Talk:Beauty and the Beast (2017 film)/@comment-4487748-20170324123652

So, I found a rip of the live action Beauty and the Beast on PrimeWire. I gave it the benefit of the doubt, even though I was a bit wary of it from the get go. I tried not to watch it with nostalgia goggles, because I knew it would influence my opinion one way or another, but it was impossible not to compare the two.

This movie did not need to exist. This felt like Disney asking itself how to make a quick cash grab. "What's popular today? 90's nostalgia, strong female leads, musicals? Beauty and the Beast. Paige O'Hara's too old to play Belle now, so who can the fans associate with a bookish, yet strong female role?" *googles strong female leads* "Hermione Granger = Emma Watson."

How is the movie on its own? It looks great, Disney spared no expense and the Mouse will be duly rewarded, but that's the problem. It LOOKS like Beauty and the Beast, but does not FEEL like Beauty and the Beast. It got the look of the original, but not the heart. It was basically Beauty and the Beast: The Broadway Musical, The Movie.

SPOILER ALERT!

Emma Watson is okay as an actress, but as a singer, she's... eh. The extra songs were sung well, especially the one sung by the Beast, but it was not needed. Lefou was supposed to be just that: the fool. The change to his character was bad. I liked that Belle and the Beast had more in common than being outcasts, but it felt like they got together in this version only because the plot demanded it. It was much more believable in the original. Speaking of which, I remember feeling so bad for him in the original after Belle had to leave, but here, when he went all Phantom of the Opera on us, all I could do was shake my head. In the original, the scene played out for itself perfectly. After the final battle, which was much less epic than in the 1991 movie (and far less funny when the castle staff fought the villagers), when the last rose petal fell, and the Beast "died", it had no where near the same depressing effect as in the original. Think about it. In the 1991 movie, the Beast "dies" and Bell says she loves him right before the last petal falls. You have a about a minute of silence to, again, let the heaviness of the scene play out, then you get the happy ending. In all their attempt to make it more depressing by showing the castle staff become inanimate objects in this version, they took all that away from the scene. I remember seeing the original in theaters in 1991. Everyone cheered when the spell was broken and everyone turned human again. In this version, it was just bland.

END SPOILER!

You must think I hate this movie, since I did nothing but rip on it, but I didn't I can't bring myself to hate it. I certainly won't be watching it again in the near future, it doesn't even hold a candle to original, but I still don't dislike it. It was okay. It was just brimming with adequacy. Disney, please stop with live action remakes. Again, this movie did not need to exist. As the Enchantress said, "Don't be deceived by appearances, for true beauty is found within." Good CGI and a big a budget does not a good movie make. And as Cogsworth said in the original, "If it's not ba-roke, don't fix it."