Talk:The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning/@comment-4165687-20140526170520/@comment-1672596-20140913165824

Does anyone know John Lasseter's email address? I was thinking of pitching an idea for him to allow an exception to be made regarding the current sequels ban regarding Beauty and the Beast, namely an actual sequel that will cover the events of the French Revolution and the horrors that it inflicted. The actual events and violence will be toned down somewhat, in order to keep it under an R rating and be suitable for kids with some parental guidance, but they still need to be played somewhat seriously so kids would realize the French Revolution, contrary to what their schools may have taught them especially in the public setting, was not actually a good event, much less comparable to the American Revolution. Think of a Beauty and the Beast meets The Killing Fields, maybe a combination of Beauty and the Beast and Schindler's List for a good idea of what I'm getting at. Glen Keane indicated that Beauty and the Beast took place during the lead up to the French Revolution, so it would make a natural fit.

It also would work in potentially exploring Belle's characterization during this event. One of the flaws in her characterization of being a book lover in the original film, heck, most mediums, is that they never actually gave any indication of whether Belle was able to discern evil in written works as well as she was able to discern actual people's natures like she did with Gaston. For all we know, she could just as easily be as shallow as the triplets in that respect, and that would carry far worse implications to what she may do during the French Revolution (since most of the Jacobin Club were big Rousseau and Voltaire fans, even Sade fans). If it turns out she becomes somewhat of an anti-hero/anti-villain, she'll learn her lesson by the end of the movie. Heck, maybe they can surprise us and actually have Belle being against the revolution and even its Enlightened fathers such as Voltaire and Rousseau, proving she can actually discern evil in their works. Certainly, it can win back a lot of those of us who liked Belle but became distrustful of her and disillusioned after some terrible College experiences with professors who abused their position as intellectual superiors and mentors to basically push a political agenda using falsehoods, or various so-called intellectuals who basically promoted Communism and atheism as well as tried to destroy Christianity since at least the Age of Enlightenment, if not the Age of Reason.

I realize the sequel might nearly go into cynical territory, and he definitely would not like the cynical approach (as he and his first film, Toy Story can attest to how that approach nearly ruined Pixar thanks to Katzenberg). However, compared to the 1989 screenplay of the film, the final film was actually surprisingly cynical in its outlook despite it being allegedly lighthearted and softer (for instance, the Gaston reprise had Gaston blatantly admitting that he was going to conduct a heinous plan with no redeeming or practical value with everyone cheering him on with full knowledge; Belle effectively backstabbed her friends late into the film in such an incredulously stupid way that even Homer Simpson would realize that what she did was utterly stupid; heck, Belle herself despite being implied to be internal beauty personified basically came across most times to have a lot of internal ugliness and her foils actually came across as being more internally beautiful from their actions, and that's not even getting into how the enchantress basically really screwed Beast over by making it virtually, if not completely impossible for anyone to attempt to undo the spell, especially when the only reason it did get broken was due to sheer dumb luck.), and I think this sequel might actually be needed to actually teach kids early about the dangers of the French Revolution, especially when schools now and these days are more likely to glorify it than actually cover the carnage, and even if they were, they'd just blame Robespierre for it all and still cheering for the bloodshed of several Christians by the Jacobins' hand (I know I had that experience in High School with one of my history teachers, and there was some degree of this even before then if they covered the French Revolution), so there would be more going into this sequel than just the money. And considering the state of some of our kids coming out of public school, even without Common Core, this is definitely necessary. We probably also need to market it very well as well, to ensure everyone can see it and thus get the message. So far, the only times the French Revolution is being exposed is in Churches and certain conservative books, and let's face it, that's not going to be enough especially with the sway schools have on our kids, which was also founded by one of the founders of the Revolution, Rousseau.