WE GOT MOVIE SIIIIGN!
Man, I miss seeing the phrase ‘Walt Disney Pictures Presents.’ A bit of ominous score comes up as we fade in on a peaceful forest right out of Snow White or Bambi. In the distance is a white castle (no, not like that) which the camera moves towards. “Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a young prince lived in a shining castle.” Narration, my old friend! Huzzah!
We’re putting a little twist on it this time. Rather than a book, our story is told through the castle’s stained glass windows. The young prince who lived in the shining castle had everything he wanted, but he was still a jerkass. Then one winter’s night, an old beggar woman came to the castle and asked to be let in from the cold. He refuses, even when she offers him a “magic” rose and tells him the moral of the film. When she saw that she wasn’t getting anywhere with him, she revealed herself to be an enchantress (because Disney doesn’t like saying “witch” in a non-evil context). Since the prince failed her nice person test, she decides that the inside ought to match the outside and turns him into a hideous beast. The castle and the staff hadn’t done a thing, but she put spells on them anyway. Great gal, that enchantress.
Anyway, the prince was so ashamed of his new form that he locked himself in the castle. His only window to the outside world was a magic mirror which he apparently had lying around for some reason. The enchantress left the rose with him - again, for some reason. Turns out it really is magic. It’s going stay alive until the prince turned twenty-one. He has until it dies to fall in love and get someone to love him back. If he can do that, the spell will be broken. If not, then it’s permanent. It seems he doesn’t even try. After all, who can learn to love a beast?
AAAAAND Gilligan cut to both our title and a little cottage on the outskirts of the only forest in France. Out comes a pretty little brunette wearing blue and carrying a basket. We’ll call her Belle. Give her a round of applause.
Belle starts her walk towards the only village in France. As she nears the camera, she starts singing. “Little town, it’s a quiet village. Every day like the one before…” And right off the bat, we encounter our first major upgrade from Little Mermaid: the music.
We’ve never really had a proper chorus number in Disney before, but “Belle” goes all out on it. It’s got a bouncy tune and sets up a charming, small-town feel immediately. Everyone says bonjour to each other, the baker evidently sells the exact same loaves of bread each day and not a soul there seems to like our heroine. Why? Probably because they think Standard Feminist Heroine Syndrome is contagious.
Continuing the ‘90s princess trend of sexist antagonists, they can’t understand why Belle won’t just settle down and be a good baby-pumper. She’s so hot that her name even means “beauty” (a clever nod to the original story), but she doesn’t seem to care. She’d rather go through life with her nose in a book and her head in the clouds, always wanting more than the life’s she got. So…she’s basically a pre-fandoms fangirl? Nice taste in books, though. Swordfights and magic and disguised princes, that kind of thing. And while I’m not gonna pull out The Term yet, I will say that the librarian just giving her that book pro bono wouldn’t happen if she didn’t seem as perfect.
Elsewhere in town, a flock of geese are flying overhead when one of them meets an untimely demise. Anyone who saw Bambi will be going into this already believing that hunters are the handmaidens of the Devil, but I guess the filmmakers just wanted to be sure -
OH GOD THAT VOICE. WHAT DIPSHIT APPROVED THAT VOICE FOR THAT CHARACTER. THAT DOESN’T BELONG IN A DISNEY PRINCESS MOVIE, THAT BELONGS ON F***ING QUACK PACK.
Sorry, I just…wow, that voice is bad. Thankfully, it’s only our villain’s sidekick. “Wow! You didn’t miss a shot, Gaston! You’re the greatest hunter in the whole world!”
Gaston emerges from the shadows with an “I know!” He appears to be visually based on Bruce Campbell, but Disney can’t bring chainsaws into the mix until 2002. Therefore, his memeticness extends to being an animal murderer and a ladies’ man. Even Le Fou has the hots for him, it seems. However, Gaston is only interested in bedding the quirky one. You see, he’s decided that hottest guy in town (himself) + hottest girl in town (Belle) = race of atomic supermen. “Right from the moment when I met her, saw her, I said ‘she’s gorgeous!’ and I fell! Here in town there’s only she who is beautiful as me, so I’m making plans to woo and marry Belle!” Ah, eugenics. Always turns a girl on.
The song begins to build, and the chattering of the chorus gets more frenzied as Gaston tries to make his way to Belle through the crowd. Finally it bursts out in one last verse, and never has ostracism sounded so epic. Song-wise, we’re off to a great start.
Gaston finally gets in front of Belle via drop from roof and further establishes his dickery by thinking her book is porn and throwing it in the mud. “It’s not right for a woman to read. Soon she starts getting ideas…and thinking.”
Belle tries to weasel her way out of a date offer by saying she needs to tend to her father, but that just gets her in more trouble. “Ha ha ha, that crazy old loon! He needs all the help he can get!” Le Fou and Gaston laugh
“Don’t you talk about my father that way!”
“Yeah, don’t talk about her father that way!” Gaston does the first and only good deed he will do in this movie, which is shutting Le Fou up.
At this point, all we really know about Belle’s father is that he’s a widower (because this is a Disney movie) and an inventor. Belle is quite fond of him, however. “He’s not crazy! He’s a genius!” And cue the background explosion. Don’t worry, Belle. Comedic explosions always mean a character is brilliant!
Belle rushes home and down into her basement, whereupon we see that she and her father are the ancestors of Wallace. Right down to the machines that always seem to end up programming themselves to kill.
Since our previous film was centered around a strained father-daughter relationship, the interactions between Belle and Maurice are a breath of fresh air. She supports his work and refuses to let him give up, while he loves her for who she is. He doesn’t even seem to have much trouble tending to her mental needs, being able to chat with her about how she feels out of place and doesn’t like Gaston. “Well, don’t you worry, cause this invention’s going to be the start of a new life for us!” His proto-Goldberg woodchopper seems to finally be working, which means he’s off to the fair to show it off! And since we’re only ten minutes in, we know that this will go horribly wrong.
Maurice is seen loading the contraption into a cart and setting off with his horse, and we get some pretty landscapes as they travel through the countryside. Then it gets dark, the scenery changes to a dark forest and we all get that sinking feeling we get when we realize we’ve read the map wrong. “We should be there by now,” Maurice says to himself. “Maybe we missed a turn.” Luckily, he knows that all missed turns can be remedied with a creepy shortcut. “Come on, Phillippe! It’s a shortcut! We’ll be there in no time,” he tells his horse, who is having none of it.
Of course it turns out to be wrong. “This can’t be right,” Maurice says as it gets darker. “Where have you taken us, Phillipe? We’d better turn around…and…whoa…whoa, boy! Whoa, Philippe! Oh, oh! Look out!” But the swarm of bats they’ve disturbed has already spooked Phillippe, who goes charging off and nearly runs right off a cliff. Maurice gets him calmed down and guides him back up, where he bucks his rider off and heads for home. I don’t blame him. Nor would I want to be in his place, judging by those howls.
Ah, wolves. The bane of travelers in forest settings everywhere. They chase Maurice through the woods and nearly get him, but he outruns them enough that when he bumps into a set of iron gates, he has enough time to rattle it. “Help! Is someone there?” It opens, and he slams it in the overgrown dogs’ faces. They definitely won’t be showing up again.
Turns out the forest has somehow managed to hide an entire castle. Impressive. As it starts to rain, Maurice approaches the castle doors. When he knocks, it creaks open, and he ventures into a grand foyer. It’s all dark and moody, with only a few candles for light. Candles that move. Candles with a stick that talks like Inspector Clouseau. Hoo boy…
These, of course, are the unfortunate servants. Lumiere is the candlestick, and the British clock with him is Cogsworth. “Old fellow must have lost his way in the woods,” the former remarks.
“Keep quiet! Maybe he’ll go away.”
The two of them go back and forth like this while Maurice calls for help. He eventually hears them and picks Lumiere up to look for the mystery voices. When he turns and sees Lumiere’s face, he drops him and…doesn’t run screaming, for some reason. Must’ve seen the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles beforehand. “Incredible!”
“Well, now you’ve done it, Lumiere,” says Cogsworh. “Splendid, just peachy!”
Maurice picks him up too, still not freaking out. “How is this accomplished?” he wonders as he molests the clock.
“Put me down! At once! Sir, close that at once! Do you mind?”
When Maurice sneezes from the cold he’s getting, Lumiere leads him to a sitting room with a roaring fire despite Cogsworth’s protests that “the master” will do unspeakable things to the visitor when he discovers him. Maurice sits down, and this really sets Cogsworth off. “Oh no, not the master’s chair! I’m not seeing this! I’m not seeing this!”
More servants arrive to tend to Maurice. A footstool rushes to prop up his legs, and a coat rack takes his jacket. A cockney Angela Lansbury even shows up to pour him some tea. Dude, I know you’re tired, but any sane person would be questioning this by now.
Just before this scene can become even more whimsical by sticking a teacup kid into the mix, the door slams open. A gust of wind blows out the fire as the servants flee. Maurice turns around just in time to see…
…Commercial break!
Comments
