Also notice how Animated Belle is the ONLY person in her village wearing blue. It helps her stand out more, easily pick her from the busy crowd scenes and truly show she’s an outsider. Live action Belle also wears blue but many other villagers are also seen wearing blue or other similar bright colors, she mixes easily with the crowd which makes it hard to find her in wide group shots
In other words, the makers of this movie fundamentally and deliberately misunderstood the very core and meaning of this movie and should never been allowed near the making of it. I'll always wonder now if this would have been a better movie if better people has been in charge of making it, or if live remakes are doomed to fail and be lifeless reanimated automatons with no passion or soul no matter what.
@@catherineaustin2 Live action remakes _can_ work, we've seen it done before with The Jungle Book and _especially_ Cinderella. The key to those movies was that they did their damndest to not only keep the original stories intact, but to also add things that made them _better._ Cinderella gave the Prince more character and natural chemistry with the titular character, and The Jungle Book added a decent amount of drama to the story to give it a stronger emotional core to latch onto. The recent live action remakes, on the other hand, try to remove the magic of the animated versions _and_ also make changes that *detract* from the stories rather than making them stronger. It _can_ and _has_ worked, but the problem is that the people making the movies have no passion or love for the originals.
@@SavouryGaletteCinderella also fundamentally misunderstood its source material. The dress ripping scene and the ending devalue her plight in the remake. She's an abuse victim and the remake turns her into a moron more concerned about a house than her happiness. The only thing people remember is the romance was improved.
I would like to note that in the live action remake, the “I need six eggs” lady did not convince me that she needed those eggs like the og lady did. Og lady was desperate for eggs and the new one didn’t care much. I missed that detail showing the stress of a provincial town
There was no feeling in any of the side actors. When those 3 guys are singing "so pe-cu-liar" you could hear them just trying to match each other. They were not playing characters, they were singing notes.
I like to think of Beauty and the Beast as a "sleeper flop." It wasn't a financial failure, but re-evaluation has not been kind to it and it's dragging down future projects as a result.
I heard once that with comedies, financial success is a bad indicator of how good a movie is - you have to look at that star's next project to see the real reaction. Disney movies feel the same way.
@@1492irina That might be true, but this wasn't a comedy, so I'm not sure how it applies. Edit: Oh, wait, the last sentence was cut off and I didn't see it before commenting.
I realize the part where Belle flips the sign to block the water is visual storytelling that she isn't actually as "ditzy" as the villagers all seem to think she is, she pays attention even if doesn't seem like it, and is aware of all the townspeople's alienating comments despite many of them gossiping to each other. A great detail :)
Not to mention it reflects just how predictable the townspeople are with their daily monotonous routines! (Howard Ashman was truly an amazing storyteller!)
Another thing, in the original, the villagers see bell as an odd person, but they don’t necessarily dislike her- she’s just kinda weird and the village is talking about it But for some reason, in the live action, the villagers are framed as being in the wrong for thinking she’s an odd girl- the whole thing is written to make it seem like Bell is above them and their all just losers who are jealous of her lol…
Didn't help that Belle walks along looking down her nose at everyone, strutting through town...In the original, the reason she doesn't engage with the townsfolk is because she's in her own little world, in her book. In the remake, she doesn't have that excuse and the townspeople are way more in her face. It makes her come across as though she's choosing not to engage with them because she thinks she's better than them. That's not something I ever felt about og Belle
I think the little shot with Belle blocking the water from the original is a bit of visual characterization/storytelling I think is lost by not recreating (even if just for difficulty with the shot). It shows that despite what everyone thinks of Belle, she’s not head-in-the-clouds oblivious to the village life, she’s just engrossed by the story she’s reading rather than giving it her attention. She notices and very nonchalantly stops it because the mundane stuff doesn’t inconvenience her dreams or focus. Might be going a bit English-Major over analysis, but this is something I think these remakes fail at where the originals succeed: both the music and the visuals tell the story, so when the remakes can do neither justice, they fail as not just musicals, but as narratives by telling a story in a way it’s either not made for or that they’re bad at.
no ur actually right like it is a constant thing that gets echoed every generation and done in many different media. “Oh look at that youngster, they don’t know what’s going on because they’re doing x, y or z, look, they’re about to get splashed by water from a gutter!” and then they prove that they do actually pay attention by avoiding it.
It also shows us how boring the village is beautifully - the repetition of everyone's routine each morning is exactly the same to the extent she knows she needs to push the sign at that exact moment she walks past every day!
and honestly it wouldn't even be that difficult of a take to do in live action. I've done shots where I had to time my movements in accordance to things I couldn't see or even hear and that was low budget stuff
As a flautist I can*not* ignore the flute being replaced by violins. They don't even mimic the sound of early morning birdsong! And the baker's brush-off without even looking at Belle conveys boredom even more than explicitly saying "Sounds boring"! Agh... (Good critique - thanks for posting. The '91 movie is my very favorite, and the comparison helps me appreciate it even more.)
I remember Sideways in his Disney Remakes video once brought up a good point: almost everyone in the BAB remake had some musical background (Luke Evans (Gaston) was performing at West End for years, Josh Gad has that experience, the actor for Beast is married to a jazz singer and vocal coach), so almost all of them CAN sing. And even those who were not professional singers, are still extremely talented actors, who can make up for their weaker vocals with powerful, engaging performance. But Emma is in the LEAD role, replacing a professional Broadway performer and yet she is neither a good actor or singer. Belle should be the most talented performer/vocalist in the cast, so why in the world would you give that role to Emma, only to then try to remedy her poor performance with horrible autotune? Why not hire an actress who can do both? It genuinely feels like they hired Emma just because a) she "looks" like Belle (dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin); b) she is, apparently, popular and pretty. That's it. And considering that the director literally admitted that "Emma was our first and only choice for Belle" it basically confirms that they hired her for because of fame and appearance, not talent. It's always a poor casting choice, but its even worse when its for a *musical* where you have to be a triple threat performer. Not to mention BAB is one of the best and beloved Disney movies, a first animated picture to ever be nominated for the Best Picture, why would you remake it and skimp on quality I just don't understand. To add insult to injury, they hired someone who actively began making changes to the established, beloved character, which is not always a terrible thing, but with Emma its literally a butchering of character. She did not understood or try to understand Belle, or played the character we all know and love, she just jumped in and began transforming Belle into something completely different: throwing in some political agenda (how she was complaining that Belle was "not feminist enough" and they changed it; Despite the fact that Belle was written BY a feminist) and turning Belle into some narcissistic project, since she kept repeating "she is so like me, she was also born in France, and is misunderstood by others" etc. That's great that you relate to her, Emma, but you are playing a character, not yourself.
Emma is not playing Belle in the movie, she's just Emma in a medieval/fantasy setting absolutely destroying the most memorable scenes in the original movie
Ya just know that her playing Hermione Granger as a child was a factor. People went “woah, they’re both nerdy book girls!” and assumed they’re the same character when they’re really not. So nostalgia, fan service, whatever you wanna call it.
In the video Emma is a descent singer as Sideways said and I woudl say she is a pretty good actress.. But the whole thing of wanting on set vocals is just the reason why the whole auto and poor audio engineering stuff happened throughout the entire film.
You want to know why? _Patriarchy._ Striaght up. Instead of Belle being misunderstood and critiqued by the older generation of women, It's a bunch of young boys in school being taught in a militant fashion that girls like Belle are WEIRD.
I seriously don't know why they made it so military-like. The original scene actually would've been _easier_ to film. It's a weird oxymoron with Disney, where they change visuals and audio from the original to be easier in live action, but when a scene from the original _is_ actually easy to replicate, they go out of their way to complicate and change it.
@@NemoNobodySMT the directors for these recent bad movies too are villains (aside from wish cus that had corporate meddling that made it bad so that was js disney)
One thing I noticed while you contrasted them is that the live action remake flips who has their head in the clouds and who doesnt. Belle in the LA remake walks across the washing girls workspace and seems in general not really more in the way of others, while in the animated original while she is detached from the town, its not like she is in the way. Its more that the way she is makes others lose their head, like how the guy in the window misscuts the other mans beard, because he got distracted by Belle just.... walking by. In the original Belle seems like a very observant girl that gets ostracized by the town but learned to deal with that. But the LA Version seems like a general nuisance in some ways but also accepted by some? Its so confusing.
One of most accurate things I’ve heard about the issues with Emma’s Belle is she just not nice, in fact she’s rude and it greatly contrasts why people liked Belle in the first place. I really think this was on everyone, the writers, the director, and Emma’s poor portrayal in having a feminine character with soft qualities that went against the direction Hollywood has tried to insert women into being “strong.” The issue is that these characters tend to come off as abrupt, and it’s just a turn off. Completely disregarding Belle’s character because one of her strengths was kindness, it was one of the traits that gave the Beast a chance to bond with her. This Belle came off as rude, cold, and very awkward.
The remake highlights this problem a little later when Belle takes up the entire town well with her washing machine so she can teach girls to read (never mind that during that period in real-life France, girls actually were taught to read and wouldn't have needed the help of someone like Belle). The movie tries to portray the villagers as stupid thugs for destroying her machine, but completely ignores the massive imposition Belle's made on them by preventing them from drawing any water.
Yeah things like Jungle Book and Cinderella worked well because the stories are so old that storytelling has come a long way since then and modern audiences have new demands of theme and character and stuff. Not to say the originals didn’t have any of that, but I think they’re mostly remembered as light fun little nostalgic kids movies The Disney Renaissance is a whole different genre of Disney movie that are still watched regularly and looked at fondly today (not you Pocahontas) because of how tight and great the stories and characters are The Jungle Book was 49 years old when the remake was released. The Renaissance remakes should’ve had a similar wait, so people that actually grew up with them and love and understand the source materials could’ve been given it instead of a bunch of old white guys who’s primary goal (other than money making) seems to be checking off “mistakes” from the original that they saw on cinemasins
@@frogwhisperer2067 This is why a "Peter Pan" remake SHOULD have been a good idea (fixing the NA rep), but they did some overcorrecting there. The renaissance films haven't been free of controversy (ie cultural accuracy), but the remakes haven't had enough to work with, tbh--"The Little Mermaid" (2023) was half remake, half original story. Had it been 100% original with a different take on the fairy tale, new songs, and new characters, it'd be a lot less controversial; setting it in the Carribbean would've gotten praise, and Disney NOT making another remake would've gotten similar praise. "Aladdin" didn't really fix much; while Aladdin and Jasmine aren't sexualized (1992 Aladdin was modeled after Tom Cruise to attract a female audience, and I assume Jasmine's outfit was based on western misconceptions of ME clothing), Aladdin still lies to Jasmine twice and Jasmine is re-written as Belle. I do kinda like that they gave Naomi Indian-inspired clothes specifically to reference her heritage, though; I like to imagine Agrabah as a kingdom in the Persian Gulf, connecting Saudi Arabia to India (plus Iraq is right next to SA, and in the animated film, Agrabah was originally gonna be called Baghdad). I actually enjoy "Pocahontas" as a piece of fiction--but I despise that Disney gave this any historical background. They should've made this 100% fiction with original characters, kinda like "Atlantis"--just without the sci-fi stuff and in a renaissance setting.
@@OpticalSorcererIf they made the Little Mermaid remake like the 90s Brandy Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella, it would've been a smash hit too. Hire a musical team (just not Lin Manuel Miranda), have then write entirely new songs, and film the movie using the 80s Little Mermaid iconography, with the pink dress and everything, and it would've been appreciated more. You could tell that's what they were kiiiiinda trying to do with the remake, but maybe they were having a lot of push back from higher ups to not change the source material too much.
@@Tea_Noire TLM was at a weird crossroads of being reliant to the source material and doing something entirely new. I would've liked it if they went for a new take; all new songs, new plot, and new characters, (no Ariel and co.)
@@OpticalSorcererHard agree! Disney seems lost and out of ideas. I think anyone of us could write a movie that harkens back to the original, Ike your idea, rather than just making a more PC live action version. I honestly haven't seen any new Disney movies, animated or otherwise. Well I did see the first new Star Wars with Rey which was desperate fan service with a plot almost identical to the first 70"s one and decided I was done with that series.
That opening story reminded me of when the Lion King remake came out. I was working at a summer day camp for elementary school age kids. I overheard this conversation between kindergartners. Kid 1: I saw The Lion King last night. Kid 2: how was it. Kid 1: Okay. Not as good as the cartoon.
I've been strongly urged to refer to that type of feedback during this trend as "remakeitis," much like how sequelitis was the mindset to abide by during the onslaught of sequels released by DisneyToon Studios.
To add to how the settings can compliment the lyrics and themes, taking away the sheeps also undercuts one of thing from the original: the fact that Belle has no one to talk to. "I want adventure in the great wide somewhere" is the iconic line but it's followed by "and for once it would be grant to have someone understand". She was companionship, something that she doesn't find in town, with the baker ignoring, only the sheep listening and Gaston clearly more interested in himself than anything else. Even her dad doesn't fully undestand her, as shown when he asks about Gaston. The animated one crafts this scenes perfectly so that we can understand Belle and be happy went she finds someone who tries to understand her (this is a romance, after all), but in the live action the town has a wierd vibe and they even make her try to teach a small girl to read, wich takes away from the "no one here is interest in what I'm interested".
For a bonus point, the sheep she's singing to responds by taking a bite out of one of the pages of her book, showing that even _they_ aren't really listening.
It's insane that the live-action version replaced the scene with the sheep with one of her just singing to no one, even though the lyrics clearly indicate that she's talking to someone else.
As someone who does live in a little town and quiet village, I can confirm that the live action movie did not convince me that Emma Watson's Belle lived in a similar area. Her whole village felt like a fraud. There was no continuity to the background characters. Everyone felt like total strangers to each other, as opposed to the mingling, gossiping people in the animated movie. Gossip, chatter, and banter are the hearts of most small-town communities, and it just was bot conveyed here. Watson looked like someone was actually coaching her through the song.
In addition to turning little solos/duets into ensemble lines, it also feels like they're refusing to use... IDK, character singers? No one's putting on a gossipy old-woman voice, they're just singing the lines.
between this and the situation regarding the Mulan remake where they had a director with no musical experience, I’m starting to question if Disney even knows how integral the music is to… well… their *musicals*
They haven't seemed to since the end of the 90s when their attempts to pander to musicalphobic str8 teenage boys bombed and bombed hard. It spoke volumes when my then five-year-old sister preferred to listen to the *Anastasia* soundtrack over any post-Pocahontas Disney soundtrack.
Re: Emma Watson's singing, I really like Sideways' take on it. Disney has so much money, they absolutely could have given her singing lessons IF she was bad. But the thing is, we don't even know what her singing is actually like because Disney chose to make her voice INCREDIBLY digital in this movie. It sounds so bad!! There was absolutely no need to make her voice sound like that.
exactly! there are people who seem to think “oh she can’t sing! they should’ve hired someone else!” if they were so dead set on casting her they could have just???? got her a vocal coach??? but she might not even be bad! she could sound fine! good even! i can’t tell because all i can hear is the pitch correction and stitching together of takes
Not to mention they could have just hired a singer. They’ve done it before for other celebrity actors before. When Demi Moore played Esmeralda in Hunch Back of Notredam, another person did her music. Like, Disney. Just pay the money.
Actually, she knows how to sing, listen to her in Noah. Which is even more baffling since Disney just couldn't help themselves with the fake auto pitch on her and Luke Evans
This film was always going to make a billion. So why not find the best musically trained triple threat actress who moves like a dancer, sings like a powerhouse, makes the absolute best of every moment, and who actually looks like the animated character? It's so annoying!
I actually think that pausing for the clock to strike eight is a good idea in this song. It highlights how routine life is in this town-- clocks are very common as a symbol of mechanical precision. Does it work? I'm not so sure, but I see the idea and I think there's a bit more going on here than just a suspenseful pause.
I knew it was going to be a failure the second they announced who played Belle. I don't like Watson, I really don't. She has this deeply shallow idea of feminism, how it should look, how an empowered woman should look and act, and I've also always found her acting to be... kinda flat when she isn't yelling at someone. She always plays her characters with this air of superiority that I knew she was going to bring to Belle. She was an awful choice and only cast because she was Hermione, ignoring how her need to make every character she plays into her idea of a feminist also ruined Hermione. Also, in the OG film pay attention to where the colour blue is used, outside dark scenes (as in nighttime or unlit). There are exactly five places blue is actually used- Belle's dress, the Beast's dinner coat, the Beast's eyes, Belle's book, and Gaston's eyes. You don't see it used in the town AT ALL outside those places. Because it's meant to show Belle as an ostracised outsider, someone who doesn't belong. Even the windows and water are done in GREY. Not blue. Her book is blue for the same reasons Belle is blue- it's odd, out of place, mismatched. Beast's coat is blue for the same reasons as well as to show how he's grown close to Belle. His eyes are blue to contrast with Gaston but also to show that there is something more to him. Gaston's eyes are actually kind of the odd one out but I think they're blue to show how icy and cold he actually is. So naturally the live action ignored this and put blue everywhere. Blue clothes, blue objects in town, blue blue blue.
Maybe Gatson's eyes are also blue to underlign how obsessed he is with Belle. If she is represented by the colour blue, his eyes have to be blue because his need to posses her consumes him.
I could have dealt with her acting if they had dubbed over her singing with a real singer, instead of using autotune. That's what used to be done for movie musicals and it worked. Or better yet, just hire Broadway talent for Belle, like they did for the Beast, Gaston, Le Fou, etc.
I think what doesn’t help is that Emma had a lot of involvement ‘backstage’ and turned this movie into a very obvious feminist statement which just made me roll my eyes so much while watching it. Notice how in the animated version the villagers just thought Belle was an odd bookworm who daydreamed too much. But in the live action they’re sexist towards her and make a big show of how the boys go to school while the girls are doing the laundry. Another comparison you could maybe talk about is when Belle takes her father’s place as Beast’s prisoner? The animated one is so wonderfully done, Belle offers herself in exchange out of love for her father as he’s coughing and probably ill but still hesitates before doing it because she’s frightened of giving up her freedom. She’s terrified when she sees Beast’s form but still agrees and then rightfully is distraught afterwards and falls to the floor. In the live action film, Belle TRICKS the Beast into opening the prison door then violently throws her father out so he falls to the floor, walks in herself and shuts it behind her. When the Beast is confused and questions her about it she patronises him and just looks fed up?! It was so aggressive and obnoxious but I’m guessing from Emma’s point of view it was meant to look ‘strong’. 🙄
My favorite part of the original song Belle, is the part near the end when all of the villagers are basically talking over each other. The original makes it clear that we're just hearing snippets of different conversations by adding lot's of background chatter, but what I've noticed in the live action and in the Broadway recording, is that there is no real noise in the background, making it sound like the villagers are just shouting out random phrases like "Ten yards!" or "1 pound!", I also think it's odd that they changed the line "what lovely grapes!" to "what lovely flowers" it's kind of a nit pick, but why would you change a four syllable line to a five syllable line, especially in a very strict rhythm.
Okay but seriously, why is the set so bland? It’s really apparent with clips back and forth from the 2017 one to the animated one. I’m not expecting perfection cause like the original film is one of the most beautiful looking films I’ve ever seen, but if 2015 Cinderella can look good what’s this film’s excuse? I’m glad you picked this film to analyze. I’m not 100% against auto-tuning on a singer (I’m a Vocaloid fan so I can’t really be) but the LAST PLACE it should be used is on the LEAD SINGER OF A FREAKING BROADWAY MUSICAL FILM! 11 year old me was so disappointed in this film and I still am.
100% with everything you said. I saw this movie on opening day at my local mall when I was 11, forgot about it as soon as the credits were rolling, and fell absolutely in love with the original movie. I grew up watching it, but this terrible remake made me appreciate it all the more. I can't even watch the entire movie without getting bored because it's just that bad (the remake, of course), but I've seen the animated movie dozens of times and I could watch it everyday and never get bored.
@@ladyangelsongbird I’m glad you were able to find something good out of watching the live action, even if it is just appreciating the original. Also this is random but we both use “lady” in our usernames lol
Wasn’t Emma Watson casted because she was quote “book smart?” I remember watching this movie in the theater. At the end I was just so disappointed how they could have genuinely have Emma sing well with some training. But no they decided to do everything quickly and lazily I would have to say. Love your videos!
On tumblr many years ago so many were fan casting Emma as Belle, because she has the posh voice and most importantly she looked like Belle I will say tho, I did still love this movie… but Disney did Emma dirty by not having someone else sing for Emma/give her singing lessons or better auto tune
I just watched UA-cam channel The Trove's video "Why Cinderella is Disney's only good live-action remake". On that video there is a quote from Sean Bailey, the president of production for Disney Motion Pictures Studios. The quote says that regarding the casting of Belle, Watson was the first and only choice of Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan F. Horn, who was previously president and COO of WB, the company which released eight Harry Potter films starring Emma Watson as Hermione Granger. That's the reason why she became Belle. I have nothing personal against Watson, I think she was OK in the few Harry Potter films I've seen (and I also liked her in the Little Women remake and in The Perks of Being a Wall Flower) but IMO she can't carry a film as a lead and she definitely is not a singer.
It’s funny how Twisted’s Dream a Little Harder, a parody of Belle, is better than Disney’s own version. To be fair, Twisted is fantastic, but that’s beside the point
Really happy to see how the channel's grown since the "This is the Thanks I Get" video. I'm one of probably a lot of people who found this channel through that video. While music isn't my forte, I never thought I'd get this much entertainment seeing how much effort and actual damn near science goes into making a good song. Well done, Astor, keep up the good work dude
Theoretically, the akward dialogue between Belle and Monsieur Jean about "not remembering" is kind of a set up, since he is the husband, if I recall correctly, of Mrs Potts, but I feel it still so poorly delivered, I remember I had to read about it to notice... but, still doesn't fit the song. Thanks for awesome content, I really enjoy your videos, every time!
Yes, you're right. He's Mrs. Potts's husband & it was supposed to clue the audience in that the townsfolk have completely forgotten the neighboring castle & all it's cursed inhabitants. Unfortunately, it's a clunky moment that doesn't work in this song & it's easy to forget about.
Original Belle : Known for being feminist , selfless , independent, kind and best role model Emma Watson : "Belle is not feminist enough so thats why I have to change the character" *Proceed to destroy the original Belle people loved*
If Disney would just start hiring Broadway actors (like they did in the early years, actually hiring people who have been trained and perform in musicals for a living) I think things would SO much better, instead of just casting someone because they are famous... cast them because they can do the job❤
The fact that Belle and her father are IN the town, not just on the outskirts but IN the town is actually a bigger deal that showed this whole movie was to an off start. This symbolism might seem silly, yet it makes an impact of how the movie plays out. The original animated movie had the town curious about Belle to a certain limit, but they were always put off by something whether it’s because her hobby was to read, her father was eccentric, and where her house is placed highlights this viewpoint of close to being considered a part of the community but not being in the community. As for the autotune, the only one who has an excuse is Dan, in fact the only redeeming thing of the live action was the song Evermore. No one else has that excuse.
I think your philosophy of writing where you "say what you need and move on" serves to illustrate a comparison between the two films as a whole, even back then i thought this remake wasted so much time explaining specific stuff that the original's script didn't bother touching because it wasn't interesting enough or didn't serve the crux of the story. It felt like it was aiming to some invisible CinemaSins-y crowd. Even the musical numbers go on for way too long, and the directing isn't strong enough to compensate that. The "Gaston" number felt like it went on for an eternity. Beauty and the Beast is my favorite of the Renaissance films so the 2017 version has always been one of my most disliked of these remakes even before hating them was thaaat popular, so it's nice to see more dissections of it!
Nailed it!! Trying to correct non existent script issues has made all of the live actions unwatchable. I feel like part of that seems to have come from the bad faith interpretations disguised as progressive video essays that popped up in the early years of UA-cam. Analysis and interpretation is cool and we all have to do it in school, but when the core of that Analysis is based on 'what if' or misreads original intention, then that Analysis should be read for what it is....a thought experiment, not legitimate constructive criticism.
i also think that writers tend to add something in live action adaptations, even if it's completely unnecessary, so that it's existence can be justified. "we don't wanna just make this song simple and boring! bleh! we need to make it super over the top, even if it doesn't need it!" "let's insert this unnecessary scene into this important plot point because depth and nuance!" "we have minorities as characters now! they're unimportant to the plot and they're super bland, but hey, at least you feel represented now, right?" nevermind the fact that the media they're adapting was already successful without said changes...
Emma Watson is a terrific and talented actress. So I was shocked when I watched the movie and she was so monotone, emotionless, robotic and toneless, and really boring. I don't know if she just didn't really feel excited to star in this movie or if this is how the director wanted told her to sing and act. But this is definitely one of her more awful performances. She's so good in other movies. But I don't know. This is a live action Disney remake. It's a mass produced movie in Disney's production line. It's not really an environment for unique and creative ideas, as it's just following the formula Disney executives laid out, and the movies are just being churned like products on a conveyer belt.
Why can’t we go back to dubbing singing voices like what they did with audrey hepburn in my fair lady??? As long as the singer is credited as well??? But no, we’re stuck with a robot belle
@@mysticwater9056 yea, i just meant that dubbing singing voices should be credited nowadays compared to back then. We don’t wanna repeat the plot of Singing in the Rain lol
@@kirrb-dot-exe I'm surprised dubbing didn't fall out of favor until more than a decade after that movie came out. It was 12 years from that to *My Fair Lady.*
Where is the choreography! A musical number is nothing without movement and a dance. Like the La La Land traffic scene, or the library scene in the Music Man.
I think what bothered me the most was that the villagers in the original didn’t hate her just thought she was weird. In the remake, the villagers didn’t like her at all and you would think they would have driven Belle out if they didn’t like her that much?
I always thought they didn’t like her in the original, either, because she comes into town singing an annoying song about how they’re boring and stupid and she, the reader, is SO much better than them.
@@misskate3815 but so many of them have pleasant interactions with her. Also she's supposed to be really nice and likeable so it would be weird if the whole town couldn't stand her lol.
Thank you for not only giving such an incisive critique of Belle in the live action remake, but also picking up on the shortcomings of the scene's visual storytelling compared to the original animated film, such as the way Belle and her father live outside the village, signaling that they are outsiders and don't belong! I'd also like to point out how in the animated version, there was an obvious creative decision to make Belle the only person in the village wearing blue, while everyone else is in earth tones, so she stands out (once again, she's an outsider) and the audience never has any trouble picking her out of the crowd. Compare that to the extras' wildly overdesigned costumes in the live action version where there's just so much colour and texture (yet somehow still looking drab???) that Belle just blends into the crowd.
Listen, I liked Lin Manuel Miranda's work on some of Disney's projects, but his work on The Little Mermaid was _not_ good, so him being the lyricist for the Mufasa movie has me _very_ nervous. I'm half-expecting another cringy, unfunny rap song in that movie a la Scuttlebutt.
I think the big difference there is that scuttle as a character is sort of obnoxious already so whatever song they give it would have also limited itself to that lens
@@5th_cellar the moment Disney hired Aquafina (who is a rapper) you best believe they were going to give her something more than what the original character had
4:35 What I find interesting about this scene is that it's suppose to be... Well not foreshadowing because they say this in the prologue, so this scene is suppose to showcase the fact the villagers have forgotten the castle and all the people who worked in it. But it doesn't really work in context of the song Belle because they didn't change the song to clearly showcase this idea (Or at least make an effort to make it match with the rest of the song like this scene does not as you presented).
Emma Watson cannot sing to save her life, so why people didn't bother to find out whether or not she COULD sing before casting her as Belle is a mystery to me!
It does baffle the mind. A reason I see cited sometimes for the live action remakes is that they are more adult than the animated originals, utter rubbish but if that is indeed the rational then why people don't show the animated ones to their children?
On the other hand, it might not be that ludicrous that somebody doesn't want to give more money to disney to get the overpriced DVD for the film. It's a really good film, but the Disney which made it is no longer the Disney of today. It really ought to be in the public domain by now, honestly.
The only thing with the guy who’s forgotten something in the song was he was the husband of Mrs Potts, since he, along with everyone else in the village were enchanted to forget everyone at the palace. Now that I’m thinking about it, it almost feels like it was forced in or ham fisted into the song. I honestly do agree it doesn’t make the song flow.
love the little efficient scripwriting at the start where you explain the broad strokes of why the song is iconic by explaining how it doesn't need to be explained in detail
When this movie first came out not many people seemed to have a problem with it and I felt like the odd one out for hating it. Glad to see people are finally looking back and realizing what garbage it was
I try not to place all the blame on Emma Watson for her less than stellar singing (or acting) for this one. Despite their efforts to hide it, the Beauty and the Beast remake is a movie that feels like it was rushed through development. They could have spent more time actually training Watson to sing (they got Paige O'Hara herself to do it, and if Daniel Ratcliff can learn to sing so can Emma), but they didn't and couldn't because the company schedule demanded it be out by 2017. So the probably just took what they got and rushed to pitch correct it in post, cue the robot voice. They could have hired a director who actually can stage a musical film, but instead they hired Bill Condon, who wrote (but criticality, didn't direct) Chicago, and who's only other musical film was the 2007 Dreamgirls, which is absolutely not a classic Broadway-style musical like Beauty and the Beast. But the thing he's best know for is the Twilight Breaking Dawn films, which were about as rushed as their predecessors. Condon was almost certainly hired to make Beauty and the Beast 2017 on a similarly rushed and kneecaped schedule. They also probably hired him because he was cheaper. This film, its follow-ups, and everything wrong with them and their music is absolutely the fault of Disney trying to rush them out, ensuring that even if the people working on the remakes love the originals, they don't have the time to put in the care and effort that made the originals work.
Your opening statement is the exact problem I have with these live-action remakes. People have a short-term memory when it comes to movies, and they latch onto the most recent media. When people see these remakes, they may or may not have seen the animated originals yet, even though these remakes rely on familiarity of the animated ones. So it creates unwanted confusion in discussions where if you bring up Beauty and the Beast, you have to specify the animated film, or else people will automatically assume you mean the remake. That in the long run spoils the prestige of the animated film, because now it has the baggage of these soulless remakes attached to them.
The guys "lost belongings" is actually.... answering the question of why didn't anyone remember that there was an enchanted castle near by. What he'd actually forgotten, was his wife Mrs Pots and his son Chip, whom he remembers at the end when the spell is broken. The remake tried to answer multiple obvious questions such as this. Watching the original, I never had this question as I assumed that the enchantment included that surrounding villiages, forgot! Plus I assumed that hundreds of years might have gone by such as in other fairy tales like sleeping beauty.
Thank you for making this video! The original Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorite movies of all time and the live action remake is probably my most hated movie. It's a little side hobby of mine to rant and complain nonstop about the failures of the remake. I try to forget it doesn't exist but it's so much fun to hate on. I'm not opposed to story changes or retellings, but the Disney remakes always make the stupidest changes to the plot and characters that the whole movie is incohesive with the elements of the originals that are kept. Ironically, when they try to fix the 'problems' with their classics, they only make everything worse. For example: with Beauty and the Beast, people will complain that the original movie exhibits 'stockholm syndrome', but the remake would probably display more qualities of it than the animated version, which I don't think does at all, but that's a different conversation. Apparently Belle wasn't 'feminist' enough in the original so they had to make her an inventor here, which adds nothing to the plot. Not to mention they add at least 45 minutes more to the runtime that makes the remakes feel bloated overall with all the unnecessary additions. All when the originals had great timing for each scene and most are 80-85 minutes long. It's all atrocious and I'm NOT looking forward to the Snow White remake, of which the original was my favorite as a child. Rachel Zegler has already ruined it. Apologies for the long rant, but this is just a topic I'm passionate about.
i'm a mild fan of vocaloid songs and the way vocaloids work is that they are literally synthetic voices like how a keyboard can mimic other intruments, but a good artist can still make hatsune miku sing a better version of belle than this, emma probably would sound a lot better if they didnt'tune her voice at all too since i did hear she can sing even if she can't reach high enough, this movie makes me want to see an action movie where the actors don't get stunt doubles and the stunts instead are just made easier and less impressive, but also cast actors who aren't used to doing their own stunts in the first place, it just makes me want to see a famous actor fail to ride a bike in a parody of what a chase scene is supposed to be, because that is what this is,
I also want to point out the change in Belle’s character that Watson did. (At least that I noticed). Why is she so….rude? Almost walking on the laundry? Like, animated Belle was in her own world, but not rude to the people around her. Watson’s Belle is SO in her own world that she’s just not paying any attention to anyone else in the town
I had the “pleasure” of watching this opening scene a week in advance, in 4D, at California Adventure. It made me sad. The Cinderella and Jungle Book remakes were excellent.
4:46 this scene does have purpose, it foreshadows the entire fact he has a wife and kid- Ms. Potts and Chip! I only realized this in my second watch but I like that detail. I think it helps connect the castle-dwellers to the villagers. They’re affected by their loved ones being missing even though they don’t realize it.
I agree but It should have been added so much better because it messes with the rhythm of the song and the emotional mystery of what he is missing but alas nope (heck it could have been a conversation with Gaston as a way to showcase the love the town has for him or something)
This is a crux of one of the remake’s problems that ends up in the later ones, they overbloat plot points that don’t go anywhere or they don’t add anything. Belle’s invention sub-plot, lumiere wanting to stand up to the beast some of these are just set up with 0 payoff. This plot point in particular does end I guess but it follows up with just filling in plot holes that are just most nitpicks that come from old internet jokes, like why does the townsfolk not know the castle? What happend to belle’s mum? They get answered but doest’t add anything to the main drive of the story and instead goes out of focus by speeding up more integral scenes and add more uneeded fat.
Okay I know this is not really related to anything you’ve remarked on but can I just say the one thing about Emma Watson’s acting that I absolutely despise? She is always just flailing her arms around for no reason. Her body acting is weird, jarring and disjointed. She lacks grace, which for a character like Belle, should not be the case. Her movements are not free flowing and effortless. She always looks like a flailing exhausted and sloppy person. Takes me out. Once you see it you won’t unsee it.
I feel like they shouldn't have copied the 1991 movie so much but water it down. If these live action Disney remakes want to stand out from the original animated film, then they should make it their own. Something closer to their fairytales or even their unused content and concepts. For instance, Beauty and the Beast had a different director in 1989, Richard Purdum. His take wasn't a musical, Belle had a little sister and black cat, and there were two villains, Belle's aunt (who was a bit like the stepmother from Cinderella) and Gaston who's more of a spoiled pompous manchild than a hunter. The enchanted objects couldn't speak, so most of the dialogue came from Belle and Beast. The tone was also darker with a more vicious wolf fight with Beast bringing Belle back to the castle rather than the other way around. The Beast was also depicted as a Mandrill in a dark 1700s trenchcoat, and Belle's ballroom dress was rose red instead of gold. So I felt they should've just done that instead. Cast Emma Roberts as Belle and High Jackman as Beast and you'd actually have something different from the 1991 movie.
THANK YOU The OG is something I've been able to nearly fully recite since childhood. So each and every little change in the new one, stuck out to ME like a sore thumb. And it made me see just how much emotion was portrayed by Paige. Anytime I mention that, I'm usually told I'm over thinking it and they sound exactly the same. Same thing happened with Little Mermaid! Our classics deserve better ❤
Your channel is so underrated. You perfectly describe not only everything I knew that was off about Disney's live-action films, but also why and what made the animated versions so great. The first video I saw of yours was the one about Poor Unfortunate Souls, and I was hooked. Thank you for sharing your expertise! ^.^
10:15 At least in Gaston they cast a guy who can actually sing, Luke Evans. He actually started his acting career on the West End (the U.K.’s Broadway) in musicals like Miss Saigon and Rent. Hell he’s even released two albums of his own! 😂
5:00 tbf, this conversation with the baker is foreshadowing the fact that the entire village got their memories removed due to the curse. And the baker intuitively knows that he forgot something, which is later revealed when he regains his memory and it's revealed that he's the husband of Madame Pottine.
It's wild how these REMAKES mess up simple visuals, considering the good ones already exist?? Like, if the original movie did it Right, why would you alter it to work less?
Lion king… LMM? Why do they think he can do every genre? Why does he think he can do every genre? Are they ever going to hire people trained in the musical culture they’re inspired by?
A thought on matters of taste: I am a massive fan of vocaloid, and that has led me to really enjoying robotic performances. I love when songs pump up the autotune. I love when it sounds stuttering, jittery, robotic. I also vastly enjoy the bit with the boys marching up the stairs. I honestly can't get enough of stomping used as part of a song. But that being said, it doesn't fit. Sure some parts cater to my weirdly specific and probably bad tastes, but that doesn't make it fit the movie or scene appropriately. A musical is more than just enjoyable music, it's a story told through music. Even if one of those two aspects is absolutely perfect, it can't save the show if the other is a failure. Heck, even if both are good, it still fails if the two don't work together. People will argue all day about "but I liked the song!" And like, sure, yeah. But that doesn't make it good for the context it's in.
She really bought her own hype. She should have looked at herself and decided some else could have done it much better instead of being a Harry Potter spin off
To all the comments saying Emma should have had vocal training, I'm quite certain she did. Pretty sure if you look it up there's an article where Emma said she was super proud of how far she came with the training and still she wasn't great and they edited her voice to shreds. She's just unskilled in singing, and evidently in her portayal of Belle, not a great actress either :')
Also notice how Animated Belle is the ONLY person in her village wearing blue. It helps her stand out more, easily pick her from the busy crowd scenes and truly show she’s an outsider. Live action Belle also wears blue but many other villagers are also seen wearing blue or other similar bright colors, she mixes easily with the crowd which makes it hard to find her in wide group shots
In other words, the makers of this movie fundamentally and deliberately misunderstood the very core and meaning of this movie and should never been allowed near the making of it. I'll always wonder now if this would have been a better movie if better people has been in charge of making it, or if live remakes are doomed to fail and be lifeless reanimated automatons with no passion or soul no matter what.
@@catherineaustin2 Live action remakes _can_ work, we've seen it done before with The Jungle Book and _especially_ Cinderella. The key to those movies was that they did their damndest to not only keep the original stories intact, but to also add things that made them _better._ Cinderella gave the Prince more character and natural chemistry with the titular character, and The Jungle Book added a decent amount of drama to the story to give it a stronger emotional core to latch onto. The recent live action remakes, on the other hand, try to remove the magic of the animated versions _and_ also make changes that *detract* from the stories rather than making them stronger.
It _can_ and _has_ worked, but the problem is that the people making the movies have no passion or love for the originals.
Poor design
@@SavouryGaletteCinderella also fundamentally misunderstood its source material. The dress ripping scene and the ending devalue her plight in the remake. She's an abuse victim and the remake turns her into a moron more concerned about a house than her happiness. The only thing people remember is the romance was improved.
Geez, and to think it got an Oscar for it's Production and Costume design?
WHO WORKS ON THESE CATEGORIES?
I would like to note that in the live action remake, the “I need six eggs” lady did not convince me that she needed those eggs like the og lady did. Og lady was desperate for eggs and the new one didn’t care much. I missed that detail showing the stress of a provincial town
I will die on this hill.
There was no feeling in any of the side actors. When those 3 guys are singing "so pe-cu-liar" you could hear them just trying to match each other. They were not playing characters, they were singing notes.
@@marieg595 I've seen more commitment to the bit from theme park cast members.
"I need six eggs" No you don't. If you needed those eggs you'd say "I NEEEEED SIX EEEEEEGGS--!" XD
There was no feeling, and also no choreography in the bar brawl scene. Gaston just looks like he’s fumbling dance moves.
I like to think of Beauty and the Beast as a "sleeper flop." It wasn't a financial failure, but re-evaluation has not been kind to it and it's dragging down future projects as a result.
That is a GREAT way to describe it.
I heard once that with comedies, financial success is a bad indicator of how good a movie is - you have to look at that star's next project to see the real reaction. Disney movies feel the same way.
@@1492irina That might be true, but this wasn't a comedy, so I'm not sure how it applies.
Edit: Oh, wait, the last sentence was cut off and I didn't see it before commenting.
I'm using "sleeper flop" in movie conversations now, thanks for the excelent term
@@ChimeraRanger I stole it from Todd in the Shadows, but it is very fitting.
I realize the part where Belle flips the sign to block the water is visual storytelling that she isn't actually as "ditzy" as the villagers all seem to think she is, she pays attention even if doesn't seem like it, and is aware of all the townspeople's alienating comments despite many of them gossiping to each other. A great detail :)
Not to mention it reflects just how predictable the townspeople are with their daily monotonous routines! (Howard Ashman was truly an amazing storyteller!)
Cool 😮
Another thing, in the original, the villagers see bell as an odd person, but they don’t necessarily dislike her- she’s just kinda weird and the village is talking about it
But for some reason, in the live action, the villagers are framed as being in the wrong for thinking she’s an odd girl- the whole thing is written to make it seem like Bell is above them and their all just losers who are jealous of her lol…
Yeah remakes don't seem to do subtlety, it feels like they're playing to an audience whose senses are deadened.
Didn't help that Belle walks along looking down her nose at everyone, strutting through town...In the original, the reason she doesn't engage with the townsfolk is because she's in her own little world, in her book. In the remake, she doesn't have that excuse and the townspeople are way more in her face. It makes her come across as though she's choosing not to engage with them because she thinks she's better than them. That's not something I ever felt about og Belle
I think the little shot with Belle blocking the water from the original is a bit of visual characterization/storytelling I think is lost by not recreating (even if just for difficulty with the shot).
It shows that despite what everyone thinks of Belle, she’s not head-in-the-clouds oblivious to the village life, she’s just engrossed by the story she’s reading rather than giving it her attention. She notices and very nonchalantly stops it because the mundane stuff doesn’t inconvenience her dreams or focus.
Might be going a bit English-Major over analysis, but this is something I think these remakes fail at where the originals succeed: both the music and the visuals tell the story, so when the remakes can do neither justice, they fail as not just musicals, but as narratives by telling a story in a way it’s either not made for or that they’re bad at.
no ur actually right like it is a constant thing that gets echoed every generation and done in many different media. “Oh look at that youngster, they don’t know what’s going on because they’re doing x, y or z, look, they’re about to get splashed by water from a gutter!” and then they prove that they do actually pay attention by avoiding it.
It also shows us how boring the village is beautifully - the repetition of everyone's routine each morning is exactly the same to the extent she knows she needs to push the sign at that exact moment she walks past every day!
and honestly it wouldn't even be that difficult of a take to do in live action. I've done shots where I had to time my movements in accordance to things I couldn't see or even hear and that was low budget stuff
As a flautist I can*not* ignore the flute being replaced by violins. They don't even mimic the sound of early morning birdsong! And the baker's brush-off without even looking at Belle conveys boredom even more than explicitly saying "Sounds boring"! Agh...
(Good critique - thanks for posting. The '91 movie is my very favorite, and the comparison helps me appreciate it even more.)
The flute is there, but just supporting the violins now.
I remember Sideways in his Disney Remakes video once brought up a good point: almost everyone in the BAB remake had some musical background (Luke Evans (Gaston) was performing at West End for years, Josh Gad has that experience, the actor for Beast is married to a jazz singer and vocal coach), so almost all of them CAN sing. And even those who were not professional singers, are still extremely talented actors, who can make up for their weaker vocals with powerful, engaging performance. But Emma is in the LEAD role, replacing a professional Broadway performer and yet she is neither a good actor or singer. Belle should be the most talented performer/vocalist in the cast, so why in the world would you give that role to Emma, only to then try to remedy her poor performance with horrible autotune? Why not hire an actress who can do both?
It genuinely feels like they hired Emma just because a) she "looks" like Belle (dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin); b) she is, apparently, popular and pretty. That's it. And considering that the director literally admitted that "Emma was our first and only choice for Belle" it basically confirms that they hired her for because of fame and appearance, not talent. It's always a poor casting choice, but its even worse when its for a *musical* where you have to be a triple threat performer.
Not to mention BAB is one of the best and beloved Disney movies, a first animated picture to ever be nominated for the Best Picture, why would you remake it and skimp on quality I just don't understand.
To add insult to injury, they hired someone who actively began making changes to the established, beloved character, which is not always a terrible thing, but with Emma its literally a butchering of character. She did not understood or try to understand Belle, or played the character we all know and love, she just jumped in and began transforming Belle into something completely different: throwing in some political agenda (how she was complaining that Belle was "not feminist enough" and they changed it; Despite the fact that Belle was written BY a feminist) and turning Belle into some narcissistic project, since she kept repeating "she is so like me, she was also born in France, and is misunderstood by others" etc. That's great that you relate to her, Emma, but you are playing a character, not yourself.
You know, they could have just hired a singing double and dubbed over the footage, but I suppose that would come across as an admission of guilt.
Emma is not playing Belle in the movie, she's just Emma in a medieval/fantasy setting absolutely destroying the most memorable scenes in the original movie
Ya just know that her playing Hermione Granger as a child was a factor. People went “woah, they’re both nerdy book girls!” and assumed they’re the same character when they’re really not. So nostalgia, fan service, whatever you wanna call it.
In the video Emma is a descent singer as Sideways said and I woudl say she is a pretty good actress.. But the whole thing of wanting on set vocals is just the reason why the whole auto and poor audio engineering stuff happened throughout the entire film.
@@paaaaanda3060
She did the same thing as Hermione, especially from the third movie onwards. She was just Emma dressed up in Hogwarts' robes.
Original
That girl is strange, no question 👵👵
Remake
That girl is strange, no question 🚶♂️🚶♂️🚶♂️🪖🪖🪖🪖🪖🪖🎖🎖🎖🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷🇫🇷
You want to know why?
_Patriarchy._ Striaght up. Instead of Belle being misunderstood and critiqued by the older generation of women, It's a bunch of young boys in school being taught in a militant fashion that girls like Belle are WEIRD.
I seriously don't know why they made it so military-like. The original scene actually would've been _easier_ to film.
It's a weird oxymoron with Disney, where they change visuals and audio from the original to be easier in live action, but when a scene from the original _is_ actually easy to replicate, they go out of their way to complicate and change it.
@@SavouryGalette and it always looks overdone and forced yet still chintzy somehow.
@@SavouryGalette For some reason, the schoolboys marching feels as if it belonged in the music video for Pink Floyds Another Brick In The Wall Part 2
Lmao
Ah, yes. The biggest Disney villain of all time…
Auto tune.
Not Disney?
Wait, hold up you're right😂
@@NemoNobodySMT the directors for these recent bad movies too are villains (aside from wish cus that had corporate meddling that made it bad so that was js disney)
Autotune is AWFUL!
@@NemoNobodySMTI thought that’s what they were gonna say too lol
One thing I noticed while you contrasted them is that the live action remake flips who has their head in the clouds and who doesnt. Belle in the LA remake walks across the washing girls workspace and seems in general not really more in the way of others, while in the animated original while she is detached from the town, its not like she is in the way. Its more that the way she is makes others lose their head, like how the guy in the window misscuts the other mans beard, because he got distracted by Belle just.... walking by.
In the original Belle seems like a very observant girl that gets ostracized by the town but learned to deal with that. But the LA Version seems like a general nuisance in some ways but also accepted by some? Its so confusing.
One of most accurate things I’ve heard about the issues with Emma’s Belle is she just not nice, in fact she’s rude and it greatly contrasts why people liked Belle in the first place. I really think this was on everyone, the writers, the director, and Emma’s poor portrayal in having a feminine character with soft qualities that went against the direction Hollywood has tried to insert women into being “strong.” The issue is that these characters tend to come off as abrupt, and it’s just a turn off.
Completely disregarding Belle’s character because one of her strengths was kindness, it was one of the traits that gave the Beast a chance to bond with her. This Belle came off as rude, cold, and very awkward.
The remake highlights this problem a little later when Belle takes up the entire town well with her washing machine so she can teach girls to read (never mind that during that period in real-life France, girls actually were taught to read and wouldn't have needed the help of someone like Belle). The movie tries to portray the villagers as stupid thugs for destroying her machine, but completely ignores the massive imposition Belle's made on them by preventing them from drawing any water.
I feel like remaking the renaissance was a bit too soon--and it's CRAZY that they considered not making this a musical.
Yeah things like Jungle Book and Cinderella worked well because the stories are so old that storytelling has come a long way since then and modern audiences have new demands of theme and character and stuff. Not to say the originals didn’t have any of that, but I think they’re mostly remembered as light fun little nostalgic kids movies
The Disney Renaissance is a whole different genre of Disney movie that are still watched regularly and looked at fondly today (not you Pocahontas) because of how tight and great the stories and characters are
The Jungle Book was 49 years old when the remake was released. The Renaissance remakes should’ve had a similar wait, so people that actually grew up with them and love and understand the source materials could’ve been given it instead of a bunch of old white guys who’s primary goal (other than money making) seems to be checking off “mistakes” from the original that they saw on cinemasins
@@frogwhisperer2067 This is why a "Peter Pan" remake SHOULD have been a good idea (fixing the NA rep), but they did some overcorrecting there.
The renaissance films haven't been free of controversy (ie cultural accuracy), but the remakes haven't had enough to work with, tbh--"The Little Mermaid" (2023) was half remake, half original story. Had it been 100% original with a different take on the fairy tale, new songs, and new characters, it'd be a lot less controversial; setting it in the Carribbean would've gotten praise, and Disney NOT making another remake would've gotten similar praise. "Aladdin" didn't really fix much; while Aladdin and Jasmine aren't sexualized (1992 Aladdin was modeled after Tom Cruise to attract a female audience, and I assume Jasmine's outfit was based on western misconceptions of ME clothing), Aladdin still lies to Jasmine twice and Jasmine is re-written as Belle. I do kinda like that they gave Naomi Indian-inspired clothes specifically to reference her heritage, though; I like to imagine Agrabah as a kingdom in the Persian Gulf, connecting Saudi Arabia to India (plus Iraq is right next to SA, and in the animated film, Agrabah was originally gonna be called Baghdad).
I actually enjoy "Pocahontas" as a piece of fiction--but I despise that Disney gave this any historical background. They should've made this 100% fiction with original characters, kinda like "Atlantis"--just without the sci-fi stuff and in a renaissance setting.
@@OpticalSorcererIf they made the Little Mermaid remake like the 90s Brandy Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella, it would've been a smash hit too. Hire a musical team (just not Lin Manuel Miranda), have then write entirely new songs, and film the movie using the 80s Little Mermaid iconography, with the pink dress and everything, and it would've been appreciated more. You could tell that's what they were kiiiiinda trying to do with the remake, but maybe they were having a lot of push back from higher ups to not change the source material too much.
@@Tea_Noire TLM was at a weird crossroads of being reliant to the source material and doing something entirely new. I would've liked it if they went for a new take; all new songs, new plot, and new characters, (no Ariel and co.)
@@OpticalSorcererHard agree! Disney seems lost and out of ideas. I think anyone of us could write a movie that harkens back to the original, Ike your idea, rather than just making a more PC live action version. I honestly haven't seen any new Disney movies, animated or otherwise. Well I did see the first new Star Wars with Rey which was desperate fan service with a plot almost identical to the first 70"s one and decided I was done with that series.
That opening story reminded me of when the Lion King remake came out. I was working at a summer day camp for elementary school age kids. I overheard this conversation between kindergartners.
Kid 1: I saw The Lion King last night.
Kid 2: how was it.
Kid 1: Okay. Not as good as the cartoon.
I've been strongly urged to refer to that type of feedback during this trend as "remakeitis," much like how sequelitis was the mindset to abide by during the onslaught of sequels released by DisneyToon Studios.
To add to how the settings can compliment the lyrics and themes, taking away the sheeps also undercuts one of thing from the original: the fact that Belle has no one to talk to. "I want adventure in the great wide somewhere" is the iconic line but it's followed by "and for once it would be grant to have someone understand". She was companionship, something that she doesn't find in town, with the baker ignoring, only the sheep listening and Gaston clearly more interested in himself than anything else. Even her dad doesn't fully undestand her, as shown when he asks about Gaston. The animated one crafts this scenes perfectly so that we can understand Belle and be happy went she finds someone who tries to understand her (this is a romance, after all), but in the live action the town has a wierd vibe and they even make her try to teach a small girl to read, wich takes away from the "no one here is interest in what I'm interested".
For a bonus point, the sheep she's singing to responds by taking a bite out of one of the pages of her book, showing that even _they_ aren't really listening.
It's insane that the live-action version replaced the scene with the sheep with one of her just singing to no one, even though the lyrics clearly indicate that she's talking to someone else.
As someone who does live in a little town and quiet village, I can confirm that the live action movie did not convince me that Emma Watson's Belle lived in a similar area. Her whole village felt like a fraud. There was no continuity to the background characters. Everyone felt like total strangers to each other, as opposed to the mingling, gossiping people in the animated movie. Gossip, chatter, and banter are the hearts of most small-town communities, and it just was bot conveyed here. Watson looked like someone was actually coaching her through the song.
A lot of live action Disney numbers have a “more is better” approach, replacing lines spoken aside by a passerby with crowds of people.
In addition to turning little solos/duets into ensemble lines, it also feels like they're refusing to use... IDK, character singers? No one's putting on a gossipy old-woman voice, they're just singing the lines.
between this and the situation regarding the Mulan remake where they had a director with no musical experience, I’m starting to question if Disney even knows how integral the music is to… well… their *musicals*
They haven't seemed to since the end of the 90s when their attempts to pander to musicalphobic str8 teenage boys bombed and bombed hard. It spoke volumes when my then five-year-old sister preferred to listen to the *Anastasia* soundtrack over any post-Pocahontas Disney soundtrack.
Re: Emma Watson's singing, I really like Sideways' take on it. Disney has so much money, they absolutely could have given her singing lessons IF she was bad. But the thing is, we don't even know what her singing is actually like because Disney chose to make her voice INCREDIBLY digital in this movie. It sounds so bad!! There was absolutely no need to make her voice sound like that.
exactly! there are people who seem to think “oh she can’t sing! they should’ve hired someone else!” if they were so dead set on casting her they could have just???? got her a vocal coach??? but she might not even be bad! she could sound fine! good even! i can’t tell because all i can hear is the pitch correction and stitching together of takes
@@galvanicwitch3288they’d need to teach her to show depth of emotion while they were at it too
Not to mention they could have just hired a singer. They’ve done it before for other celebrity actors before. When Demi Moore played Esmeralda in Hunch Back of Notredam, another person did her music. Like, Disney. Just pay the money.
@@galvanicwitch3288as far as I know she did took singing classes, but alas
Actually, she knows how to sing, listen to her in Noah. Which is even more baffling since Disney just couldn't help themselves with the fake auto pitch on her and Luke Evans
This film was always going to make a billion.
So why not find the best musically trained triple threat actress who moves like a dancer, sings like a powerhouse, makes the absolute best of every moment, and who actually looks like the animated character?
It's so annoying!
I actually think that pausing for the clock to strike eight is a good idea in this song. It highlights how routine life is in this town-- clocks are very common as a symbol of mechanical precision. Does it work? I'm not so sure, but I see the idea and I think there's a bit more going on here than just a suspenseful pause.
I think the problem is that it stops the song for some seconds, which is weird
I knew it was going to be a failure the second they announced who played Belle. I don't like Watson, I really don't. She has this deeply shallow idea of feminism, how it should look, how an empowered woman should look and act, and I've also always found her acting to be... kinda flat when she isn't yelling at someone. She always plays her characters with this air of superiority that I knew she was going to bring to Belle. She was an awful choice and only cast because she was Hermione, ignoring how her need to make every character she plays into her idea of a feminist also ruined Hermione.
Also, in the OG film pay attention to where the colour blue is used, outside dark scenes (as in nighttime or unlit). There are exactly five places blue is actually used- Belle's dress, the Beast's dinner coat, the Beast's eyes, Belle's book, and Gaston's eyes. You don't see it used in the town AT ALL outside those places. Because it's meant to show Belle as an ostracised outsider, someone who doesn't belong. Even the windows and water are done in GREY. Not blue. Her book is blue for the same reasons Belle is blue- it's odd, out of place, mismatched. Beast's coat is blue for the same reasons as well as to show how he's grown close to Belle. His eyes are blue to contrast with Gaston but also to show that there is something more to him. Gaston's eyes are actually kind of the odd one out but I think they're blue to show how icy and cold he actually is. So naturally the live action ignored this and put blue everywhere. Blue clothes, blue objects in town, blue blue blue.
Emma watson is just awfully wooden as an actress, this film made me hate her acting
This is the kind of insight I love!
Looks like Disney really...BLUE.. their load on this movie🤣😐
Maybe Gatson's eyes are also blue to underlign how obsessed he is with Belle. If she is represented by the colour blue, his eyes have to be blue because his need to posses her consumes him.
I could have dealt with her acting if they had dubbed over her singing with a real singer, instead of using autotune. That's what used to be done for movie musicals and it worked. Or better yet, just hire Broadway talent for Belle, like they did for the Beast, Gaston, Le Fou, etc.
I think what doesn’t help is that Emma had a lot of involvement ‘backstage’ and turned this movie into a very obvious feminist statement which just made me roll my eyes so much while watching it.
Notice how in the animated version the villagers just thought Belle was an odd bookworm who daydreamed too much. But in the live action they’re sexist towards her and make a big show of how the boys go to school while the girls are doing the laundry.
Another comparison you could maybe talk about is when Belle takes her father’s place as Beast’s prisoner? The animated one is so wonderfully done, Belle offers herself in exchange out of love for her father as he’s coughing and probably ill but still hesitates before doing it because she’s frightened of giving up her freedom. She’s terrified when she sees Beast’s form but still agrees and then rightfully is distraught afterwards and falls to the floor.
In the live action film, Belle TRICKS the Beast into opening the prison door then violently throws her father out so he falls to the floor, walks in herself and shuts it behind her. When the Beast is confused and questions her about it she patronises him and just looks fed up?! It was so aggressive and obnoxious but I’m guessing from Emma’s point of view it was meant to look ‘strong’. 🙄
My favorite part of the original song Belle, is the part near the end when all of the villagers are basically talking over each other. The original makes it clear that we're just hearing snippets of different conversations by adding lot's of background chatter, but what I've noticed in the live action and in the Broadway recording, is that there is no real noise in the background, making it sound like the villagers are just shouting out random phrases like "Ten yards!" or "1 pound!", I also think it's odd that they changed the line "what lovely grapes!" to "what lovely flowers" it's kind of a nit pick, but why would you change a four syllable line to a five syllable line, especially in a very strict rhythm.
Okay but seriously, why is the set so bland? It’s really apparent with clips back and forth from the 2017 one to the animated one. I’m not expecting perfection cause like the original film is one of the most beautiful looking films I’ve ever seen, but if 2015 Cinderella can look good what’s this film’s excuse?
I’m glad you picked this film to analyze. I’m not 100% against auto-tuning on a singer (I’m a Vocaloid fan so I can’t really be) but the LAST PLACE it should be used is on the LEAD SINGER OF A FREAKING BROADWAY MUSICAL FILM!
11 year old me was so disappointed in this film and I still am.
100% with everything you said. I saw this movie on opening day at my local mall when I was 11, forgot about it as soon as the credits were rolling, and fell absolutely in love with the original movie. I grew up watching it, but this terrible remake made me appreciate it all the more. I can't even watch the entire movie without getting bored because it's just that bad (the remake, of course), but I've seen the animated movie dozens of times and I could watch it everyday and never get bored.
@@ladyangelsongbird I’m glad you were able to find something good out of watching the live action, even if it is just appreciating the original.
Also this is random but we both use “lady” in our usernames lol
Wasn’t Emma Watson casted because she was quote “book smart?” I remember watching this movie in the theater. At the end I was just so disappointed how they could have genuinely have Emma sing well with some training. But no they decided to do everything quickly and lazily I would have to say. Love your videos!
I thought it was cause there were people who like to cast Hermione (another smart character Emma played) as Belle when they make those fan trailers.
She was cast because "DAE Hermonine=Belle"
On tumblr many years ago so many were fan casting Emma as Belle, because she has the posh voice and most importantly she looked like Belle
I will say tho, I did still love this movie… but Disney did Emma dirty by not having someone else sing for Emma/give her singing lessons or better auto tune
She WAS trained. By Paige O'Hara. She just couldn't match up to the rest of the broadway singers they hired to play everyone else.
I just watched UA-cam channel The Trove's video "Why Cinderella is Disney's only good live-action remake". On that video there is a quote from Sean Bailey, the president of production for Disney Motion Pictures Studios. The quote says that regarding the casting of Belle, Watson was the first and only choice of Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan F. Horn, who was previously president and COO of WB, the company which released eight Harry Potter films starring Emma Watson as Hermione Granger.
That's the reason why she became Belle. I have nothing personal against Watson, I think she was OK in the few Harry Potter films I've seen (and I also liked her in the Little Women remake and in The Perks of Being a Wall Flower) but IMO she can't carry a film as a lead and she definitely is not a singer.
It’s funny how Twisted’s Dream a Little Harder, a parody of Belle, is better than Disney’s own version. To be fair, Twisted is fantastic, but that’s beside the point
It's crazy how good Twisted and it's soundtrack is.
Your "WHY REMAKE SONGS ARE WORSE' content is a treasure of UA-cam. Keep doing it please!
“Even as Ashman’s health declined…”
Ouch. If you know, you know
legend
@@DavidBehlman Oh yeah, he was an outstanding lyricist!
@@ElizabethMcCormick-s2n and he kept actively working a lot more than he probably should’ve! But we all benefited with some of the best work ever.
Him, Jim Henson, and Dr. Seuss dying within two years of each other really hit hard.
Really happy to see how the channel's grown since the "This is the Thanks I Get" video. I'm one of probably a lot of people who found this channel through that video. While music isn't my forte, I never thought I'd get this much entertainment seeing how much effort and actual damn near science goes into making a good song. Well done, Astor, keep up the good work dude
"What's a peepo? *laughing*"-Markiplier
Theoretically, the akward dialogue between Belle and Monsieur Jean about "not remembering" is kind of a set up, since he is the husband, if I recall correctly, of Mrs Potts, but I feel it still so poorly delivered, I remember I had to read about it to notice... but, still doesn't fit the song. Thanks for awesome content, I really enjoy your videos, every time!
Yes, you're right. He's Mrs. Potts's husband & it was supposed to clue the audience in that the townsfolk have completely forgotten the neighboring castle & all it's cursed inhabitants. Unfortunately, it's a clunky moment that doesn't work in this song & it's easy to forget about.
Original Belle : Known for being feminist , selfless , independent, kind and best role model
Emma Watson : "Belle is not feminist enough so thats why I have to change the character"
*Proceed to destroy the original Belle people loved*
If Disney would just start hiring Broadway actors (like they did
in the early years, actually hiring people who have been trained
and perform in musicals for a living) I think things would SO
much better, instead of just casting someone because they are famous... cast them because they can do the job❤
The fact that Belle and her father are IN the town, not just on the outskirts but IN the town is actually a bigger deal that showed this whole movie was to an off start. This symbolism might seem silly, yet it makes an impact of how the movie plays out. The original animated movie had the town curious about Belle to a certain limit, but they were always put off by something whether it’s because her hobby was to read, her father was eccentric, and where her house is placed highlights this viewpoint of close to being considered a part of the community but not being in the community.
As for the autotune, the only one who has an excuse is Dan, in fact the only redeeming thing of the live action was the song Evermore. No one else has that excuse.
I think your philosophy of writing where you "say what you need and move on" serves to illustrate a comparison between the two films as a whole, even back then i thought this remake wasted so much time explaining specific stuff that the original's script didn't bother touching because it wasn't interesting enough or didn't serve the crux of the story. It felt like it was aiming to some invisible CinemaSins-y crowd.
Even the musical numbers go on for way too long, and the directing isn't strong enough to compensate that. The "Gaston" number felt like it went on for an eternity. Beauty and the Beast is my favorite of the Renaissance films so the 2017 version has always been one of my most disliked of these remakes even before hating them was thaaat popular, so it's nice to see more dissections of it!
Nailed it!! Trying to correct non existent script issues has made all of the live actions unwatchable.
I feel like part of that seems to have come from the bad faith interpretations disguised as progressive video essays that popped up in the early years of UA-cam.
Analysis and interpretation is cool and we all have to do it in school, but when the core of that Analysis is based on 'what if' or misreads original intention, then that Analysis should be read for what it is....a thought experiment, not legitimate constructive criticism.
@@stackels97those analyses were actually stealth reactionary and made from multiple points of privilege.
i also think that writers tend to add something in live action adaptations, even if it's completely unnecessary, so that it's existence can be justified.
"we don't wanna just make this song simple and boring! bleh! we need to make it super over the top, even if it doesn't need it!"
"let's insert this unnecessary scene into this important plot point because depth and nuance!"
"we have minorities as characters now! they're unimportant to the plot and they're super bland, but hey, at least you feel represented now, right?"
nevermind the fact that the media they're adapting was already successful without said changes...
All these early renaissance remakes are such a slap in the face to the meticulous care and effort Howard Ashman put into these musical numbers
Emma Watson is a terrific and talented actress. So I was shocked when I watched the movie and she was so monotone, emotionless, robotic and toneless, and really boring. I don't know if she just didn't really feel excited to star in this movie or if this is how the director wanted told her to sing and act. But this is definitely one of her more awful performances. She's so good in other movies. But I don't know. This is a live action Disney remake. It's a mass produced movie in Disney's production line. It's not really an environment for unique and creative ideas, as it's just following the formula Disney executives laid out, and the movies are just being churned like products on a conveyer belt.
I like how at Belle's first singing words every single review I've seen says something to the effect of "...oh no."
Why can’t we go back to dubbing singing voices like what they did with audrey hepburn in my fair lady??? As long as the singer is credited as well??? But no, we’re stuck with a robot belle
Marni Nixon was never publicly credited for her work as the singing voice for Eliza though but I get the gist of your point
@@mysticwater9056 yea, i just meant that dubbing singing voices should be credited nowadays compared to back then. We don’t wanna repeat the plot of Singing in the Rain lol
@@kirrb-dot-exe I'm surprised dubbing didn't fall out of favor until more than a decade after that movie came out. It was 12 years from that to *My Fair Lady.*
“Gaston’s actor is giving it his all” now I wanna see you review Scrooge: A Christmas Carol.
This movie scared me as a kid but I liked it
@@kawaiiemolga the movie I’m talking about came out in 2022…
@@emuanon34 I mistook it with the 2009 movie called just "A Christmas Carol" ;-;
@@kawaiiemolga That’s ok, I do recommend the 2022 one, love that film. 😌
Why did I immediately think you were talking about the Muppet version 😂
11:08 When I first saw the trailer, LMM’s name genuinely felt like a punchline.
Howard, what a TRUE auteur. No one in today's films understood what he did.
Where is the choreography! A musical number is nothing without movement and a dance. Like the La La Land traffic scene, or the library scene in the Music Man.
As a sheep I will mourn the loss of those sheep during Belle's explanation so sad too bad
I think what bothered me the most was that the villagers in the original didn’t hate her just thought she was weird. In the remake, the villagers didn’t like her at all and you would think they would have driven Belle out if they didn’t like her that much?
I always thought they didn’t like her in the original, either, because she comes into town singing an annoying song about how they’re boring and stupid and she, the reader, is SO much better than them.
@@misskate3815 but so many of them have pleasant interactions with her. Also she's supposed to be really nice and likeable so it would be weird if the whole town couldn't stand her lol.
When the hood Belle parody song (Beauty and the Beat) is better than the sanctioned live-action remake...
@@annbe1l And then there's 'Mountain Town'...
😂🤣
Trying to remake a Howard Ashman movie will probably not ever work.
I cracked up when she sang "full of little... people". As if she's putting finger quotations on the word "people". 😆
Thank you for not only giving such an incisive critique of Belle in the live action remake, but also picking up on the shortcomings of the scene's visual storytelling compared to the original animated film, such as the way Belle and her father live outside the village, signaling that they are outsiders and don't belong! I'd also like to point out how in the animated version, there was an obvious creative decision to make Belle the only person in the village wearing blue, while everyone else is in earth tones, so she stands out (once again, she's an outsider) and the audience never has any trouble picking her out of the crowd. Compare that to the extras' wildly overdesigned costumes in the live action version where there's just so much colour and texture (yet somehow still looking drab???) that Belle just blends into the crowd.
Listen, I liked Lin Manuel Miranda's work on some of Disney's projects, but his work on The Little Mermaid was _not_ good, so him being the lyricist for the Mufasa movie has me _very_ nervous.
I'm half-expecting another cringy, unfunny rap song in that movie a la Scuttlebutt.
I think the big difference there is that scuttle as a character is sort of obnoxious already so whatever song they give it would have also limited itself to that lens
@@desdar100Scuttle already had a song: waaaaaaaaaaaughwaughwaughwaughwaughwaaaaaauuuughwaughwaughwaugh….we didn’t need another one
@@5th_cellar the moment Disney hired Aquafina (who is a rapper) you best believe they were going to give her something more than what the original character had
@@desdar100 Snoop Dogg was in *The Garfield Movie* and they didn't stop the movie cold so he could rap.
@@Attmay Nora has basically been the Phil Harris of this generation, so they're more willing to lean into her mannerisms.
Is it me or Belle in the remake is just rude in the remake opening?
Her first encounter with Gaston made me feel sympathy for him.
A lot of "strong female characters" just come off as rude. They write them to act exactly like shitty men.
How is she rude (I respect your opinion but how)
How can anyone feel bad for Gaston he’s a freaking Disney VILLAIN
@@Kaminoboi Not at that point of the story, though.
In fairness, that opinion is based on having seen the film only once.
Even when I was younger, that "Little peEOple" rang the alarm bells in my head
4:35 What I find interesting about this scene is that it's suppose to be... Well not foreshadowing because they say this in the prologue, so this scene is suppose to showcase the fact the villagers have forgotten the castle and all the people who worked in it. But it doesn't really work in context of the song Belle because they didn't change the song to clearly showcase this idea (Or at least make an effort to make it match with the rest of the song like this scene does not as you presented).
Emma Watson cannot sing to save her life, so why people didn't bother to find out whether or not she COULD sing before casting her as Belle is a mystery to me!
Okay, this might sound harsh but…
Your family friends are terrible parents if their kid doesn’t know the original “Beauty and the Beast” 😂
Valid take
It does baffle the mind. A reason I see cited sometimes for the live action remakes is that they are more adult than the animated originals, utter rubbish but if that is indeed the rational then why people don't show the animated ones to their children?
On the other hand, it might not be that ludicrous that somebody doesn't want to give more money to disney to get the overpriced DVD for the film. It's a really good film, but the Disney which made it is no longer the Disney of today. It really ought to be in the public domain by now, honestly.
I watched it on my neighbor's player, on my friend's DVD. My family couldn't afford either at the time.
@@Hiphop618 Maybe they're all boys, so they would likely see GI Joe or classic Looney Tunes over these.
The great thing about Paige O'hara's performance is you can actually tell when she was smiling and Watson's sounds too robotic to show any of that.
The only thing with the guy who’s forgotten something in the song was he was the husband of Mrs Potts, since he, along with everyone else in the village were enchanted to forget everyone at the palace. Now that I’m thinking about it, it almost feels like it was forced in or ham fisted into the song. I honestly do agree it doesn’t make the song flow.
This is that last "live-action remake" I watched. It was so bad, it proved to me the whole endeavor was as soulless as it was pointless.
Same, only my husband and I had to turn it off after only about 15 minutes...truly painful 😭
If they told an original story in the style of a live action Disney remake it would go direct to DVD.
love the little efficient scripwriting at the start where you explain the broad strokes of why the song is iconic by explaining how it doesn't need to be explained in detail
When this movie first came out not many people seemed to have a problem with it and I felt like the odd one out for hating it. Glad to see people are finally looking back and realizing what garbage it was
Can we talk about the contrast between Belle-Watson’s auto toned voice and Gaston-Evans pure voice? Like seriously, it’s strikingly obvious
You've GOT to say something about the 2025 Snow White teaser.
the WHAT
oh no.
their failures started when they decided to make these movies in the first place
I try not to place all the blame on Emma Watson for her less than stellar singing (or acting) for this one. Despite their efforts to hide it, the Beauty and the Beast remake is a movie that feels like it was rushed through development.
They could have spent more time actually training Watson to sing (they got Paige O'Hara herself to do it, and if Daniel Ratcliff can learn to sing so can Emma), but they didn't and couldn't because the company schedule demanded it be out by 2017. So the probably just took what they got and rushed to pitch correct it in post, cue the robot voice.
They could have hired a director who actually can stage a musical film, but instead they hired Bill Condon, who wrote (but criticality, didn't direct) Chicago, and who's only other musical film was the 2007 Dreamgirls, which is absolutely not a classic Broadway-style musical like Beauty and the Beast. But the thing he's best know for is the Twilight Breaking Dawn films, which were about as rushed as their predecessors. Condon was almost certainly hired to make Beauty and the Beast 2017 on a similarly rushed and kneecaped schedule. They also probably hired him because he was cheaper.
This film, its follow-ups, and everything wrong with them and their music is absolutely the fault of Disney trying to rush them out, ensuring that even if the people working on the remakes love the originals, they don't have the time to put in the care and effort that made the originals work.
That story you told about your friends kid not knowing there was there was an animated Beauty and The Beast movie made me kinda sad.
Your opening statement is the exact problem I have with these live-action remakes.
People have a short-term memory when it comes to movies, and they latch onto the most recent media. When people see these remakes, they may or may not have seen the animated originals yet, even though these remakes rely on familiarity of the animated ones. So it creates unwanted confusion in discussions where if you bring up Beauty and the Beast, you have to specify the animated film, or else people will automatically assume you mean the remake.
That in the long run spoils the prestige of the animated film, because now it has the baggage of these soulless remakes attached to them.
5:35 That's really good advice, I like to write fanfiction and I feel like I could work on being less overexplainy ^^
Overexplanation can be an expression of anxiety, or a fear of misinterpretation. Trust your readers.
I often feel I need explanations to understand some things in storys so I think you should explain
The guys "lost belongings" is actually.... answering the question of why didn't anyone remember that there was an enchanted castle near by. What he'd actually forgotten, was his wife Mrs Pots and his son Chip, whom he remembers at the end when the spell is broken. The remake tried to answer multiple obvious questions such as this. Watching the original, I never had this question as I assumed that the enchantment included that surrounding villiages, forgot! Plus I assumed that hundreds of years might have gone by such as in other fairy tales like sleeping beauty.
I'm not hearing Belle here, I'm hearing Emma Watson.
And copious amounts of auto-tune.
Also, her posho accent is REALLY grating. 👁👄👁
You have all these talented singers and then the one person that ends up sounding like Malon from og Ocarina of time. 💀
Lowkey would like to see a Beauty and the Beast with that robotic Malon voice. It’d be freaking hilarious
@@Lady_ETHNE Taaale as old as UUU-U-UUUUUUU, U-U-UUUUUU~
Oh no - a “Lion King” prequel!
Disney has really learned fuck all… 🤦♀️
I'm so confused at how these remakes keep getting made. Where is the passion?!
also- love your videos as always!
Nostalgia bait, unfortunately, it works...
The people in charge are very passionate about money
Thank you for making this video! The original Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorite movies of all time and the live action remake is probably my most hated movie. It's a little side hobby of mine to rant and complain nonstop about the failures of the remake. I try to forget it doesn't exist but it's so much fun to hate on. I'm not opposed to story changes or retellings, but the Disney remakes always make the stupidest changes to the plot and characters that the whole movie is incohesive with the elements of the originals that are kept. Ironically, when they try to fix the 'problems' with their classics, they only make everything worse. For example: with Beauty and the Beast, people will complain that the original movie exhibits 'stockholm syndrome', but the remake would probably display more qualities of it than the animated version, which I don't think does at all, but that's a different conversation. Apparently Belle wasn't 'feminist' enough in the original so they had to make her an inventor here, which adds nothing to the plot. Not to mention they add at least 45 minutes more to the runtime that makes the remakes feel bloated overall with all the unnecessary additions. All when the originals had great timing for each scene and most are 80-85 minutes long. It's all atrocious and I'm NOT looking forward to the Snow White remake, of which the original was my favorite as a child. Rachel Zegler has already ruined it. Apologies for the long rant, but this is just a topic I'm passionate about.
i'm a mild fan of vocaloid songs and the way vocaloids work is that they are literally synthetic voices like how a keyboard can mimic other intruments, but a good artist can still make hatsune miku sing a better version of belle than this, emma probably would sound a lot better if they didnt'tune her voice at all too since i did hear she can sing even if she can't reach high enough, this movie makes me want to see an action movie where the actors don't get stunt doubles and the stunts instead are just made easier and less impressive, but also cast actors who aren't used to doing their own stunts in the first place, it just makes me want to see a famous actor fail to ride a bike in a parody of what a chase scene is supposed to be, because that is what this is,
I also want to point out the change in Belle’s character that Watson did. (At least that I noticed). Why is she so….rude? Almost walking on the laundry? Like, animated Belle was in her own world, but not rude to the people around her. Watson’s Belle is SO in her own world that she’s just not paying any attention to anyone else in the town
I had the “pleasure” of watching this opening scene a week in advance, in 4D, at California Adventure. It made me sad. The Cinderella and Jungle Book remakes were excellent.
4:46 this scene does have purpose, it foreshadows the entire fact he has a wife and kid- Ms. Potts and Chip! I only realized this in my second watch but I like that detail. I think it helps connect the castle-dwellers to the villagers. They’re affected by their loved ones being missing even though they don’t realize it.
I agree but It should have been added so much better because it messes with the rhythm of the song and the emotional mystery of what he is missing but alas nope (heck it could have been a conversation with Gaston as a way to showcase the love the town has for him or something)
This is a crux of one of the remake’s problems that ends up in the later ones, they overbloat plot points that don’t go anywhere or they don’t add anything. Belle’s invention sub-plot, lumiere wanting to stand up to the beast some of these are just set up with 0 payoff. This plot point in particular does end I guess but it follows up with just filling in plot holes that are just most nitpicks that come from old internet jokes, like why does the townsfolk not know the castle? What happend to belle’s mum? They get answered but doest’t add anything to the main drive of the story and instead goes out of focus by speeding up more integral scenes and add more uneeded fat.
gastons line in the song "as a specimen im intimidating" is the cringiest thing in the movie while he sings it in well... his voice
Okay I know this is not really related to anything you’ve remarked on but can I just say the one thing about Emma Watson’s acting that I absolutely despise?
She is always just flailing her arms around for no reason.
Her body acting is weird, jarring and disjointed. She lacks grace, which for a character like Belle, should not be the case. Her movements are not free flowing and effortless. She always looks like a flailing exhausted and sloppy person. Takes me out. Once you see it you won’t unsee it.
I feel like they shouldn't have copied the 1991 movie so much but water it down. If these live action Disney remakes want to stand out from the original animated film, then they should make it their own. Something closer to their fairytales or even their unused content and concepts.
For instance, Beauty and the Beast had a different director in 1989, Richard Purdum. His take wasn't a musical, Belle had a little sister and black cat, and there were two villains, Belle's aunt (who was a bit like the stepmother from Cinderella) and Gaston who's more of a spoiled pompous manchild than a hunter. The enchanted objects couldn't speak, so most of the dialogue came from Belle and Beast. The tone was also darker with a more vicious wolf fight with Beast bringing Belle back to the castle rather than the other way around. The Beast was also depicted as a Mandrill in a dark 1700s trenchcoat, and Belle's ballroom dress was rose red instead of gold. So I felt they should've just done that instead. Cast Emma Roberts as Belle and High Jackman as Beast and you'd actually have something different from the 1991 movie.
These live actions by disney is proving that og versions are the best!
THANK YOU
The OG is something I've been able to nearly fully recite since childhood. So each and every little change in the new one, stuck out to ME like a sore thumb. And it made me see just how much emotion was portrayed by Paige.
Anytime I mention that, I'm usually told I'm over thinking it and they sound exactly the same.
Same thing happened with Little Mermaid!
Our classics deserve better ❤
Your channel is so underrated. You perfectly describe not only everything I knew that was off about Disney's live-action films, but also why and what made the animated versions so great. The first video I saw of yours was the one about Poor Unfortunate Souls, and I was hooked. Thank you for sharing your expertise! ^.^
I really hate when the lion king remake is referred to as "live action".
“You probably have color vision.” Being visually impaired the visuals were one thing that actually would’ve been cool to have commentary on lol.
10:15 At least in Gaston they cast a guy who can actually sing, Luke Evans. He actually started his acting career on the West End (the U.K.’s Broadway) in musicals like Miss Saigon and Rent. Hell he’s even released two albums of his own! 😂
Emma Watson as Belle is a great example of “good in theory, bad in practice”
5:00 tbf, this conversation with the baker is foreshadowing the fact that the entire village got their memories removed due to the curse. And the baker intuitively knows that he forgot something, which is later revealed when he regains his memory and it's revealed that he's the husband of Madame Pottine.
The autotune had to work so hard for Emma Watson, but it still wasn't enough :(
I heard that they only wanted Emma Watson to play Belle and I think that was a mistake-they should’ve done a casting call for Belle.
It's wild how these REMAKES mess up simple visuals, considering the good ones already exist?? Like, if the original movie did it Right, why would you alter it to work less?
Lion king… LMM? Why do they think he can do every genre? Why does he think he can do every genre? Are they ever going to hire people trained in the musical culture they’re inspired by?
Bro they autotuned the hell out of Emma Watson’s voice to the point where sometimes when she sang in this movie she sounded like a literal robot 😭
@@Zero01655 *Small Wonder: The Musical*
And she still sounded terrible. 😩
The failure started when they made it live action, they never needed to be live action.
The animation is so much better than the live action version.
A thought on matters of taste: I am a massive fan of vocaloid, and that has led me to really enjoying robotic performances. I love when songs pump up the autotune. I love when it sounds stuttering, jittery, robotic. I also vastly enjoy the bit with the boys marching up the stairs. I honestly can't get enough of stomping used as part of a song.
But that being said, it doesn't fit. Sure some parts cater to my weirdly specific and probably bad tastes, but that doesn't make it fit the movie or scene appropriately. A musical is more than just enjoyable music, it's a story told through music. Even if one of those two aspects is absolutely perfect, it can't save the show if the other is a failure. Heck, even if both are good, it still fails if the two don't work together.
People will argue all day about "but I liked the song!" And like, sure, yeah. But that doesn't make it good for the context it's in.
She really bought her own hype. She should have looked at herself and decided some else could have done it much better instead of being a Harry Potter spin off
To all the comments saying Emma should have had vocal training, I'm quite certain she did. Pretty sure if you look it up there's an article where Emma said she was super proud of how far she came with the training and still she wasn't great and they edited her voice to shreds. She's just unskilled in singing, and evidently in her portayal of Belle, not a great actress either :')