The lyric changes are throwing me off I'm seeing this tomorrow (friend won free tickets), and I feel like a part of my mind is going to be majorly disoriented. It's not a bad thing, changing the lyrics and all, but was it necessary? (side note- if anyone mishears one of LeFou's lyrics in 'Gaston', let me know, because I heard something vastly different than "No one's neck is as incredibly thick as Gaston's")
IMO, Josh Gad and Audra are so far winning my "Who were the most appropriately cast people?" competition in my head. Luke sounds like he's a little too much of a tenor for Gaston's character (I think he's a bari in the musical), and Emma's singing is nice, but nothing spectacular (Also- if anyone can find the full soundtrack on Google, I would love them forever; I can't find it).
They have extend the Gaston number. In the Broadway show they have the elaborate cup dance section. Here they have added alternative lyrics that were cut from the animated film to make the song longer.
Not surprising that the two Tony nominated musical actors are the best in a musical.
Evans voices sounds good if in a different key at least from the small clips.
It's had to tell with Emma is she's okay or not with the singing. I'm not sure if we will get the soaring voice we need in certain parts.
I'm going to need the night to collect my thoughts on the movie.
Two thoughts though before I write something up tomorrow:
Definitely putting it below Cinderella & The Jungle Book (that's just my opinion, but that's how I feel).
I enjoyed the second half more than the first.
So I accidentally read some potential spoilers (I wasn't thinking and thought 'Beauty and the Beast has been out for 25+ years, what kind of spoilers could there be??? ), and from what I read, this version looks like it could be a bit darker, earning it's PG rating (unlike Cinderella, I still think that could have been G).
I'm not 100% positive over the accuracy, but if anyone wants to look, I put them in a spoiler tag.
The Beast became cruel after his mother died, taking after his father
Belle's mother died from the plague in Paris, causing Maurice to become incredibly protective of Belle and to move to the town
The Beast's Castle is enchanted and separated from the rest of the world
Villagers will die during The Mob Song
All of the servants will die when the Beast dies... which of course is only temporary
LeFou turns on Gaston in the end, no longer wanting to be a part of his cruelty
My daughter was invited to go see it tonight with a friend. That means there is a pretty decent chance I won't make it to the theater at all and wait till its on Starz or the DVD.
Alright. Here goes nothing (warning, there are probably going to be some unpopular opinions here). The movie was somewhere between a C+ to B-, but I'm leaning towards the C+.
My best friend won tickets for a company-sponsored showing, so I saw it with her and her fiance. No previews before the film (minus a commercial for the company), which was a little jarring. I'm so accustomed to seeing trailer after trailer before the movie... and there was nothing
To address the elephant in the room- Bill Condon's "Exclusive Gay Moment"... was there if you didn't blink. Like, there are definitely some hints throughout the movie, but if Condon didn't say that LeFou was gay, it would have been speculation for a couple of weeks before someone in the cast or crew said something (a la JK Rowling & Dumbledore). There was absolutely nothing. I kept waiting for it in the last scene too. Shot of Belle & Prince Beast dancing. Shot of the Potts family. Shot of LeFou dancing with a woman. More Belle & Beast (don't get me started on Belle's very non-17/800s dress), Lumiere & Plumette. Mme. Garderobe & Cadenza. LeFou's still dancing with the woman. Belle & Beast, Cogsworth, Maurice, LeFou now dancing with guy-quick cut back to other characters. It was 2 seconds, if that. My friend's fiance didn't know about the controversy, and we had to explain on the way home that LeFou was gay. He had no idea.
At first, some of the changes took time to get used to. Examples- Emma Thompson being the narrator, lyric changes. By the end, I was fine with the lyrical changes, but it was a bit off putting for the first part of the film.
Emma Watson has a fine voice... but it's nothing to write home about. Ditto with Dan Stevens. Audra McDonald however... Bellissima! I even was able to enjoy Lumiere's accent (which also took a little time, but kudos to Ewan McGregor for suspending my belief). Some of the animation on the objects was a little lacking at times, but I think Cogsworth & Plumette were two of the better designs.
At first I didn't think Luke Evans was the right choice for Gaston, but he won me over pretty quickly. Actually, he and Josh Gad won me and my friends over very quickly. When we discussed it after we left the theater, Josh (my friend's fiance) said "Gaston and LeFou were the most sympathetic characters at the beginning". .... And he was kind of right. This Gaston actually tries to give Belle flowers and tries to talk to her about books (in a non-derogatory way), and Belle just snubs him for no visible reason (there were sooooo many reasons after this, but not in their initial first scene; it was odd).
Speaking of Gaston, I loved the choreography in his title song. Great stuff there. In terms of "holy flip Disney what are you doing" moments though,
we see Gaston attempt murder on Maurice. Was. Not. Expecting. That. I kept waiting for him to tell LeFou in the forest that they should send Maurice to an asylum, but instead, he leaves Maurice tied to a tree for the wolves. The asylum was only a last ditch effort! I didn't mind him shooting the Beast instead of stabbing him. My friend had a minor gripe with it, but I thought it worked out fine.
One of the major departures from the original movie is the revelation of what happened to Belle's mother. Initially, I really didn't care, but
when they went to Paris, and the Beast initially acted all giddy about sightseeing, before figuring out that Belle's mother died from the plague, I could feel my heart start melting. Belle said something like "Let's go home", and I was crying. One, because she was in pain, but referred to the castle as 'home' and Two, because the Beast's face sort of lit up at that.
'Evermore'... didn't mesh well with the film, IMO. I kept thinking about how 'If I Never Knew You' was cut from Pocahontas for 'slowing the plot down' (which I will fight tooth and nail, it absolutely did not), but this one... I think it would have been more appropriate to have a Beast song somewhere else in the film. Anywhere else.
We still didn't find out the Beast's real name. The movie tried to fix so many plot holes, but it didn't bother with that one... which brings me to a plot hole created by fixing plot holes:
While we don't know how long the castle has been enchanted, we find out that all villagers have forgotten the castle and the prince even exist. Mrs. Potts and Cogsworth have spouses in the poor provincial town who have forgotten they were married- though Mr. Potts does know that he's forgotten something, just can't remember what he has forgotten. Mrs. Cogsworth mentions something about 'it being so long' since she'd seen Cogsworth. I guess what I'm getting at is did the household objects 'age' over the time the spell was cast? or did the adult townspeople more or less stay the same age?
Something positive to end this on- the movie expanded on Belle & Beast's relationship. We saw them reading together, and reading to each other, throughout the middle section. I thought it was incredibly sweet.
While many people are saying it's just ok.. I loved it! Idk what it was about it but I really really enjoyed it and felt that the additions to the story were good additions because for me it fixed some parts of the original that are a little iffy, like the way it humanized the beast more than the original. Your really sympathize with him a lot more in this version (or at least I did.)
And I also enjoyed all the new songs.
16.3 million from Thursday previews is extremely good given it is expected to have a much better weekend than other movies that got Thursday Preview Numbers in this ballpark.
Thank Emma Watson for that dress, she's the one who designed it http://ariacouture.com/a-bit-of-a-study-on-emmas-belles-yellow-gown-from-beauty-and-the-beast
They had a $300 million budget, and that dress has visible glue. And because most people don't know that Emma- I'm Hermione Granger- Watson somehow bewitched the director to let her design that mess, the costume department gets the blame. I usually love Emma, but the dress could have and should have been better.
I think it's fine on it's own, but it (and the 'celebration dress') doesn't fit the time period. So many of the outfits in the film were period appropriate- the two final Belle dresses were not. I felt the same about Cinderella's wedding dress.
I think it's fine on it's own, but it (and the 'celebration dress') doesn't fit the time period. So many of the outfits in the film were period appropriate- the two final Belle dresses were not. I felt the same about Cinderella's wedding dress.
Those kinds of details don't bother me in a film such as this one. Exactly how the English and American accents don't bother me, even though the story takes place in France. If this were a biographical film (a serious one) on Marie Antoinette or any other period film, I would be looking for details like that. This is a remake of a Disney cartoon, the cartoon itself having some details that don't match up.
Alright. Here goes nothing (warning, there are probably going to be some unpopular opinions here). The movie was somewhere between a C+ to B-, but I'm leaning towards the C+.
My best friend won tickets for a company-sponsored showing, so I saw it with her and her fiance. No previews before the film (minus a commercial for the company), which was a little jarring. I'm so accustomed to seeing trailer after trailer before the movie... and there was nothing
...
'Evermore'... didn't mesh well with the film, IMO. I kept thinking about how 'If I Never Knew You' was cut from Pocahontas for 'slowing the plot down' (which I will fight tooth and nail, it absolutely did not), but this one... I think it would have been more appropriate to have a Beast song somewhere else in the film. Anywhere else.
Pretty much agree with your review, except that I thought Evans was just an OK Gaston and I *did* like the addition of "Evermore."
I think another problem I had was that Lumiere and Cogsworth were not nearly as fun in this film as they were in the original... the more "realistic" way they decided to go with the character design just limits the expressive nature of the characters, which, in turn would need to be compensated for by voice work... but McKellen, especially, wasn't up for the task. And the "Be Our Guest" sequence seemed almost panicked, like they felt they had to go into overdrive to top the animated version... and it still fell short.
Those things, coupled with a too-long runtime, made the whole event kind of underwhelming for me.
I really liked the energy of the movie, the song and dance numbers were great. I thought a lot of the plot hole patch-ups they did seemed kind of forced, but I understand why they included them (seriously, I could hear CinemaSins' *ding!* every time one of the original's plot holes was touched on). The yellow dress and especially the celebration dress just werent' substantial enough (neither was Emma's voice) but I looooved Gaston and LeFou, so it balanced out. All in all it's a solid B- for me, I would like to see it again but it's not something I'd hold up as high art.
Three big thumbs up from my family! The whole audience applauded and there were many children dancing in front of the screen during the credits. I've seen the original many times over the years and while this wasn't necessarily "better" for me, it was every bit as good and different enough to be its own thing. Evermore was a fantastic addition. I hope Disney makes a zillion dollars on this thing. Two years ago I thought this was a stupid idea. For me, this was magic.
Just came from seeing this with family. All of us loved it. How beautiful were the set designs and the cinematography? The costumes were gorgeous as well. I appreciated the more fleshed out story and details. Adored the singing and the characters. My only complaints are the CGI for Beast and the lack of screen time he had as a human. I wanted more (Dan Stevens is nice to look at).
Would definitely see this again and this easily tops the recent animated-to-live-action films to come from Disney, none of which I've been impressed with.
I'm seeing this tomorrow (friend won free tickets), and I feel like a part of my mind is going to be majorly disoriented. It's not a bad thing, changing the lyrics and all, but was it necessary? (side note- if anyone mishears one of LeFou's lyrics in 'Gaston', let me know, because I heard something vastly different than "No one's neck is as incredibly thick as Gaston's")
), and from what I read, this version looks like it could be a bit darker, earning it's PG rating (unlike Cinderella, I still think that could have been G).
