Beauty and the Beast

The castle looks so beautiful, love the style they went with.

I like the castle too, even if its architecture is rather bizarre for a Castle. Seems more like a Palace.

Disney castles are rarely built to real world standards. I remember the writers on Tangled talking about this once, noting that Disney castles tend to build up and be long and pointy while real life ones tend to build out and be shorter. One is a pretty landmark, the other is a fortress for controlling territory.

edited 27th May '16 5:50:48 PM by Tuckerscreator

That's probably because there rarely seem to be wars going on in Disney films. Quite a lot of the time, it's a case of "it was a peaceful kingdom, with a beloved ruler." The threats tend to be, more internal.

That and, Disney is going primarily for "pretty visuals" in-general, not historical accuracy.

True, though most of the other castles played some of the tropes straight with fortified walls, drawbridge, and etc like Sleeping Beauty did. Beast's original Castle wasn't a fortress but it was defensible with a bridge and cliffside and looked appropriately the part. And it wasn't exactly a castle in the other senses since it never had a throne room as far as I'm aware.

This one... I don't know how to describe it but its beautiful but some parts of it make me think 'And why?' Like that big curved staircases on the exterior. It just looks... weird to me. And presumably that's the ballroom out on the left side of the castle?

I suppose, yeah, Disney does go for visuals rather than actual logic but if we're going to comment on that, I think it looks a bit odd in places.

ISTR the castle in Brave was an exception, but then, that was Pixar.

Brave's case was more of a Shown Their Work attempt, as was their animation of archery physics.

edited 27th May '16 5:52:45 PM by Tuckerscreator

Castles are actually a matter of trends. Originally they were build for defence, but later on they became more a symbol of power. There was a phase at which a lot of playful elements were in fashion, but later on, the rulers went more practical. For an interesting study concerning different castles, I recommend to compare Schwanstein, Versaille, Windsor Castle and the Swedish Royal Palace.

I can tell by the grounds of the castle, it does take several notes from Versailles.

Wonder if they'll do 'Human Again' during the film to finally see that number hit the big screen.

Really digging that teaser.

I might go out and watch the other live-action Disney movies.

Well I already watched Maleficent and there were good and corny parts to it.

I hear the Jungle Book and Cinderella are good though.

Jungle Book and Cinderella both change enough things that they aren't just straight remakes while still retaining the core of the original films. (Cinderella more than Jungle Book. The latter is a lot less interested in purely comic relief elements in the remake).

Maleficent comes off like the writer and director genuinely disliked Sleeping Beauty, because it almost goes out of its way to render strong elements of the original totally meaningless.

So we have some concept art of Lumiere and Cogsworth.

...not exactly what I was expecting, but in terms of art direction in a vacuum it looks pretty cool. The designs are apparently close but may not be final.

These could be when they're just standing still, acting LIKE inanimate objects so as not to alarm strangers. Like how they were first introduced. I hope so!

I can see a "face" on Cogsworth but I can't see one on Lumiere.

I didn't think about the possibility that it's them playing "pretend", that would be fine.

Cogsworth's mechanical insides look screwed up. Not sure how he's supposed to still operate as a clock like that.

That article also has a picture of what looks like the bar where the "Gaston" song is sung. I wonder how that number will play out in live action.

To be fair, Cogsworth's gears and insides getting screwed up was a joke in the original film and a semi-plot point in the musical. Arguably, its a continuity nod at the moment.

It's been a while since I seen the original film. What was the joke again about Cogsworth's gears?

The first time was Maurice fiddling around inside Codsworth when they first met trying to figure out how he 'worked'. Some gears fell out in the process. Codsworth found it very invasive. Humor!

The latter times are when he'd get very tense and some gears might fall out of some other 'he's a clock' related humor like his pendulum container becoming filled with water, the glass of his face being fogged up and the hands becoming 'windshield wipers' and I remember a joke or two about him being as tense and wound up as one of his own clock springs.

Somewhat downer post here.

The more I hear about this film, the less excited I am about it. Is anyone else feeling the same way? I want to be excited about it (because I've been following it for ages), but at the same time the designs aren't making me as interested. Hopefully it proves me wrong. The prospect of more live-action Disney is actually wearing me out a little. I wish they spaced out the films a little more to keep the idea fresh, but ah well...

On the other hand, maybe it'll be a surprise. Maleficent wasn't terrible as I thought, after all.

Funnily enough I like the designs and thought Maleficent was one of the most ill-conceived films Disney has put out in a while.

I'll give them this: the sets are great. But the characters I've seen so far? Ehhhhh...

Maleficent was not the BEST film, but it did exceed my expectations in terms of its entertainment value. That plot though...

I'm still waiting a new trailer. Perhaps with the release of Moana?

I don't find much entertainment in seeing a horribly contrived Draco in Leather Pants going through a badly edited version of a classic story twisting itself around the most blatant way to make her look good and everyone going against her look bad.

Cinderella and Jungle Book were good because they were close to the original.

Maleficent was mixed because there were some good ideas but some bad execution and a little too much draco in leather pants. Way too many changes too.

Maleficent seems to be the consequence of straying too far from the original while simultaneously keeping too much of it. It would be possible to create a story "Sleeping Beauty was an embellished fairytale that pretties the darker truth", but the way Maleficent tells it, one ends up with a version of Sleeping Beauty where the fake fairy tale couldn't have existed at all.

And one would have to change so many details like Maleficent's name literally meaning "evil" that now we wonder why even attempt it and just go for either a closer reboot or original story.