Thread:DisneyTriviaBuff/@comment-1672596-20150325200633/@comment-7969652-20150329014824

Weedle McHairybug wrote: Yeah, agreed, especially when removing Marguerite was a huge mistake that if anything hurt the film more than helped it. I can kinda understand the rationale for removing Belle's sisters, even if I don't really agree with it (Disney had no problem reusing characters in their fairytales, like how The Evil Queen was somewhat reused with Lady Tremaine and Maleficent, not to mention Aurora suffered a similar fate to Snow White. And besides, they technically reused Vanessa with the Featherduster's human form), but removing someone would have been perfect as a foil for Belle for the purposes of the moral was inexcusable, especially when thanks to Woolverton's insistence on trying to base Belle on the women's movement, she came across as pretty ugly in her character, almost as bad as Woody in the Black Friday reel (which ironically was also Jeffrey Katzenberg's fault).

I never understood why it needed to be rewritten. The whole "dark, dramatic and somber" element doesn't seem to cut it because, quite frankly, Snow White and even Cinderella were about as dark as if not darker than that draft (not to mention the final film came across as extremely cynical as a result). Not to mention, Katzenberg tried to do to Toy Story what he decried Beauty and the Beast as being. No kidding! However, that isn't to say that there weren't some things that the final film did improve on. For example, the idea of the Enchanted Objects having individual personalities instead of being mute, as was originally intended was a fantastic idea as watching them perform repetative pantomime routines would've got boring. Also, Purdum never intended to have songs in his film and while I can't say wether or not that could've worked, the score by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken was awesome! The pacing in the initial storyreels is also pretty bad, as Belle gets the least amount of screentime, the Beast has not yet appeared by the end and lots of unessacary, random gags, such as the prostitute accosting Maurice are thrown in. Although, with that said, I've always felt that instead of completely scrapping Purdum's screenplay, which is what made him quit, Katzenberg could've asked Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise to co-direct with him and compormise on their ideas.

With that said, I've always felt that there were several things Purdum did that worked a lot better than the choices they made with the final film. For example, the 17th century costumes and architecture would've been absolutely breathtaking to see, much more so than the somewhat generic-looking 19th century ones of the final film. Second, I like Gaston's original characterization much more as the strong, pushy guy that everyone loves because he's strong has been seen in plenty of other Disney Movies (Kay in The Sword in the Stone, Brom Bones in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad.) Thirdly, I absolutely love the fact that with the original [[Maurice, we would've had a Disney father that wasn't an old, jolly guy for once but instead a handsome, middle-aged man and am appalled that they went back to that cliche with his final design.        .