Beauty and the Beast Diamond Edition Review

I grew up watching Disney films, the animated classics in particular. I was born during what’s commonly known as the Disney Renaissance, which started with “The Little Mermaid,” and in my opinion is still on-going. I was born in ‘88, and “The Little Mermaid” came out in ’89. I was far too young at the tender age of 1 to remember anything about the film, nor do I have any recollection of seeing “The Rescuers Down Under,” released in 1990. My dimmest recollection of seeing my first Disney film was of sitting on my mother’s lap in a movie theater watching “Beauty and the Beast,” which was released in theaters on November 23, 1991. I was 3 at the time, and I can only imagine that my parents took me to see the movie as a Christmas present. I enjoyed the film as much as a toddler could, what with that pesky short attention span; so ostensibly when the film was released almost a year later in 1992, my parents bought the film for me (again, probably as a Christmas present). Well, since then I’ve seen many more Disney films, but as I got older, none of the classically animated films drew me in the same way as Beauty and the Beast does to this very day. So when I got word that Disney was re-releasing the film from “the vault,” as it were, as a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack loaded with special features, I was mildly excited. *Cut to me crazily jumping for joy* I bought it the same day it came out. Now, the Blu-ray disk has 3, count ‘em 3, versions of the film: the original theatrical version, the special extended version, and the storyboard version. For my review purposes, I’m going to focus on the special extended version of the film.

For those of you not familiar with the plot of Beauty and the Beast, here it is in short: beautiful, intelligent girl meets anthropomorphized boy, they don’t get along at first, but one makes a change and the two fall in love and live happily ever after. Sound familiar? OK, so the film is built using the classic archetypes of a love story; the original tale of Beauty and the Beast comes from France, called “La Belle et La Bete.” But in many ways, this is anything but your typical “tale as old as time” fairy tale. The biggest reason that this is my favorite Disney animated film is the heroine; yes, Belle is a beautiful girl, the stereotypical ideal of feminine beauty, but she has substance. She has a brain, she loves to read (she even has her own library card!), she dreams of greater things for herself. Compared to other Disney heroines, Belle is much more three-dimensional. You won’t see her sitting locked up in a tower waiting for a prince to come and rescue her, nor will she be waiting around for true love’s kiss. She is a strong, independent and intelligent woman. One scene in particular highlights these qualities: the one after the Beast has come to her aide as she tries to fend off a pack of wolves. As Belle attempts to clean the Beast’s wounds, they argue. Look at the Beast’s face after each retort he makes; he has this smug smile on his face as if to say “Clearly, I have won this argument,” only to be one-upped by Belle.

If I’ve begun to sound like a feminist, pardon me. Really, I’m a deconstructionist at heart. But I digress: the film is beautiful, especially in Blu-ray. The movie’s opening scene is dazzling: you are in the woodland with a cascading waterfall nearby as a doe pauses to scent the air, roses are in bloom and a shining castle rises into the sky in the background. I love the use of the castle’s stained glass windows to tell the Beast’s back-story; it is a clever narrative technique as well as some great animation work. But the piece de resistance in this film has always been the ballroom scene where Belle and the Beast’s relationship blossoms into more than friendship. The animators of the original 1991 version of the film used the leading technology of the day, CAPS, to computer-generate this scene; this is most evident in the chandelier and the painting on the ceiling, which is a brilliant allusion to Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. Allow me to digress again: this scene is lovely, but it is completed with the vocal talents of Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Potts singing “Beauty and the Beast.” Lansbury was uncomfortable with the idea of singing the song and wanted someone better else to sing it, but the creative directors insisted that she make one recording, in case nothing else became available. This one recording is, of course, the one we hear in the film. Speaking of songs, the extended version of the film includes the song “Human Again,” sung by the ensemble of enchanted objects prior to the ballroom scene. It’s basically a montage: you get to see them cleaning the ballroom. This scene was cut for time, and because it is preceded and followed by musical numbers. It’s a handsomely drawn scene, but it really adds nothing to the plot. Yeah, we pretty much know that everybody in the castle is sick and tired of being household items/a hideous beast. Blu-ray breathed new life into this movie for me: the scene where the Beast is transformed, by love of course, into his true form is gorgeous.

I’d recommend the Diamond Edition of “Beauty and the Beast” for any avid Disney fan. Anyone with kids out there has most likely shown your kids the new stuff like Cars and Toy Story 3, (which I liked and loved, respectively) so this is a great opportunity to show them some of the hand-drawn classics.

Photo Credit: Kansas City Mamas