescue her like that. She takes him back to the castle to mend his wounds and they both have another argument. Belle wins this time and thanks the Beast for saving her which causes his demeanor to soften again and officially begins their romantic development.
Meanwhile we pick up again with Gaston where he’s bribing the head of the local insane asylum Monsieur D’Arque (played by Judge Claude Frollo himself: Tony Jay) to take Maurice away unless Belle agrees to marry him. Most of this scene is just setting up for the third act when Belle returns home, but it also does give us a better idea of how manipulative he is which puts him more squarely in the Disney villain category. Maurice also sets out on his own to bring Belle back himself, but it looks like Gaston and LeFou just missed him. Since neither Belle nor Maurice are home Gaston tells LeFou to stay outside their house until they get back. Like I said, mostly set up for the third act, but at least it doesn’t last very long. Then back with Belle and the Beast we see them start to bond which also leads me to the other main thing I wanted to discuss about this movie that most people mention: Stockholm Syndrome.
Stockholm Syndrome is a phenomenon that can occur between captor and prisoner in the real world where the prisoner becomes emotionally connected to their captor to the point they feel the need to assist them in their objective. I personally don’t think that’s what’s happening here in the movie. While yes Belle is technically the Beast’s prisoner, Stockholm Syndrome happens when prisoners are made aware of the captor’s demands, but Belle never finds out that the Beast needs to fall in love and she has to fall in love with him as well in order to break the spell. If she did know that she may not have left the Beast later in the movie to save Maurice when he was in trouble. That and the Beast actually sacrifices his own objective later in the movie for the sake of showing someone he cares about true kindness and love even if that love isn’t reciprocated. In typical instances of Stockholm Syndrome you wouldn’t see this sort of complex emotional growth take place with the prisoner and the captor. This is why this movie doesn’t really fit the example of Stockholm Syndrome most people mention to me. Not even the remake. The remake comes closer to true Stockholm Syndrome than the original, but I still wouldn’t call it a good example. Either way, that’s also a discussion for a different day.
I should also mention as well that in these scenes of Belle and Beast getting to know each other we actually hear Beast sing. I’m not really sure how I feel about this. Not to say that his singing is bad, not at all, I’m just not really sure it’s a good fit for his character. I know they’re emphasizing that he’s learning and growing as a person in these moments, but I wouldn’t think he would be to the point where he would feel comfortable singing yet, even if it’s just in his head. Like most things that I’m uncertain about when it comes to this movie though, it at least doesn’t last that long.
We naturally come to the most iconic portion of the movie with Belle and the Beast in the ballroom. Before that we catch a few moments of the Beast preparing with Lumiere which is both cute and funny. Then we see Belle and the Beast meet up on the stairway, they eat together, the Beast finally learns how to use a spoon, they head to the ballroom, before they dance the Beast looks visibly nervous, then they dance to Mrs. Potts’ rendition of ‘Beauty and the Beast’, and they soften in each other’s arms cementing their newfound relationship together. An iconic moment mostly because this is the culmination of all the romantic tension that’s been building between these two over the past few scenes of them getting familiar with each other. It’s adequately built up, visually interesting, heartwarming, and genuine. However, Belle remembers her father and starts to feel upset. That’s when the Beast tells her about the mirror that he has that can show him anything. Belle uses it to see her father which is when she finds out he’s not in good shape trying to look for her. She’s freaking out about how he might die, so Beast thinks for a moment, looks at the dying rose, grimaces, and tells her she can leave to save him while choking back tears. It’s a very emotional moment and you feel for the Beast knowing that he’s giving up so much and now he’ll never get the chance to become human again. Knowing Disney, of course that’s not going to stick, but for the time being it’s done well.
After rescuing her father Belle returns home with him, LeFou rings for the asylum keepers, and Chip has mysteriously stowed away in Belle’s bag. I’m not really sure how he managed to do that, but since this is the only hastily written moment to keep the runtime down, I’ll take it. Monsieur D’Arque, LeFou, Gaston, and the rest of the town appear at the door and try to take Maurice away for making up beasts, but Belle stops them by showing the Beast through the mirror. This gets Gaston to rile up the townspeople to kill the Beast to protect the village and I’ll never watch this scene the same way again. Not because it’s violent and intense, but because I learned that to save on animation the animators replaced full scenes of the townspeople marching to the castle gates with shots of weapons being held aloft and brief moments of shadows being cast on trees. Disney animators are really talented, but they can also be pretty lazy. Of course Gaston and the town lock Maurice and Belle in their home cellar and of course Chip rescues them using Maurice’s wood chopper machine which I still have no idea how he managed to get it working, but whatever.
Once inside the castle the furniture attacks the invaders, giving Disney another comedic climax alongside all the other comedic climaxes they had at this point in their existence, while Gaston goes after the Beast himself. I also like how we see that the furniture are doing their best to prevent the castle from being overrun while the Beast has completely given up. When I was younger I didn’t understand why the Beast just let the invaders into the castle, but now that I’m older I totally get it. At this point he thinks Belle has left him and no one else will never love him like she did, so he’s completely given up now. Not only that, but Gaston’s character in this scene makes a lot more sense to me too. We saw earlier in the movie how he’s basically just a hunter, and that paired with the fact that he’s (correctly) assuming that Belle has a thing for the Beast is what makes him want to take him down personally. Both for the sake of winning Belle’s affection, and for the purposes of mounting a one of a kind beast’s head on his wall among the rest of his kills.
When Gaston fights the Beast, he doesn’t fight back until he sees Belle on the castle bridge which restores his will to live. Another thing most of us are probably familiar with here is how when Gaston backs the Beast into a corner and says “Belle is mine!”, that wasn’t the original line. Gaston was originally supposed to say “Time to die!”, but the writer decided to change the line to circle it all back around to Belle. At this point though the line was already animated, so his lips still say “Time to die!” in the movie even though his voice says “Belle is mine!”. While the Beast gets an opportunity to kill Gaston himself, he doesn’t take it and instead gives us this clever call back:
Get out.
He chooses not to kill Gaston cementing his choice to be a human and shows further character growth by not yelling like he did to Belle earlier in the movie. When the Beast sees Belle on the balcony he climbs up to see her until Gaston literally stabs him in the back giving us even more blood in a G-movie! Gaston should’ve watched his footing though because his klutziness results in him falling to his death. Also, I know this isn’t the most gruesome Disney villain death in history (and this isn’t the first Disney villain to fall to their death), but something about it still makes me uncomfortable, mostly with this brief moment as he falls:
Yeah, in case you thought he might survive, the animators are like “Grow up, you know he’s dead!” Belle pulls Beast up onto the balcony and he slowly succumbs to his wounds. Although, Belle professes her love to him right before the last petal falls which means the spell is broken. The Beast is lifted into the air and slowly transforms into:
So, kinda like with the mob marching to the castle, I think they probably just didn’t have enough time to think out this design that much when compared to his beast form, so yeah the end result is a little weird, but he at least does look different when compared to the rest of the Disney princes. Also, let’s be real, most of the other Disney princes look kinda the same, so this is at least something different.
Anyway, the rest of the staff are returned to their human forms, even the dog footstool gets turned back into a dog which is kinda disappointing for me because I think I actually preferred the footstool dog, and we wrap up one of my favorite classic Disney fairy tales.
There are so many things I realized watching this movie again after so many years, and let me tell you I appreciate it so much more now that I’m older. While yes it is still clearly a film primarily intended for children, it still has many elements that adults can enjoy as well which any great kid’s film should have. Of course there’s nothing wrong with writing material that’s intended solely for children, but I always find myself remembering these sorts of movies that appeal to people of all ages far into the future while purely kid’s media I forget relatively quickly as I age. I really miss this style of hand-drawn animation in modern films and it’s done to spectacular effect here along with the clever storytelling, the great characters, and amazing songs.
One day I’d love to see another movie come out that’s done in a hand-drawn style, whether it be from Disney or some other company, big or small. I really would’ve loved to see that with something like Wish, but I’m getting sidetracked. Whether you grew up with this material or not, whether you’ve seen it or not, by all means pop it in this weekend for your movie night and enjoy the classic tale as old as time.
I myself would give this film a rating of 4.5/5 roses since there are still a couple things I noticed that are a bit weird here, some I even mentioned previous, but if you can look past all that, it really is worth it.
(I make no claim of ownership for any of the images used in this post)
(Each of them are owned entirely by their respective copyright holders, which are not me)
(I am just a humble blogger who talks about movies, I do not make them)
(Yet)
