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Film / Beauty and the Beast (2017)

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For in that solemn silence
Is heard the whisper of every sleeping thing.
Look, look at me, come wake me up
For still here I'll be.
— "A Crystal Forest", William Sharp (read by Belle)

Beauty and the Beast is a 2017 Disney film based on the animated classic based on the Fairy Tale of the same name. It is the first Live-Action Adaptation of a Disney Renaissance film, and the first such Disney Animated Canon adaptation to be a musical like its source material. It is directed by Bill Condon and the screenplay was written by Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos, with franchise veterans Thomas Schumacher and Don Hahn (the producer of the 1991 film) serving as executive producers. Its All-Star Cast includes Emma Watson as Belle, Dan Stevens as the Beast, Luke Evans as Gaston, Josh Gad as LeFou, Ewan McGregor as Lumière, Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts, Ian McKellen as Cogsworth, Kevin Kline as Maurice, Gugu Mbatha Raw as Plumette, and Audra McDonald as Madame de Garderobe (The Wardrobe).

Belle, a spirited and intelligent young woman, loves her eccentric father but chafes at the constraints of "provincial life". When her father Maurice goes missing and is captured by the Beast in his cursed castle, Belle offers to take his place and discovers the enchanted world of the palace and the man behind the monster...

The film was released on March 17, 2017, in a similar late-winter release slot as Cinderella (2015), though with March 16 evening screenings in select markets, following recent custom for highly-anticipated films. The first teaser for the film can be seen here and the first full trailer here. A prequel series focused on Gaston and LeFou, titled Little Town, was in development for Disney+, but has since been reported to be "indefinitely postponed" for unknown reasons.


This film provides examples of:

  • Actor Allusion:
    • Emma Watson playing a strong female lead who loves books.
    • Dan Stevens' Beast gets teased for reading about Lancelot and Guinevere.
    • Ewan McGregor in a French venue full of singing and dancing, with a touch of magic? And whose love interest ends up dying in his arms just as they've triumphed over the villain? (Though in this case it's thankfully only a Disney Death.) Hmmm...
    • The way Ian McKellen says "you fool" brings back a lot of memories. As does the way he rallies the castle to defend from Gaston's besieging villagers.
    • If you go by the animated film. LeFou spends a brief amount of time stuck inside a snowman. In this remake, he's played by Josh Gad — whose last major role (and a Disney one at that) was as a talking snowman. And just like said-snowman, LeFou can't read... or spell.
    • This isn't the first Disney movie where Kevin Kline saves a young child from a tragedy involving a windmill. note 
    • Mrs. Potts's first name in this version is Beatrice.
    • Gaston — arrogant, boisterous, fantastically-clothed Glory Hound beloved by everyone in the village (except Belle and her dad) but is single due to being focused on Belle vs Bard of Laketown — humble, dour, practically dressed, and regarded as an odd loner by most (except Bilbo & Co) but was happily married with kids. Both of them are renowned hunters who rally their villages to stop a dangerous monster, though for different reasons and with varying degrees of success; Gaston wants to kill his romantic rival and dies; Bard wants to protect Laketown, which gets destroyed but almost everyone survives (and he becomes leader to boot). Their prey also are diametric opposites: Beast is no danger, while Smaug is a dire threat. His sociopath tendencies also bring to mind Owen Shaw.
    • The Beast called Maurice a "thief". Well, perhaps in another life, he was a con artist, a pirate, and a jewel thief. Also, it's not the first time Kevin Kline came from France.
    • Stanley Tucci plays Cadenza, whose human form has heavily rotting (and, eventually, missing) teeth. Contrast this to his shining pearly whites in his roles as Ceasar Flickerman in The Hunger Games and Link in Shall We Dance?.
  • Adaptational Explanation: The animated movie left quite some questions regarding the Prince-turned-Beast and his castle unanswered, mostly why somehow nobody knew the castle was even there. This movie patches up this plot hole by explaining the Enchantress's spell has erased all memory of the castle and everyone who lives there from the outside world.
  • Adaptational Heroism:
    • LeFou; he's still Gaston's sidekick, but has moral standards his animated counterpart doesn't. As the movie progresses, he visibly becomes more and more disturbed by the lengths Gaston intends to go to in order to relive his glory days and get Belle. Even before his line in The Mob Song, he is among the few villagers who does not shout for the death of Beast, but rather looks seriously disturbed at how Gaston is riling up the villagers, with a line in the lyrics of "The Mob Song" sung by him to that effect.
    LeFou: There's a beast running wild, there's no question. But I fear the wrong monster's released.
    • A more complex example with the Enchantress, who saves Maurice's life when Gaston leaves him to die. The Novelization also suggests that she guided Maurice to the castle in the first place, because she had been witness to Belle's kindness firsthand as Agathe. The Expanded Universe novel Lost in a Book even says that this character is an agent of Love herself, sent specifically to set the stage for the Prince/Beast's redemption.
    • The asylum keeper in the original film was gleefully wicked and took sadistic joy from helping in Gaston's scheme. Here, he isn't a part of any plan (due to events unfolding differently here), and isn't even malicious, and is just an average guy doing his job. He doesn't even try to re-incarcerate Maurice after discovering the escape (though of course he's only one guy, and even if he could get Maurice back in the cage by himself, Maurice has shown himself capable of picking the lock).
  • Adaptational Intelligence:
    • Compared to his animated portrayal who needed Belle's help relearning to read, this version of the Beast is far more well-read, having had an "expensive education," and is later seen reading on his own, among other examples. This is foreshadowed in one of his first spoken lines, where he gives a Deadpan Snarker response that would be quite surprising from the plainspoken Hot-Blooded original. Belle bonds with the Beast over this when she finds he knows Shakespeare like she does, even if Romeo and Juliet isn't one of his favorite works.
    • Maurice in the animated film was an Absent-Minded Professor whose inventions usually didn't work and had made him a laughing stock among the townsfolk. Here, he's a skilled craftsman who makes music boxes and makes a living selling them at market.
    • To make Belle even more intellectually gifted, she is the one shown to be inventive instead of her father. She sketches a plan for, prototypes, and constructs a functional mule-powered churning clothes washer, enabling her some reading leisure time where she'd usually be scrubbing linens.
    • Though not the sharpest knife in the drawer, LeFou is more intelligent this time around, and LeFou even says 'Je ne sais quoi?', which Gaston does not understand (despite the film being set in France). (This is Rule of Funny: the literal meaning of 'Je ne sais quoi' is 'I don't know what', so Gaston's 'I don't know what that means' is accidentally the correct meaning.)
    • Despite being as brutish as his animated counterpart, Gaston is much more proficient in Xanatos Speed Chess in this version. While his animated counterpart had planned to chuck Maurice into the asylum after throwing him out of the tavern, this one planned for it at a much later time, as this one actually listened to Maurice after his pleas for help. However, after losing his patience with him, and Maurice’s refusal to give Gaston his blessing, he decides to knock him out and leave him to die in the woods. When Maurice survives and accuses Gaston of attempted murder, all while having the right witnesses, Gaston turns the tables and disproves one witness (Agathe), and manages to manipulate LeFou's feelings to save his own skin, and that’s where his plan to institutionalize Maurice happens.
  • Adaptational Modesty: A mild example, but the famous golden dress Belle wears in the original film for the "Beauty and the Beast" dance was dramatically off the shoulder and something of an Impossibly-Low Neckline. The dress Emma Watson wears for the same sequence stays on the shoulders and has a high neckline.
  • Adaptational Nationality: Madame de Garderobe, originally French in the animated film, is an Italian opera singer here.
  • Adaptational Sexuality: LeFou is gay in this version of Disney's take on the story, with the unintentional Ho Yay present in the animated movie being actual Homoerotic Subtext here. Interestingly, this makes the character Disney's first official LGBT character in a work based on their animated movies.
  • Adaptational Sympathy:
    • The titular Beast in the original 1991 animated Disney film is still more-or-less the same character here, being a spoiled and selfish prince who was cursed to become a hideous monster for being cruel to an enchantress, but this film adds one crucial detail: here, he lost his mother to the plague and was raised by his cruel and unforgiving father, who is implied to have molded him into the person he is prior to meeting Belle.
    • Gaston also gets this to some degree, as, unlike in the original film, where he was depicted as a brainless brute, a lot of his actions are implied to be because of PTSD from having served in a pretty brutal war. The same with LeFou, who was originally a Butt-Monkey in the animated film, but here he loyally serves Gaston (and is implied to have a crush on him, but ends up pulling a Heel–Face Turn when Gaston leaves him to die during the assault on the castle, and, in a scene cut from the movie, is shown to have a more deeper moral conscience when he asks the Enchantress if it was worth cursing the Beast in the first place.
  • Adaptational Ugliness: The Bimbettes. While their animated counterparts were gorgeous buxom blondes, in this version they're regular looking women with a ton of makeup that makes them look unattractive, to make Emma Watson look more beautiful. And as opposed to being Ms Fanservices, they appear to be an Unwanted Harem to Gaston.
  • Adaptational Villainy:
    • In the original, the Beast (at some prompting from Lumière) gives Belle her own room and looks guilty or at least uncomfortable when he sees her crying. Here, he fully intends to leave Belle in the tower and it's the servants who give her a new room.
    • While Gaston is a narcissistic boor in the animated film, he is significantly darker in this version, as he displays more of his sociopathic and manipulative nature. Examples like leaving Maurice to die in the forest and tying him up so he won't escape his fate, getting him institutionalized in order to not only blackmail Belle into marrying him but also to cover his tracks of his evil deed to Maurice, and finally using LeFou as a human shield against the Beast's servants and then leaving him to die as well. His stalker tendencies are also more clearly established; the original only wanted Belle because she was the most beautiful girl in town, this one specifically notes her refusal to make a fool of herself to get his attention as making her more attractive, and repeatedly speaks of his courtship in hunting metaphors.
    • The villagers are outright hostile towards Belle's intellect, seeing it as a threat to the status quo rather than as an amusing oddity like in the 1991 version. The local schoolmaster has Belle's laundry tossed onto the ground in retaliation for her teaching a little girl to read.
    • The Prince, before he gets turned into a Beast, gets this to a small degree. It was mentioned that he did do some Royal Brat things like raise taxes on the town to fund his own decadent lifestyle and parties, thus giving the Enchantress more of a reason to seek him out and punish him.
  • Adaptation Expansion: Quite a bit, given that this film is 45 minutes longer than the original. Some of the expansion corrects plot holes, etc. that have puzzled fans for 25+ years.
    • The prologue shows the Prince and his servants being cursed by the Enchantress.
    • Why are none of the villagers aware of an enchanted castle only a relatively short distance away from where they live? Part of the Enchantress's curse not only seals the castle off from the outside world, but makes everyone in the surrounding area forget all about it!
    • The confusing timeline of the seasons in the animated filmnote  is explained here by having the castle — on top of everything else — be locked in an eternal winter, to reflect the Beast's hardheartedness, while it's clearly summer in the world outside.
    Maurice: Easy, boy, it's just snow! ...in June...
    • Belle and Beast's relationship is expanded upon more by Beast's Adaptational Intelligence (see above), but an interesting case here is when Belle and Beast are walking through the frozen gardens while she reads an excerpt from William Sharp's A Crystal Forest. The poem itself is short enough (a scant eight lines), but she only reads a few choice lines and then adds lines not in the original poem.
    • The puzzling implication that the Prince was left to run his castle at only 11 years old — "Ten years we've been rusting" since everyone was transformed, but the rose blooms until his 21st year — is eliminated by dropping all references to his age and how many years pass before Belle comes to the castle, and firmly establishing that he was an adult when he was cursed. "Ten years" is changed to "Too long". In the meantime, a Flashback to his youth has his parents appear; they're also shown in the portrait Belle sees of him when he was much younger.
    • Belle and Maurice are given significant Backstory explaining why they moved to the village in the first place ("Every morning just the same/Since the morning that we came/To this poor provincial town") and why Belle has a Missing Mom. They lived in Paris until a plague killed Belle's mother. Maurice became desperate to protect Belle and thus they moved to the small, safe village. This also provides an alternate reason for Maurice setting out in the first place; his music boxes are sold at an out-of-town market once a year. This same change explains better why Belle is an outcast in the village, as they see her as a city-born kook obsessed with reading (something only the well-educated do).
    • The Beast was also given a significant Backstory why he was selfish and vain in the first place. He used to live in the castle with his beloved mother as a sweet child until she died from an illness, which gave his cruel father the opportunity to harden his heart to become a more arrogant but effective ruler of the kingdom, a decision that the Beast would later regret after the curse was inflicted.
    • Gaston is a war hero on top of having good looks and hunting/fighting skills, which goes further in explaining why someone so obnoxious is so beloved and trusted by the townsfolk. Mentioning a war in his introductory scene also quickly establishes that, unlike the original hunter of animals, this one has likely killed humans before (and a Black Comedy scene where LeFou calms him down by reminiscing about war builds on this), making it a smaller jump to his evil acts later in the film.
    • Mrs. Potts has a husband in this version, a potter named Jean, who had forgotten about her and Chip as a result of the curse. Similarly, Cogsworth also has a wife of his own, who seems to make him suffer from an Awful Wedded Life.
    • A significant scene involves something very special in the library: A Portal Book! It looks like an atlas and allows the user to travel anywhere in the world and back. The Enchantress left it; the Beast calls it her "cruelest trick" because in their cursed forms no one in the castle, least of all him, dare go out among other people. But he and Belle visit the apartment she and her parents had in Paris this way, and it is here that their sad backstory is revealed.
    • The villagers are expanded upon as well. Gaston has three male cronies who help him out when needed. The bookseller's role is changed to that of the local priest with a small personal library and he acts as the Only Sane Man in town. They also introduce an outcast spinster who saves Maurice and also is the Enchantress.
    • A new conflict between Gaston and Maurice is added to the story. In the film, Maurice outright refuses to let Gaston marry Belle (in the original film, he's genuinely open to the idea of the two of them getting together, at least at first). This is what pushes Gaston to knock the old man out and tie him to a tree in the woods, leaving him to die in the cold (or to be eaten by the wolves). After he's saved by Agathe, Maurice returns to the village to confront Gaston, only for the latter to turn the tables on him by getting him incarcerated, thus sparing himself from any consequences for his crime.
    • The original film made it clear that Belle had no interest in Gaston and that his Stalker with a Crush attitude made him dangerous, but said nothing about the vulnerability of a single woman during that period of history. The new film has Gaston's unsuccessful wooing of Belle include him drawing her attention to the miserable life of spinsters in a peasant town once their fathers have died, making it clear to young viewers that Belle's situation isn't as easy as simply saying no.
    • The romance between Lumière and Plumette is much stronger and more prominent here (in the original, they had around three romantic scenes in total). They even get to share a kiss in the end.
    • Instead of just lovesick roaring, Beast now gets his own solo "I Am Becoming" Song, "Evermore", as Belle leaves the castle, firmly cementing his Byronic Hero character expansion from the animation. Of note, Beast also straight-up lets Belle leave, after decades of fans complaining about A Match Made in Stockholm.
    • The presence of roses is expanded by drawing from the original fairy tale. In the original, there was just the enchanted rose serving as a time limit for the curse, but in this version, Belle asks for a rose as a gift from Maurice on his trip and he is imprisoned for trying to take one of the Beast's roses. In the original fairy tale, this was indeed how Beauty's father was imprisoned, trying to get his youngest daughter the humble gift of a rose.
  • Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Inverted. In the 1991 film, Philippe left Maurice before the latter arrived at the Beast's castle, yet knew where it was located when he brought Belle. In this version, Philippe actually does go to the castle with Maurice, and thus can remember where it is.
  • Adaptation Name Change:
    • The feather duster, who has no official name in the 1991 film but was named Fifi in Belle's Magical World and Babette in the Broadway musical adaptation, is named Plumette here.
    • The wardrobe, who has no name in the 1991 film but was named Madame de la Grande Bouche in the Broadway musical, is named Madame de Garderobe here.
    • The dog was named Sultan in the animated continuity. Here, he's named Froufrou (and is the beloved furchild of Madame de Garderobe and Cadenza rather than just being the castle dog).
  • Adaptation Personality Change:
    • Maurice is a melancholic, overprotective parent who makes music boxes rather than a wacky inventor, which alters his role in the plot because he isn't initially seen as crazy by the townspeople. Gaston only comes up with the ploy of getting him institutionalized after his previous ploy of leaving him to die in the enchanted forest fails and he is accused of attempted murder by Maurice.
    • LeFou is elevated from a comedy relief stooge who blindly worships Gaston to a lifelong friend who is genuinely attracted to him, which is one reason he endures his abuse (the other is because it's the only way anybody in town notices him). He also is a case of Adaptational Heroism.
    • The villagers are now outwardly cruel to Belle, yet they also seem to respect Gaston less, as LeFou is seen paying off the crowd to keep the eponymous song going.
  • Adapted Out:
    • The scene in which Gaston intends to propose to and marry Belle in front of the whole village is adapted out, to be replaced by a shorter version with just him and Belle, reducing his reason to feel publicly humiliated in the tavern and contrasting how he earlier claimed that he liked a challenge.
    • During the song 'Gaston', Gaston does not sing about having hair on his chest, which apparently was requested by Luke Evans, probably because it would not be appropriate for younger viewers. It is replaced with a lyrical portion that seems more acceptable on the surface but is actually more disturbing: he sings about his inhumane hunting methods.
    • We never see how Maurice got back to the village, but it is likely he got a coach back like in the original film, especially seeing how Philipe is still at the castle.
    • Mrs. Potts' children other than Chip.
  • Age Lift: Mrs. Potts, a white-haired old woman in the original film, is depicted as a much younger character here, while Cogsworth (as played by Sir Ian McKellen) is older than his animated counterpart.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: LeFou, who is interested romantically in Gaston, who attempts to win Belle's heart.
  • All of the Other Reindeer: Belle is an intelligent, cultured woman creative enough to invent an impromptu washing machine... and this is why almost no one in the village likes her even though she's nice to everyone. (The only exceptions are Pere Robert, Monsieur Jean, and Agathe/The Enchantress.) Anti-Intellectualism and Stay in the Kitchen attitudes abound in Villenueve and she can't make conversation with them about her interests; they see her as "a beauty but a funny girl" whose word is worth less than that of people like Gaston. While Gaston is obsessed with marrying her, it's only because she is the most beautiful woman in the village; he sees her as just another prize to claim now that his Glory Days of war are over and has no respect for her as a person.
  • All Take and No Give: LeFou virtually worships Gaston, but the feeling isn't mutual; Gaston keeps him around mostly so there's always someone available to stroke his ego.
  • All There in the Manual: The Novelization and interviews with the cast and crew reveal a lot more of Gaston and LeFou's backstory, detailing that they were friends from childhood and that the war they fought in was to beat back an invasion by the Portuguese. In addition, it's established both in the former and the picture book tie-in Something More that the Enchantress is the reason Maurice finds his way to the castle. Why? As Agathe the beggar, she has experienced Belle's kindness firsthand, regularly.
    • The manga adaptation The Beast's Tale explains why the Portal Book cannot be used to save Maurice, which otherwise seems like a gigantic Plot Hole for Act Three. It's because it only works when the Beast uses it, by himself or with another. Since he would be risking his and Belle's safety by traveling with her, and she cannot use it on her own, it's not an option in this situation.
  • Ambiguously Gay: As far as is seen in the movie, there's just "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" and implications, but Word of God openly stated LeFou is gay. He also gets a dance scene with a male villager.
  • Ambiguous Syntax: It isn't clarified if Gaston doesn't understand LeFou or if he doesn't understand the saying "I don't know what" when he responds with "I don't know what that means" to LeFou.
  • Amnesiac Lover: There are at least two villagers who are unable to remember they have loved ones living in the castle thanks to the curse: Jean, the husband of Mrs. Potts and father of Chip, and Clothilde, the shrewish village woman who criticizes Belle for trying to teach a girl to read, who turns out to be Cogsworth's wife.
  • Amnesiacs are Innocent: The townspeople are all welcomed back to the castle, despite having just attacked it, because the Enchantress’ spell made them forget that there ever was a prince, meaning they didn't know who they were attacking.
  • Anachronism Stew:
    • The guillotine joke in "Be Our Guest" wouldn't make sense at the time of the story (mid-18th century) because the French Revolution and the widespread use and infamy of the machine occurred afterward.
    • The poem Belle reads to the Beast, "A Crystal Forest", wouldn't have existed for Belle to recite, with the author, William Sharp, being born after the timeframe of the film.
    • Belle's dress clashes with the period-accurate fashions displayed everywhere else in the film, but Garderobe tries to dress her according to the expected styles and she rejects the getup.
  • And Starring: The ending cast roll ends "with Ian McKellen as Cogsworth and Emma Thompson as Mrs. Potts".
  • Animal Motifs: As a feather duster, Plumette resembles a white peacock, and even has a pair of wings that help her fly around. As a human, she sports a white feathery gown (and white hair) to reflect this.
  • Animate Inanimate Object: The Enchanted Objects, as in the original — but as time passes, they're becoming less and less animate, and if the curse isn't broken they will become actual objects for good.
  • Arc Symbol: Roses: The Beast's rose that serves as Death's Hourglass, the "rose" rattle Belle had as a baby, and the rose Maurice fatefully picks for her when he discovers the Beast's castle. Gaston tried to give her gladioli. He never stood a chance.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: As in the original, the Beast asks Belle if she's happy with him after their dance. Instead of saying yes, as in the original, she replies with her own question as to how happy anyone can be when they're a prisoner. It's part of what pushes him to let her go to her father - she'll never be fully happy while there against her will, and he now loves her too much to be the cause of her unhappiness.
  • Artistic License – History:
    • Emma Watson notably didn't wear a corset for any of her costumes, arguing that Belle wouldn't be restricted and would dress in order to able to move freely. However, stays in the eighteenth century were designed much more to support the bust rather than reduce the waist — they were essentially the ancestor of the bra — and by necessity had to be easy to move in while still helping the wearer with both her posture and the heavy skirts and petticoats that were also a standard part of female fashions.
      Bernadette Banner: ...if I were the costume designer to whom Miss Watson had allegedly refused wearing a corset, I would have amiably and wholeheartedly agreed — and then put her in a pair of stays.
    • The entire idea of Belle being discouraged for teaching a young girl to read. The original gets a pass because it's deliberately pretty vague when it takes place, but the remake takes place in a period that can be narrowed down to pre-Revolution France. At that point of history, discrimination against female literacy was scarcely true; magazines for women and girls were quite common. Where this slips into critical territory is that the original Beauty and the Beast was at one point published in such a magazine!
  • Artistic License – Ornithology: A minor example, but the barn owl in Agathe's hut makes a typical hooting sound; in real life, barn owls don't hoot like other owls, but rather make a terrifying screech.
  • Ascended Extra:
    • Plumette and Madame de Garderobe get a lot more screen time than their animated counterparts (who originally didn't even have proper names) did, but more importantly for plot purposes The Enchantress is ascended. In the original film, she is only mentioned in the prologue, but she is depicted here. From there, she becomes a recurring character — once again disguised as a beggar woman. She saves Maurice from dying of exposure when Gaston ties him up in the woods. Finally, her true form appears in the climax to free the castle of her curse when the time technically ran out for the castle residents.
    • Gaston's three female admirers get more screen time as well. In the original film the three girls who were originally dumb blondes were only seen during the opening song, had a cameo at Gaston's 'wedding' and during the song 'Gaston'. This time, they join the mob who set off to find and kill the Beast.
    • The violin-playing coat rack is now given the name Chapeau, and is featured a lot more prominently than his animated counterpart. We even get to see him transform back into a human along with the rest of the servants at the end.
  • Awful Wedded Life: Cogsworth, of all people, apparently has this, which probably explains why he took a job in the castle — to be away from his wife as much as possible. He's actually begging to be turned back into a clock when they're reunited.
  • Badass Longcoat: Gaston now sports a long red overcoat, in contrast to his short-sleeved shirt from the original film. It's his old army uniform; sure, it's been twelve years since the war, but those were his Glory Days.
  • The Beautiful Elite: The guests at the Prince's Masquerade Ball in the prologue are this, as per his worship of beauty.
  • Beauty Equals Goodness: The Prince firmly believes in this trope and turns the disguised Enchantress away because (according to the Novelization) her hideous presence is ruining the perfect ball he has organized.
  • Bedsheet Ladder: Belle intends to attempt this from her bedroom, albeit by using the tacky gown Madame de Garderobe prepared for her rather than sheets, but is distracted from doing so by the kindness of the Enchanted Objects.
  • Big Bad: Gaston, as he attempts to have Belle as his trophy wife, even attempting to murder her father for rejecting his proposal, as well as attempting to murder the Beast after learning that he was the one receiving Belle's affections.
  • Birds of a Feather: Belle and the Beast bond over their love of reading and feeling like awkward outcasts.
  • Bizarrchitecture: The Beast's castle has a lot of fanciful swirling shapes and organic movement to it not typical for most structures of any time, while still drawing on the period.
  • Black Comedy:
    • During the line "After all, Miss, this is France!", Lumière "beheads" a baguette with a knife, guillotine-style.
    • After Gaston loses his cool, LeFou tries to calm him down by telling him to think of all his cherished memories of the war, which consists of "blood, explosions, and widows". Hilariously, the thought of the widows is what helps him relax in the end.
  • Black Vikings: The film employs Colorblind Casting for its supporting cast, so Mme. de Garderobe and Pere Robert are black, despite the fact that 18th century France's POC population was concentrated in the country's urban areas and ports, not in the rural villages near the Spanish border.
  • Body Horror: The Prince is seen physically being turned into his monstrous form by the Enchantress in the prologue; the same goes for the servants as they become household objects.
  • Bookends: The movie begins and ends with Dances and Balls.
  • Brainwashed: Gaston accuses Belle of being this (via dark magic) when she proves the Beast's existence with the mirror, claiming it's the only reason she could care for a monster.
  • Call-Back: In their first scene together, Belle anticipates precisely the parts Maurice needs for a mechanism he's working on. This happens again when trapped in the carriage — she has a pin to pick the lock ready for him before he can finish his musings.
  • Canon Character All Along: Agathe the street beggar appears to be a completely new character at first. At the end, she reveals herself to be none other than the Enchantress.
  • Canon Foreigner:
    • Cadenza (Stanley Tucci), an eccentric maestro, is turned into a harpsichord. He is apparently inspired by Forte the talking pipe organ from Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas. There is a grand piano in the original film that appears mostly in the ballroom scene. For bonus points, he's the husband of Madame De Garderobe/The Wardrobe, who was unattached in the original film, and a piano stool is their transformed pet dog (who is obviously meant to be the live-action counterpart of Sultan, the castle dog turned ottoman in the original).
    • Jean, a forgetful potter in the village, figures into a subplot: He's the husband of Mrs. Potts, and Chip's father, but the curse caused him to forget this.
    • Père Robert is a kindly church father who maintains the meager library of Villeneuve. He is one of the very few residents who does not shun/tease Belle; she regularly borrows books from him, and when the other villagers overturn her washing machine, he's shown helping her gather up the spilled laundry. He's also seen arguing with Gaston that Maurice should be hospitalized, not arrested, and he's the only person who does not join the Angry Mob in the climax. This makes him very much the live-action counterpart to the kindly old bookshop owner, who likewise is one of the few people to show respect to Belle and does not take part in Gaston's scheming. He is the swap-in character for the removal of the bookshop owner as part of the filling of plot holes in transposing the animated version's story.
    • A few minor characters, like Cogsworth's shrewish wife, the headmaster, and the Village Lasses' mother, are new to the story as well.
  • Cassandra Truth: As was the case in the 1991 adaptation, nobody believes Maurice when he claims that Belle is being held prisoner by the Beast in his castle. This time around, Maurice also mentions that it is winter at the castle's location despite it apparently being summer in Villenueve. However, the Enchantress did strengthen the curse by wiping the villagers of their memories causing them to forget the castle's existence, and she also ensured it remains winter all year round in the castle's surroundings.
  • Casting Gag:
    • The Latin American Spanish dub brings back three of the original actors, albeit in different roles. Francisco Colmenero, the narrator of the 1991 movie, is the voice of Cogsworth; Moisés Palacios (the original Cogsworth) is instead the voice of Maurice; and Arturo Mercado (the original Beast) is an additional voice. Also, Sergio Zaldívar portrayed Gaston in the theatrical adaptation, but here he is instead the voice of Lumiere.
    • Alexis Loizon, who plays Stanley, was Gaston in the French theatrical adaptation.
  • Character Exaggeration:
    • Gaston undergoes this with regards to his villainy, possibly to avoid the Draco in Leather Pants-style Misaimed Fandom his animated counterpart gets. In the animated film, he starts as an overconfident boor who is nonetheless merry and boisterous enough to charm the townsfolk; it's Belle's rejection of his marriage proposal (which the whole village cheerfully assumed she'd accept) that sends him on the path to actual villainy. In this version, he's been harassing Belle for quite some time when the action proper begins, to the point that she avoids him whenever she can, and the villagers' admiration of him is partially out of lingering gratitude for his war heroics. In the Novelization he snatches an alms cup from a beggar just to check his reflection in it before his first on-screen conversation with Belle, and in his second conversation tells her that she's doomed to become a beggar herself if she doesn't get married. Later, before he tries to have Maurice institutionalized, he tries to kill him by tying him to a tree in the cold woods and letting him die of exposure at best, the wolves at worst.
    • The animated villagers thought Belle was odd because of her intelligence and love of reading, but seemed to more or less leave her to her own devices. In this version, they're openly hostile to her because of it, going so far as to destroy a gadget she invented to help with the laundry. Also, apart from the original Gaston's remark that "It's not right for a woman to read," the villagers' view of Belle's "oddness" mostly seems gender-neutral in the animated version. Here, they explicitly don't think women should be educated.
    • The Wardrobe is much more distinct and hammy this time around, being a grandiose opera singer pining for her husband.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • Unfired. Belle sees her father's music box on the path to the enchanted castle, but it is otherwise ignored later in the film. Unless you count that she later discovers the scene in the music box is actually a scene from her past, in which her father is painting a portrait of her and her mother.
    • Every time the enchanted rose loses a petal, the entire castle crumbles. During the final battle, the castle crumbles more than ever due to the rose's poor state, and Gaston is unfortunate enough to be standing on a collapsing bridge after he shoots the Beast.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Agathe, the seemingly mad spinster in the village, is actually the Enchantress in disguise.
  • Chekhov's Skill: When Belle and Maurice are locked up during "The Mob Song", it's Maurice's music box-building abilities that free them. Because he's an expert on tiny mechanical workings, he's able to pick the lock with a hairpin that Belle provides. Belle also has a skill that comes into play here: the ability to handily anticipate and provide the next tool her father needs.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Lander: The entire part of the song Belle that is sung by the villagers makes it clear that this is how they think about her. Goes to explain why the girls who are beating their laundry dry aren't angry when she almost stomps on their clothes without looking where she's about to step on. Why, most people who read while they walk don't end up walking on top of walls.
  • Comic-Book Adaptation: Adapted into two manga volumes by Tokyopop, Belle's Tale and The Beast's Tale, which were published both separately and as an Omnibus. The latter actually fills in the seeming Plot Hole about the Portal Book not being used to rescue Maurice!
  • Creepy Good: Invoked with the Enchanted Objects, who are more realistic and seen as a bit frightening in-universe. They're all kind and noble and care for Belle despite their less caricatured designs.
  • Crowd Song: As in the original, "Belle", "Gaston", "Be Our Guest", and "The Mob Song" fit this trope. New song "Days in the Sun" also receives this treatment.
  • Cute Bookworm: As in the original, Belle is, for lack of a better term, an attractive nerd.
  • Daddy's Girl/Doting Parent: Belle and Maurice love one another devotedly, and it shows.
  • Dances and Balls: One of these is in progress when the Enchantress comes calling. Later, of course, there's Belle and the Beast's waltz during the title song, and a celebration for everyone at the end.
  • Darker and Edgier: Downplayed. The dual backstories of Belle and the Beast, plus Gaston's Character Exaggeration, result in a story that takes some darker turns than its animated predecessor did, the biggest one being Gaston leaving Maurice to die in the woods. The violence is also a lot more intense.
    • The castle servants' situation is also made darker, as they are cursed to become less animate as time goes on, with the last petal's fall transforming them into mere furniture forever. This also gives them an agenda, so while they care for Belle, they're not acting with complete selflessness.
  • Dark Reprise: "How Does a Moment Last Forever" receives one upon the revelation of Belle and Maurice's backstory, which puts a sadder spin on the lyrics.
  • Dark World: The first teaser shows several rooms of the Beast's castle going dark and Gothic with disuse. In every teaser and trailer, and finally the film itself, it even substitutes for Cinderella Castle in the Disney logo!
  • Deadpan Snarker: Judging from the first full-length trailer, Cogsworth seems to be one.
    Belle (to Lumière): You can talk?
    Cogsworth: Well, of course he can talk! It's all he ever does.
    • Though Lumière is no slouch either.
    Cogsworth: You know she will never love him.
    Lumière: A broken clock is right two times a day, mon ami, but this is not one of those times.
    • Cadenza is this also as he sarcastically tells Cogsworth he will keep the noise down before "Be Our Guest", but Cogsworth takes him seriously. He manages a musical variety, too, by playing a classic funeral dirge after stopping LeFou.
    • The Beast. One of his first spoken lines in the film has him reply to Belle's incredulous question about him locking up her father for life over a rose with a snark about how he got "eternal damnation" over a rose. He later uses the same tone to joke about how he hasn't read all the books in his library because "some of them are in Greek."
    • Belle is no slouch either, like Lumiere. Examples include:
    Lumiere: Forgive first impressions. I hope you're not too startled!
    Belle: Why would I be startled? I'm talking to a candle.
    • And this too:
    Garderobe: I'll find you a dress worthy of a princess!
    Belle: Oh, I'm not a princess...
    • Even LeFou gets in a couple of zingers, which fly over Gaston's head.
    Gaston: That's what makes Belle so appealing; she hasn't made a fool of herself just to gain my favor. What would you call that?
    LeFou: Dignity?
    • And:
    LeFou: But she's so well-read! And you're so… athletically inclined.
  • Deceased Parents Are the Best: Belle's mother passed away when she was just a baby, and her father became overprotective to compensate, moving out to the countryside even though a woman like Belle cannot thrive there as she might in Paris. In his defense, the mother died of plague, both she and the doctor in attendance told him to leave, and he certainly didn't want to lose Belle. As for the Beast's parents, his mother was good, but she died when he was young. From there, his father was primarily responsible for what the Prince became. Note that in the family portrait Belle spots in the west wing, the images of the young Prince and his father have been slashed by the Beast's claws, but the image of his mother is left untouched.
  • Description Cut: After the Beast demands that Belle join him for dinner, Lumiere and Mrs. Potts implore him to try being nicer if he wants the girl to even like him, let alone love him. Lumiere paints a picture of Belle being scared to death in her room. Cut to Belle using the old Bedsheet Ladder escape trick.
  • Designated Girl Fight: In the battle in the castle, Madame de Garderobe fends off the woman who threatens Cadenza.
  • Demoted to Extra:
    • Chip. In the animated feature, he stows away when Belle returns to the village and frees her and Maurice when they're imprisoned, an act that is vital to the climax. Not so here; his plot duty is filled by Maurice himself, with a minor assist by Belle, leaving him as just another Object who hopes the curse will be broken. That said, since he isn't off rescuing Belle and Maurice, he does join the other objects in fighting off the villagers and manages to get in some good zingers.
    • The chef-turned-stove (now named Cuisinier) has even less screen time here than in the original, where he was already considered a minor character to begin with. He only shows up in two very brief scenes with one easy-to-miss line. He was originally intended to appear in the castle battle like in the animated film, and footage of him in human form does exist, but neither were actually used in the final cut.
    • On the same beat, the asylum keeper had a more prominent presence in the original film. Here, he only has one line and doesn't do much else.
  • Didn't Think This Through: Belle, in an attempt to prove that Maurice is not crazy, shows the Beast to Gaston and the other villagers via the magic mirror — not realizing she could, and does, put the Beast's life in danger.
  • Died in Your Arms Tonight: In the denouement, this happens to Beast in Belle's arms as well as Plumette in Lumiere's arms… of course, both turn out to be Disney Deaths.
  • Dirty Old Woman: Cogsworth's wife Clothilde. She comes off as rather lecherous — after being reunited with her husband, the first thing she says to him is: "I've been so lonely..." Later, while dancing, she gropes him.
  • Disney Acid Sequence: The "Be Our Guest" sequence is just as extravagant and somewhat psychedelic as the original.
  • Disney Death: The Beast in the denouement, as in the original film, with the twist that all of the Enchanted Objects also undergo this. As he dies, they become inanimate objects at last, and some bid final goodbyes to each other. When the curse breaks and he lives again, they are restored to human life.
  • Disney Villain Death: No one falls to his death like Gaston, as in the original film, though under different circumstances. It comes complete with a rather audible thud shortly after he falls out of view, unusual for this trope. This was done to certify his demise, as the animated version had him falling into a ravine, leading to many fans insisting he survived the fall.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: The Beast imprisons Maurice for the rest of his life for trying to take a single flower from his garden. Lampshaded by Belle: "A life sentence for a rose?" The Beast tries to dodge her argument by saying he received eternal damnation for a rose but this doesn't make it any better.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Less so than the original, as the mob this time consists of men of multiple ethnicities, but Gaston leading the angry villagers to Kill The Beast simply because "We don't like what we don't understand in fact it scares us" is still basically a Fictional Counterpart to a frothing Ku Klux Klan lynch mob gleefully setting out to murder innocent minorities in the Live Action Remake.
  • Drama-Preserving Handicap:
    • When Belle first asks the objects what she can do to help, Cogsworth starts to tell her what must happen to break the curse, but the other objects shut him up quick, knowing that telling her she must fall in love with the Beast would likely doom any chance of genuine love blossoming between her and the Beast.
    • Mrs. Potts specifically tries to refrain from any kind of vernacular that could potentially taint Belle's perspective of the Beast, not that he particularly endeared himself to her in their first couple of encounters.
      Mrs. Potts Somewhere, deep in his soul, is a prince... of a fellow... waiting to be set free.
  • Dramatic Thunder: The "Thunderous Underline" variant turns up when the disguised Enchantress arrives in the prologue. (Up to that point, there doesn't seem to be any storm going on outside the castle!)
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: In order to be human again, the Prince in his Beast form must love a girl and win her love back before the last petal of the cursed rose falls. At first, he seems to be failing when Belle refuses to dine with him, but the two grow close after he saves Belle from the wolves. Then it seems the curse will not be broken when she leaves to save Maurice, but thankfully she returns and tells him she loves him just after he and his staff die, and then everyone is alive and human again.
  • Eiffel Tower Effect: Amusingly, the film is set long before the Tower was built, yet Paris is still easily recognizable thanks to Notre-Dame.
  • Empathy Doll Shot: Belle finding the rose rattle in her childhood home is treated as such. As she sees the dilapidated state of the home her father had talked so lovingly about, she notes that the Paris of her childhood is gone. Inverted in that, instead of representing a child's death, it represents Belle's mother's death — the rattle is revealed in flashback to be the last thing she had of her daughter's after Belle was taken by her father to spare them both from a plague.
  • Enchanted Forest: The forest beyond Villeneuve has a reputation for being haunted, according to the Novelization — likely the result of the Enchantress' curse, which caused the villagers to forget abou the enchanted castle in its depths. And if that wasn't a good enough reason to stay out, it's packed with wolves. When you go off the beaten track, things start to get even worse.
  • Endless Winter: Thanks to the curse, the castle and its surrounding grounds are trapped in this.
  • Establishing Character Moment: A variation; many viewers will have seen the original and already know the characters, so characters that have undergone an Adaptation Personality Change have this change made clear in their first appearance:
    • Gaston having a more dangerous personality in this adaptation is made clear in his first appearance, where the mention of him fighting in a war immediately establishes that he's likely killed people before, as opposed to the original who was only a hunter of animals.
    • In the same scene as Gaston, LeFou's lines hint that, while he's still a sycophant to Gaston, he's not quite as devoted as his animated counterpart was, questioning Gaston's choice of Belle as a bride and using a phrase that Gaston doesn't understand.
    • A similar early clue to a changed personality is in how one of the Beast's first spoken lines is a Deadpan Snarker reply, hinting that this one will turn out to be more intelligent and well-read than the original.
    • Maurice appears singing a love song wistfully while working on a beautifully handcrafted music box of a man painting his wife and child, before looking over to the painting in question, thus establishing himself as a more serious character, and a more skilled tinkerer and craftsman, than the Bumbling Dad of the original.
  • Everyone Has Standards:
    • LeFou, in an Adaptation Personality Change. As Gaston's methods become more ruthless, LeFou becomes more uncomfortable with them. Finally, he performs a Heel–Face Turn to save Mrs. Potts from falling, and then (novelization only) tells Belle where Gaston has gone.
    • The villagers view Gaston very highly while seeing Maurice as crazy. But even they are disgusted when they hear from Maurice that Gaston left him to die in the woods and question Gaston on it when he comes back.
  • Everything's Better with Sparkles: Gold dust is the finishing touch Madame de Garderobe gives to Belle's iconic golden ballgown.
  • Evil Plan: As in the original, Gaston has Monsieur D'Arque ready to lock up Maurice in an insane asylum as an effort to draw out Belle and blackmail her into marriage; in a darker turn, however, he is also doing this because having the villagers believe Maurice is mad means they won't come after Gaston for intentionally abandoning him to die in the woods.
  • Exact Words:
    • The Beast says that when the prison door shuts, it will not be opened again, so Belle takes the time granted to say goodbye to her father — then shoves him out of the cell and locks herself in. True to his word, the Beast leaves her there and takes Maurice away to release him.
    • Chip is confused as to what the adults are singing about during Something There, and Mrs. Pots tells him she'll explain it to him when he's older. Chip waits a few seconds and declares that he's older.
  • Expanded Universe: Lost in a Book is a YA novel set during Belle's stay in the castle. In its library, she discovers a Type 2 Portal Book and finds herself torn between its Magical Land and that of the Beast, partially because it could allow her freedom again... or so it seems. There are forces that want her to stay between the pages of Nevermore forever. This book also reveals that the Enchantress is no less than an agent of Love itself, who is opposed by Death.
  • Expy: Père Robert, the village pastor, essentially fills the role of the bookseller from the original film. This was done to close the Plot Hole from the original movie about how the bookseller sustains his business in a town filled with illiterate people and Anti-Intellectualism.
  • Extremely Short Timespan: Unlike the original movie which took place over an entire winter, the events of the movie unfold over a little under a week, as Gastón claims he looked for Maurice for five days before returning to Villeneuve.
  • Face Death with Dignity: Belle was never told by her father Maurice of what happened to her mother during her childhood. She and the Beast eventually learn that her mother was one of the victims of a plague that struck Paris when Belle was an infant. However, Belle's mother wasn't scared of dying and told Maurice to oblige to the plague doctors' orders to take Belle away so that the plague won't infect her as well, to which Maurice reluctantly obliged. Belle's mother then kissed Belle's baby rattle (shaped like a rose) to symbolize that she values her daughter's life over her own, right before accepting her fate succumbing to her death. It was then Belle realized that Maurice was unable to explain the circumstances behind his wife's death because of his grief of leaving her behind as he still loved her; even the Beast showed sympathy for this as he too lost his mother to an illness when he was a young boy.
  • Face Palm: Lumiere does this when Belle, wondering if everything in the castle is alive, asks a hairbrush its name — only for Cogsworth to explain that it's just a hairbrush.
  • The Fair Folk: In the original it could easily be argued that the Enchantress was, in fact, a Seelie Court fairy. They don't take kindly to being summarily dismissed or being shown disrespect, and their Blue-and-Orange Morality explains why the innocent servants were also made part of the curse. Here, the resemblance is even stronger: The Enchantress hangs around the village as Agathe the beggar, and directly manipulates events to lead the Beast toward redemption.
  • Fate Worse than Death: Played for LaughsCogsworth suffers this in the end when he reunites with his wife.
  • Felony Misdemeanor: Played for drama in-universe: This Beast locks Maurice in the tower all because the latter took a single rose from his garden. Belle is appalled when this is explained to her: "A life sentence for a rose?" The Beast replies that the same thing happened to him once.
  • Feminist Fantasy: Belle practically invents a washing machine in 18th century France.
  • Fisher King: The castle is crumbling to correspond to the curse's strength over everyone. As the rose wilts, the castle crumbles even more.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • Two lines from the aria Madame De Garderobe sings at the Prince's ball at the start of the film foreshadow immediate upcoming events: "Oh, how divine! Glamour, music, and magic combine!" foreshadows the enchantress arriving at the end of the song and "What a breathtaking, thrilling array. Every prince, every dog has his day." foreshadows the curse she has in store for the Prince.
    • Some of the servants' actions during the prologue hint at their respective object forms; Cogsworth takes out his pocketwatch, Lumière uses a candelabra, and Cadenza plays a harpsichord to accompany his wife's performance.
    • During "Gaston", Gaston mentions how when he goes hunting, he always shoots from behind. Guess how he kills the Beast.
    • When Belle meets with Monsieur Jean, he mentions that he seems to have lost something, but he just can't remember what. It turns out that he's alluding to his wife and son, Mrs. Potts and Chip, whom he has forgotten due to the curse. If you look behind him during that scene, you'll notice that he's a potter. The dishes for sale behind him have the same design as all the other dishes in the castle. It's also worth noting that his last name is never mentioned until Mrs. Potts spots him during the castle battle and calls him "Mr. Potts!"
  • Four-Philosophy Ensemble: The servants.
    • The Optimist: Lumiere
    • The Realist: Mrs. Potts
    • The Cynic: Cogsworth
    • The Apathetic: Madame de Garderobe
    • The Conflicted: Plumette
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: The castle menu has a "Poisons" section.
  • Freudian Excuse:
    • The Beast's expanded backstory explains that he was a sweet little boy under the care of his kind mother, but after her death, he was left in the care of his cruel father, who hardened him to be callous and vain.
    • Luke Evans states that Gaston has PTSD from his time as a soldier, and uses the affection of the townsfolk and a big ego to cope.
  • Gadgeteer Genius: This time around, Belle is the "crazy" inventor instead of her father, who is rewritten to be a music box builder. Word of God says that this change was made to give a clearer reason as to why the other villagers see her as an outcast.
  • Genius Loci: Never explicitly stated (except in a throwaway line by Maurice when he's trying to urge Belle to leave, and it can be argued that he isn't certain about its veracity himself), but the castle appears to have awareness, opening and closing doors when needed — and possibly intentionally collapsing the bridge that Gaston is standing on when he shoots the Beast.
  • Ghost Butler: The gates and front door of the castle can open and close on their own. This is either because they are actually transformed servants, or because of additional magic "bestowed" upon the castle by the curse.
  • Gilded Cage: Beast is fine with keeping Belle locked up in the dungeon he imprisoned Maurice in, but after Lumiere and Mrs. Potts convinced him that she may help break the spell, he puts her in a stateroom and orders his servants to wait on her hand and foot, but neither the Beast nor the servants hide the fact that she isn't allowed to leave.
  • Good Colors, Evil Colors: The color of each horse symbolizes its rider's morality— Phillipe is white reflecting Belle's purity, Gaston's horse is black reflecting his evilness, and LeFou's horse is brown reflecting his true neutral morality.
  • Glory Days: Gaston is obsessed with his glorious exploits as a soldier fighting the Portuguese twelve years prior. His old uniform is his outfit of choice, and he uses his success in the war to curry favor with the townsfolk, claiming in the Novelization that if it hadn't been for him, the village would have been annihilated. Belle is the only woman not impressed with his past. From here, he is now a Glory Seeker.
  • Glory Hound: Unlike the 1991 film, where Gaston sarcastically tells Maurice that he and his friends will 'help him out' to rescue Belle, he totally means it this time around — but only to make himself a hero again and win Belle's affections.
  • Glory Seeker: When approached by Maurice for help after Belle ends up the Beast's prisoner, Gaston agrees to follow him into the woods because it will make him look good to offer help to an old man in distress; in the worst case scenario, it ends with said old man being proven wrong and humiliated, in the best case, he'll look like a hero to the village and especially Belle. When this goes awry and he decides to leave Maurice in the woods to die of exposure so she'll have no one to defend her from him, he finds he has to cover his tracks once Maurice is rescued by Agathe and accuses him of attempted murder. It's at this point that he convinces the townsfolk that Maurice is insane and needs to be locked up. When Belle intervenes, Gaston once again sees an opportunity for glory — by destroying the Beast (which conveniently gets him out of the way) and "saving" the village.
  • Gorgeous Garment Generation: Madame de Garderobe has the ability to create dresses for Belle in seconds. At first the results are Impossibly Tacky Clothes, but she ultimately creates her golden ballgown.
  • Gorgeous Period Dress: The residents of Villeneuve look gorgeous for a poor provincial town, and the residents of the castle are even more lavishly garbed in their human forms — replete with gold-trimmed ballgowns and tailcoats, and tons of powdered wigs. This is a notable upgrade on the original, in which these characters are far less ostentatiously clothed; justified for the castle residents because a Masquerade Ball is in progress when they're initially transformed.
  • Glad I Thought of It: A subtle but humorous example. At the end of "Gaston," as LeFou is singing "Who's got brains like Gaston? Entertains like Gaston?" (from the Broadway musical), Gaston abruptly yanks him out of the way and takes center stage with "Who could make up these endless refrains like Gaston?", taking the crowd's praise for the whole number even though LeFou was the one actually making it up.
  • Gratuitous French: Given the film is set in France, French words are frequently used for flavor. Some of the closing credits are also written in French.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: The King, as he was the one who turned the Prince into an arrogant and vain ruler following the Queen's death, which made the Enchantress cast the spell on the castle in the first place.
  • Hairpin Lockpick: Maurice opens the lock of the prison van with a hairpin of Belle.
  • Happily Married: Madame Garderobe and Maestro Cadenza. Throughout the Prologue, they share loving glances and comfort each other when the Enchantress enters; during the major plot, they're largely motivated to break the curse by their desire to see each other again (their object forms — a wardrobe and a harpsichord, respectively — are too large to travel easily); in the final battle, Garderobe gets involved when the villagers start threatening her husband; when they temporarily become objects for good, she lovingly says goodbye to him, and he begs her not to go as he transforms as well; and when they're returned to humanity, the first thing they do is kiss multiple times.
  • Hate Sink: The King, as he was known for ruling his kingdom with a cruel iron fist and raising the young Prince to be selfish and arrogant; even forbidding the servants to ever question or object to his ways of raising the Prince. He also showed no concern over the loss of the Queen, which was seen when he leads his son away from his wife's deathbed without any emotion. This treatment is what drove the Prince to rebuff Agathe the Enchantress, who then casted a curse on his castle in retaliation, transforming the Prince into the Beast and the servants into enchanted objects. Ever since then, the Beast showed nothing but shame for his actions and hated his cruel father for raising him to be a tyrant; even tearing up a family portrait of himself and the King out of anger. Even the servants themselves are in full regret of their reluctance to speak out against the King, implying that they truly despised him for his cruel nature.
  • Heel–Face Turn: In the endgame, LeFou turns on Gaston having found out what he's really like.
  • Henpecked Husband: Cogsworth is implied to be this, given that he's none too thrilled to be recognized by his wife — a shrewish village woman — at the end. This would be consistent with his general timidity.
  • Heroic RRoD: One beseeching look at Belle after scattering the wolves and Beast is face-down on the ground, clearly spent after the fight.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: Played straight with Lumiere and Cogsworth, but averted this time around with Gaston and LeFou, the latter of whom is Straight Gay.
  • The High Queen: The Prince's mother was this. Too bad that 1) she died and 2) her husband wasn't good.
  • Horned Humanoid: The Beast's horns are much bigger and more menacing in this incarnation, resembling those of a ram.
  • Human Shield: When Chapeau confronts Gaston, he pulls LeFou in front of him to take the blows.
  • I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Invoked; both the Beast and Gaston are initially interested in Belle because she doesn't show them any kind of deference or respect, but where Gaston sees this as a challenge to be overcome, Belle's words force the Beast to take a look at himself and work to become a better person.
  • Impossibly Tacky Clothes: Madame de Garderobe's first attempt at a dress for Belle comes out as this.
  • Improbable Weapon User: The Enchanted Objects are the improbable weapons and their users. Special mention must be made of Cadenza the harpsichord using his keys as weapons, shooting them out like a .50 cal machine gun. (Said keys are the equivalent of his rotting teeth in his human form.) Chip also flings tea saucers like shuriken.
  • Incorrect Animal Noise: While the wolves do howl, here they also roar like lions.
  • Informed Attractiveness: Characters often say that Belle is beautiful, in keeping with the original film. Meanwhile, the girls shown fawning over Gaston and being jealous of Belle's looks are in excessive clothes and make-up (as opposed to the gorgeous triplets they were in the original film), which makes Belle look better and contrast their appearance with hers.
  • Innocent Awkward Question: Just like in the original Disney movie, Chip asks his mother Mrs. Potts what she and her friends mean when they say there is "something there" (i.e. that Belle and Beast are starting to fall in love). Mrs. Potts feels that he is too young to know, so she says, "I'll tell you when you're older". Chip waits a few seconds and then says, "Okay, I'm older".
  • Intelligence Equals Isolation: Belle suffers this in Villeneuve due to its villagers' rampant Anti-Intellectualism and Stay in the Kitchen attitudes.
  • In the Back: Gaston still kills the Beast from behind in this version (it's even foreshadowed during his musical number). However, instead of stabbing him in the back, which at least required him to climb up and get up close, he now fatally shoots him with his pistol, twice.
  • It Has Been an Honor: In the denouement, Cogsworth says this to Lumiere when they are about to die.
  • It Works Better With Bolts: Belle pilfers all the bolts out of Gaston's quiver while he's busy putting the first flintlock bullet into Beast's back. When he finds out after attempting to load his crossbow, she defiantly snaps them over her knee and tosses the shattered bolts down the stairs. Unfortunately, she didn't also swipe his flintlock powder and balls.
  • Jerkass: Gaston: He's as conceited, rude, and sexist as ever, and this time, he's effectively stalked Belle before and simply refuses to take "No" for an answer. Among his crimes include leaving Belle's father Maurice to die in the woods for rejecting his proposal and later holding him prisoner in the local asylum to cover his act, exploiting LeFou's feelings and the villagers' ignorance to his own favor before betraying them to their fates during the battle against the castle servants, and attempting to kill the Beast by shooting him from behind, all just to satisfy his own ego and take Belle for himself.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
    • Despite the way the way he treats Maurice and Belle at first, the Beast deep down is really not that evil. The reason he was such a nasty person as the Prince was because his coldhearted father mistreated him after his wife died. Mrs. Potts even tells Belle he is not as terrible as he appears.
    • Monsieur Jean also comes under this trope. He is one of the very few villagers who is on friendly terms with Belle, but that doesn't stop him from being rude to her by claiming that the book Belle was going to return to Pere Robert (Romeo and Juliet) "sounds boring." He then turns traitor towards Belle and Maurice by claiming Maurice was "raving about a Beast in a castle" and joining the mob to kill the Beast. However, after Belle breaks the spell, Monsieur Jean redeems himself and reunites with his long-lost wife and son — Mrs. Potts and Chip.
    • Clothide comes under this trope, as she's one of the many villagers who are openly hostile to Belle, even wrecking her washing machine and later aiding Gaston in attacking the castle. However, after Belle breaks the spell, Clothide's memory of her husband Cogsworth is restored as she is last seen hugging him in tears, much to his horror.
  • Laser-Guided Amnesia: The curse caused everyone who lived outside of the castle to lose their memories of it and of anyone they knew who was a now-trapped resident of it, explaining why the villagers aren't aware of a castle existing so close to their homes.
  • Lima Syndrome: Where the captor falls in love with his prisoner. It's quite clear this is what has happened when Beast sets Belle free because he loves her.
  • Logo Joke: Not a "joke", but the Disney castle logo continues the tradition of adapting the castle to the aesthetic of any given film — in this case, it's the Beast's castle.
    • The trailers show the castle as it appears under the curse, snowy and crumbling with disuse.
    • The film proper uses the castle pre-curse, which transitions directly into the prologue.
  • Lovable Coward: Of the Enchanted Objects, Cogsworth is the most timid despite his blustery bearing, and the one most afraid of upsetting the Beast. He does lead the living books into battle in the confrontation with the villagers, but when the humans get the drop on him, his courage immediately fades. This was later subverted in a deleted scene, when Cogsworth manages to rescue Lumiere from being attacked by a grumpy woman, who turns out to be his wife, much to his horror.
  • Made of Iron: During the fight in the castle, Cadenza drops down upon LeFou, pinning him to the ground and only succeeds in rendering him unconscious (made even stranger since Cadenza can be heard playing "The Funeral March" while he's on top of LeFou).
  • Masquerade Ball: One is in progress in the prologue.
  • A Match Made in Stockholm: Played with. While Belle does start falling for Beast, her rational side remains cognizant of the fact that she's still his prisoner. It forms the nature of an Armor-Piercing Question she poses to him, after their dance. The primary cause for Belle developing this at all is because Beast concurrently developed Lima Syndrome and began treating her in accordance.
  • Mighty Roar: The Beast gives one huge roar when saving Belle from the wolves.
  • Minion with an F in Evil: LeFou is against Gaston's treatment of Maurice and only reluctantly goes with Gaston and the mob to kill the Beast.
  • Misspelling Out Loud: The big finish to "Gaston", which was ad-libbed (in many ways) and left in:
    LeFou: There's just one guy in town who's got all of it down,
    And his name's G-A-S...T...
    I believe there's another T...
    It just occurred to me that I'm illiterate and I've never actually had to spell it out loud before...
    Gaston!
  • Mistaken for Insane: Invoked. When Maurice tells the townspeople that Gaston tied him up and abandoned him in the forest, Gaston lies that he did no such thing and says that Maurice must be going out of his mind, especially since he claims to have seen the Beast (the latter of which is true). He then has everyone send Maurice to the asylum.
  • Mistaken for Transformed: Belle is briefly left under the impression that literally every object in the castle is an enchanted servant, and actually asks a hairbrush its name. Cue Face Palm from Lumiere as Cogsworth explains that it's just an ordinary brush.
  • Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: After leaving someone in a literal bind in the woods, LeFou begins to see Gaston in a different light and tries to convince him to consider other, less patently evil choices. Gaston's constant rebuffing of these suggestions, along with leaving him to the mercy of the castle denizens in the climactic battle, causes this.
  • Movie Bonus Song: Alan Menken, the composer for the original animated feature and the subsequent stage adaptation, wrote three new songs to add to the existing score rather than lift any of the songs written for the stage version (although a short instrumental version of the musical's song "Home" is played when Belle first enters her room in the castle). They are "How Does a Moment Last Forever" (sung by Maurice), "Evermore" (The Beast), and "Days in the Sun" (The Enchanted Objects, Belle, and the Beast). As with the stage adaptation, Tim Rice provides the new lyrics. There's also a short "Aria" for Garderobe in the prologue.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • The town is now named Villenueve, which is the last name of the original tale's author.
    • Lumière is depicted as a tiny man (made of solid gold) with candlesticks for hands, rather than a simple candelabra with a face. This is a combination of his original design and his costume from the stage musical (in which he was portrayed as a regular person progressively turning into a candelabra). He does, however, have the ability to take the form of a more realistic candelabra, a nod to the character's original design.
    • There are multiple references to the Broadway musical adaptation:
      • When the Enchanted Objects take Belle to her room in the castle, the score includes a stretch of "Home".
      • In both the stage version and this film, the Wardrobe's human identity is that of an opera singer who was unlucky enough to be visiting the castle when the curse was cast.
      • The Enchanted Objects are becoming less animate as the curse nears either its breaking or final fulfillment in the film. In the stage show, the Objects are only slowly becoming their final forms — allowing them to be played by full-sized actors.
      • This alternate lyric for "Gaston" was first heard in the stage show and also references the fact that the song has since become a meme:
      LeFou: Who has brains like Gaston? Entertains like Gaston?
      Gaston: Who can make up these endless refrains like Gaston?
      • During "Days in the Sun", Belle references "A Change in Me."
    • Maurice is a music box maker rather than a wacky inventor. In the earliest story reel for the animated film, a music box belonging to Belle's mother was part of what brought Maurice to the castle; later, a music box was going to be one of the principal Enchanted Objects until its role was filled by Chip. In addition, Maurice's horse arrived at the castle with him, as Philippe does here (filling the plot hole of how he could take Belle to the castle later). Even the detail of a stable stocked for the horse is retained.
    • As in the original fairy tale, the Beast confronts and imprisons Maurice for picking a rose — the only thing Belle wants him to bring back from his trip — from the garden of the castle after he has been given hospitality with no expectation of being repaid.
    • When Maurice first walks into the castle, the viewer can hear Cadenza playing a few notes from "Be Our Guest." In early drafts, this song was intended to be performed for Maurice, before it was decided that it was too grand a number to be used for a relatively minor character. There's even a moment where he finds an entire dinner waiting in the dining room and proceeds to eat it (this is also a detail in the original story).
    • The Village Lasses are shown trying on blonde wigs during "Belle," a reference to their original hair colors in the animated film.
    • Gaston accidentally stepping into a mud puddle is a small nod to the original film, where he falls into a mud puddle after Belle rejects him. Appropriately enough, both moments happen right before the "Belle" reprise.
    • Belle being Wrong Genre Savvy and thinking the hairbrush is alive seems to be an answer to numerous fans speculating about whether every object in the castle was once a servant when even plates and cutlery are alive.
    • LeFou calling Mrs. Potts Chip's "grandmother" is a tongue-in-cheek reference to fans feeling her human design looks too old to be his mother in the original film.
    • In a deleted scene, Cogsworth rescues Lumière from Clothilde by (non-fatally) shooting her in the behind. This is nod to a scene from the original film, in which he stabs LeFou in the behind after he nearly kills Lumière (he even slides down a stairwell like in the original). Another deleted sequence shows LeFou capturing Plumette, only to be torched in the butt by Lumière; this is another gag taken straight from the animated version.
    • In the denouement, a line cut from the original script is restored: Belle asking the Prince if he would be willing to grow a beard!
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Belle, after she accidentally causes Gaston and an Angry Mob to go after the Beast once she clears Maurice's name.
  • Named by the Adaptation: Many of the secondary characters and even a locale.
    • The Wardrobe isn't given a name in the animated film (she's "Madame de la Grande Bouche" in the Broadway musical). Here, she's named Madame de Garderobe.
    • The Enchantress also goes by the name Agathe (the beggar woman).
    • The dog is named Froufrou, and his Enchanted Object form is changed from a footstool to a piano stool (because he belongs to Cadenza the harpsichord).
    • The coat rack is named Chapeau.
    • The stove is named Cuisinier.
    • Cogsworth's real/first name is Henri, and Mrs. Potts is given the name Beatrice.
    • The village finally gets a name: Villeneuve. This is the name of the author of the original, more complex fairy tale.
    • Averted with the Beast; like in the original, his name is never stated in the film itself. However, Paige O'Hara and Dan Stevens have both confirmed his name to be Adam, bringing the long-speculated name into Ascended Fanon.
  • Neck Lift: Just like in the animated version, Beast turns the tables on Gaston by throttling him one-handed and dangling him over a long drop.
  • Neck Snap: LeFou does a pretend one to one of the villagers during the song "Gaston."
  • Never Say "Die": Justified in this case. The servants tell Belle that if the curse isn't broken in time, they "become antiques." But they're not speaking metaphorically — they do mean that their ultimate fate is to be transformed into completely inanimate objects.
  • Never Trust a Trailer: The Official Trailer briefly showed a shot of the painting of the Beast as a child, slashed by the Beast's claws, thus mirroring a shot from the original film where the newly-transformed Beast slashed a painting of himself note . However, as we see in the final film, the Beast was turned into a beast as an adult, and the painting he slashes is one of himself as a child.
    • Judging from the trailer, one could easily think that this is nothing but a near shot for shot remake of the cartoon. While it does follow the cartoon very closely, several things have been changed, expanded, and added.
  • No Accounting for Taste: Discussed. Belle tries pointing out to Gaston that they're too different personality-wise and if they did get married, they'd just make each other miserable. Gaston, of course, doesn't listen to her.
  • No OSHA Compliance: The Beast's castle is a veritable death trap, with numerous stairs, ledges, and bridges lacking even a hint of a railing, no matter how high up in the towers they are. Worse, it's literally crumbling away with every petal that falls from the rose!
    • Notably, this can be handwaved in-universe by the damage done to the castle by the years since he was cursed, so at least some of them may well have actually been a lot safer when the castle was intact!
  • Nostalgic Music Box: Taken to extremes. It's not just that a music box melody leads into Maurice's on-screen introduction and "How Does a Moment Last Forever". He's working on a box decorated with a painted scene of him, his wife, and infant Belle in their old home in Paris! The Novelization notes that his other music boxes are decorated with images of world landmarks, his way of allowing Belle to vicariously travel the world.
  • No Woman's Land: Downplayed with Villeneuve. The Novelization details that girls aren't allowed to attend the local school. When Belle is caught in the act tutoring a little girl who wants to learn to read by the schoolboys and their headmaster, the resultant furor and teasing draws out much of the town. Gaston breaks things up, but not before Belle's washing machine is destroyed. Gaston interfering turns out to be just a way for him to look good before he — once again — tries to persuade Belle to marry him. When she remains resistant, he warns her that women who don't get married in this town inevitably become spinsters... who are reduced to begging in the streets.
  • Not His Sled: The last petal falls from the rose before Belle makes her Anguished Declaration of Love to the Beast, so her declaration comes too late to break the spell. But Agathe the Enchantress, overhears her, and undoes the spell herself.
  • Objectshifting: As with its animated predecessor, the film features the prince's servants becoming Animate Inanimate Objects while their master becomes a beast, but with a major twist: if the Beast cannot find love and break the curse, they will not only remain in their current forms, but lose their animate nature and become ordinary objects.
  • Oh, Crap!:
    • When Maurice gets caught by the Beast helping himself to one of the garden's roses to take home to his daughter.
    • Belle gets this three times, first when she is caught by the Beast just as she's about to touch the cursed rose — and second when she encounters the wolves that chased Maurice to the castle upon trying to flee it. The third time was when she realized that she put the Beast's life in danger after being locked up in the asylum cart with her father by a jealous Gaston.
    • Naturally, this is how Gaston reacts to the bridge collapsing beneath him before he plunges to his demise.
    • In the denouement, Cogsworth gets this when his wife — a particularly shrewish villager — recognizes him, to the point that he wishes he were a clock again.
  • Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Ewan McGregor's French accent slips in and out.
  • Pair the Smart Ones: At the backdrop of the villagers' anti-intellectualism, Belle and the Beast bond over their shared love of reading.
  • Parental Abandonment: Unlike the original film, the remake addresses both what happened to the Beast's parents (as seen by the family portrait in the second trailer) and Belle's mother.
  • Pet the Dog:
    • Even before he starts becoming more civil and kinder after he saves Belle from the wolves, the Beast lets Belle say goodbye to her father, unlike in the animated version. (Belle takes advantage of this to take his place in the cell.)
    • The Enchantress lifts the curse after seeing Belle is in love with the Beast, even though the last petal has fallen and they are technically out of time.
  • Pimped-Out Dress: The outfits for the Masquerade Ball, and later Belle's golden ballgown. Tom, Dick, and Stanley end up in them as well during the final battle courtesy of Garderobe.
  • Plague Doctor: One appears in the flashback to Paris, with him telling Maurice to leave Paris just as his wife/Belle's mother is dying of such.
  • Politically Correct History: Zig-zagged: whilst the film's handling of issues such as female education and the rigid requirement for women to marry is presented with a period-correct attitude, a far more relaxed approach is taken with regard to the racial background of both main characters and extras. For example, the ballroom scene at the beginning of the film depicts noble women of every conceivable racial background, which would be highly improbable in 18th Century France. Similarly, the village of Villeneuve includes extras from a broad spectrum of different races — again something that would be improbable in rural France in the 18th Century (and even nowadays). There's also the fact that nobody seems to bat an eye at the romantic relationship between a white Lumière and black Plumette, which is something even the most open-minded people of the era would have a problem with.
  • Pragmatic Adaptation: The Enchanted Objects are all redesigned in order to work better in the live-action medium, since their original animated designs would've been too fanciful.
    • As seen in Mythology Gag, Lumière becomes a man-shaped candelabra rather than sticking to his animated design, since there's pretty much no way they could have pulled that off in live-action without him looking either ridiculous or downright terrifying.
    • Instead of Mrs. Potts' face being on the front of the teapot (with the spout essentially becoming her nose), it's now on the side, and appears to be painted on, as if it was part of the teapot's design.
    • Plumette resembles a white peacock, as it would've been nearly impossible to put a simple face on the handle of a feather duster.
    • Garderobe has what appears to be a tiny stage (complete with mini box seats) behind her doors; the stage's curtains are what form her face.
  • Precision F-Strike: When the Beast is about to force Belle out, he points out that, "You could have damned us all!" Before that, he says to her that he's "received eternal damnation."
  • Punny Name: As with the 1991 film, the servants’ names all fit the objects they become: Lumiere (French for light) becomes a candelabra, Cogsworth becomes a clock, Mrs. Potts becomes a teapot (and it’s later revealed that she is married to the town potter), and Chip is a teacup with a small chip. The newly named characters also follow this pattern: Plumette becomes a duster with a peacock Animal Motif, Madame de Garderobe becomes a wardrobe, Cadenza becomes a piano, and Chapeau becomes a coat and hat rack.
  • The Queen's Latin: The Queen's French is in full play here; a French story is played by a mostly-English cast (all of whom retain their accents). Lamp Shaded and Played for Laughs in an early scene with Gaston and LeFou observing Belle.
    Gaston: She's the only girl that gives me that sense of...
    LeFou: Hmmm, je ne sais quoi? (I don't know what)
    Gaston: I don't know what that means.
  • Race Lift: Plumette and Madame de Garderobe are played by black actresses Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Audra McDonald, respectively.
    • Also, unlike the animated film, the town's population seems to have a lot of ethnic diversity (quite improbable in 18th century France, or even in nowadays rural France).
  • Rage Against the Reflection: Just like in the animated film, the Beast has slashed a portrait of his old self — except this time it's a family portrait; the Beast has slashed himself and his father, but his mother remains untouched.
  • Related in the Adaptation: In Villeneuve's original version of the fairy tale, the heroine was the daughter of a king and a good fairy. A wicked fairy had tried to murder the heroine so she could marry her father and the heroine was put in the place of the merchant's deceased daughter to protect her. In the film, the heroine Belle and the merchant, or in this case, artist and music box maker, Maurice, really do seem to be related.
  • Ret-Canon: The idea of the Enchantress's curse threatening to turn the servants into completely inanimate, non-sentient objects, as well as their culpability in helping to make the Prince into a Spoiled Brat by remaining passive to his behavior, first appeared in the Broadway musical version of the original film.
  • Sacred Hospitality: As in the original, the Prince is cursed for denying the Enchantress this. Later, The Beast gives this to Maurice — but when he tries to take a rose from his garden as he departs, he throws him into a tower cell. Once Belle takes Maurice's place, Lumiere and the other Objects treat her with kindness by letting her out of the cell, giving her a nice room to stay in, and choosing to make a meal for her even after the Beast instructs them not to let her eat because she won't do so with him. (Admittedly, and moreso than in the animated feature, this is done partially out of their desperation to break the curse by putting Belle and the Beast into a better position to fall in love.)
  • Savage Wolves: A pack of wolves inhabit the cursed forest outside the castle grounds. Maurice comes to the castle because he is seeking refuge from the wolves, and later, they are about to attack Belle when she tries to escape the castle, but the Beast comes to the rescue. Even after being scared away by the Beast's angry roars and prodigious strength, the wolves did enough damage to the Beast to cause him to pass out.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
    • Maurice decides to escape the enchanted castle after hearing a teacup (that would be Chip) speak.
    • Although she temporarily reconsiders trying to escape the castle (as she promises her father) after getting to know the kind Enchanted Objects, Belle invokes this trope after the Beast rages at her, all because she nearly touched the enchanted rose.
    • In the Novelization, after LeFou and the mob are soundly trounced by the Enchanted Objects and forced to retreat, he tells Belle (who has just arrived) where Gaston is — and asks her to tell him that he's on his own from now on.
  • Shipper on Deck: The Objects are just as desperate to match Belle and the Beast as ever in hopes of breaking the curse — perhaps more so. In the animated feature, "Be Our Guest" is born mainly out of Sacred Hospitality; in this version, Lumiere openly says that treating her well will put her and the Beast in a better position to fall in love.
  • Shout-Out:
    • The Beast's face is based directly on that of the equivalent character in the Jean Cocteau version, whose appearance in that film was inspired by the portrait of Petrus Gonsalvus, a German noble who had Hypertrichosis, whose marriage to the Parisian lady Catherine may have partially inspired the original fairy tale.
    • Also, the torches on either side of the castle's main entrance are modeled after the candelabra-bearing arms from the Cocteau film (this isn't the first Disney work to borrow them). Maurice notices them appreciatively as he enters, but they remain immobile until the final battle, when they pummel at the villagers trying to storm through the doors.
    • In "Belle," the boys going into the schoolhouse look like a Gender Flip of the twelve little boarding school girls in Madeline, with their uniforms that consist of blue coats and yellow straw hats. Since Madeline also takes place in France, it seems fitting.
    • The "Be Our Guest" song contains a number of tributes to other musicals. For example, late in the song, Lumiere gets surrounded by an array of pink feather fans, a nod to the song "All I Care About is Love" from Chicago.
    • While none of the original songs from the Disney Broadway version are directly included, during the scene where Belle is shown to her suite in the castle, the motif of "Home", a ballad sung by Belle in the musical, is played as incidental music.
  • Sickening "Crunch!": In equal parts horrific and cathartic, we hear (but don't see) Gaston's sudden stop at the end of his fall.
  • Sidekick Song: As was the case in the 1991 version and the stage musical, LeFou kicks off the song 'Gaston'; he has slightly more lyrics and, to top it off, struggles to spell Gaston's name at the end (a bit that was improvised by Josh Gad).
  • Siding with the Suffering: Like in the original, LeFou is Gaston's Sycophantic Servant... until he leaves Maurice for the wolves. LeFou shows genuine concern for Maurice and is happy to see him alive later. He ends up switching sides.
  • Significant Wardrobe Shift:
    • The Beast is introduced wearing an old, ratty cloak, but as the film goes on, he starts wearing more prim and proper attire as he becomes nicer and more civilised.
    • In the Prologue, the Prince, Madame Garderobe, and Maestro Cadenza are wearing extremely ornate clothing (including high heels), elaborate wigs, and garish makeup (as was the custom of the time) as they perform. In the finale, the Prince wears natural/no makeup, has his natural hair styled, and a simpler outfit and boots, and Garderobe wears a plainer (but arguably nicer for it) dress, her natural hair done up, and softer shades of makeup; Cadenza's look is similarly simpler. The overall effect makes them look more human, which is arguably the point.
  • Slapstick:
    • This time around, Belle gets hit with Beast's giant snowball right in the face. And falls to the ground. And it's hilariousnote .
    • When the villagers storm the castle, women come along and get beaten by the living objects as hilariously as the men.
    • In the original, the Bimbettes sprayed LeFou with water. Here, Gaston's horse splashes them with mud and LeFou takes a potshot at them.
  • Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism: Zig-zagged with the designs of the Enchanted Objects, which are all designed under a more realistic and ornate lens to represent the grandeur that they would probably have according to the period. Lumiere, for example, looks much more humanoid when active — his entire body serves as the candlestick with the top candle just attaching to the top of his head, though he can transform into a less human form. On the other hand, the majority of the servants are made to look more like the objects they represent, as the film's look would not allow for the cartoonish face conventions of the original, and a new plot point here is that the servants become less human as the curse remains. Garderobe, for example, has her face inside her cabinet doors with a curtain for a mouth and unmoving eye-shaped details above to imply her face, and Mrs. Potts' face is just painted onto the side of the teapot, though it moves. Chip is largely unchanged, however, as he seems to have a dimensional face.
  • Snow Means Death: In the Novelization only, when the Beast and the Enchanted Objects perish in the climax, it begins to snow. (The corresponding scene in the original movie takes place during a thunderstorm.) Doubling down on the symbolism of this trope, when the curse is broken and Disney Death is invoked, Endless Winter is immediately lifted and it is once again bright summer.
  • Something about a Rose: A recurring theme. The Prince is cursed into the Beast because he refuses a rose as payment for the Enchantress to stay in his castle. The same rose becomes the symbol and timekeeper of his curse. Maurice painted his wife holding a rose; as a baby, Belle had a rose-shaped rattle, and requests that he bring her one from the market every year. He's captured by the Beast when he picks one from the castle garden in order to fulfill her request. At the end, when everyone is freed to live Happily Ever After, Belle wears a white gown — implied to be her wedding dress — decorated with red roses.
  • Somewhere, a Mammalogist Is Crying: The wolves in the movie are too large, make lion noises, and attack humans.
  • Spelling for Emphasis: When LeFou sings the "Gaston" song, he tries to spell his name but gives up because he's illiterate.
    LeFou: And his name's G-A-S-T... I believe there's another T... It just occurred to me that I'm illiterate and I've never actually had to spell it out loud before..."
  • Spiritual Successor: "Days in the Sun", a new song in which the servants reminisce on their old lives, is similar in tone to the deleted song "Human Again" that was cut from the animated version.
  • Squee: When Beast presents the library to Belle, she looks on the verge of bursting.
  • Stay in the Kitchen: Gaston tells Belle, after she is harassed for trying to teach a little girl to read and further harassed for standing up to said harassment, that she's a fighter like him... but he's only complimenting her to win her affections, and goes on to say she shouldn't be concerned with any children who aren't hers.
  • Stealth Pun: As Belle walks away from Monsieur Jean, you see a pottery shop behind him in the background. Jean is later revealed to be Mrs. Potts’ husband, making her last name a doubly Punny Name.
  • Storming the Castle: As in the original, Gaston and an Angry Mob break into the castle to kill the Beast. While the pitched battle between the mob and the Enchanted Objects is played for slapstick comedy in the original (to Shoo Out the Clowns before the true climax of Gaston and the Beast's battle and Belle's return), it's played a bit more seriously here, with characters almost getting killed.
  • Strolling Through the Chaos: As the angry mob escapes the castle, Agatha the beggar is seen calmly walking through the crowd.
  • Table Space: Belle and the Beast eat on opposite sides of a long table at first. During the Beast's part in "Something There," he moves his seat to be at Belle's side, showing how close they're becoming.
  • Tall Poppy Syndrome: Belle suffers for this in Villeneuve, as it's a downplayed No Woman's Land prone to Anti-Intellectualism and she has no desire to hide her intelligence, much less her interests in art and literature. When she is confronted at the fountain by angry villagers for not only teaching a girl to read, but also creating an impromptu washing machine (the sort of thing that could be genuinely useful to the women of the town), and she refuses to stand down, the mob destroys the latter on top of scaring the girl away. Crucially, even other women don't support her, choosing to see her as the town weirdo instead.
  • Those Two Guys:
    • Once again, Lumiere and Cogsworth appear together in most of the scenes they are in. The animated versions were Vitriolic Best Buds, but they seem more genuinely fond of each other here.
    • Gaston and LeFou share this dynamic, and All There in the Manual Backstory establishes that they have for years (they fought together in the war).
    • Mrs. Potts and Chip may also count, seeing how they are mother and son.
  • Thou Shalt Not Kill: In the animated version, Gaston dies right after stabbing the Beast in the back; the Beast swings his arm out behind him in pain, and Gaston moves out of the way, but immediately loses his grip and falls to his death. Thus, it's slightly ambiguous whether the Beast caused Gaston's death. In the 2017 version, this scene is changed so that Gaston dies when the bridge he's standing on collapses because of the recoil of firing his rifle at the Beast (as well as the curse starting to take full effect as the Beast dies).
  • Token Good Teammate: The only male adults in the village who are genuinely nice to Belle and don't regard her as an oddity (aside from her father, of course) are Pere Robert the pastor and Monsieur Jean the potter. Pere Robert tries to come to Maurice's aid when the mob is about to haul him off to the madhouse — and it turns out that Jean is Mrs. Potts' husband, and Chip's father! There is also one woman who is on her side, Agathe the beggar — aka the Enchantress.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Belle, in that she makes a considerable effort to fight Gaston in the climax, managing to throw him off the tower for a moment and breaking his arrows.
  • The Tragic Rose: The iconic rose that acts as Death's Hourglass is joined by a "rose" rattle Belle had as a baby and the roses in the Beast's garden, all of which have sad underpinnings.
  • Trailers Always Spoil: The final poster not only reveals the human forms of the principal adult Enchanted Objects — who, in the original film, were only revealed in the denouement — but gives them prominence over their transformed selves. Justified, as they get more screen time in these forms in this version, starting with the prologue.
  • Trans Equals Gay: During the final battle, Madame de Garderobe chases off Gaston's cronies Tom, Dick, and Stanley by forcing them into elaborate gowns, wigs, and makeup. Tom and Dick panic and scream, but Stanley looks up at her and smiles, indicating that he likes his new outfit (she even urges him "BE FREE!"). In the finale sequence (and more specifically, the much-discussed "gay moment" in the film), it's Stanley who dances with LeFou, indicating attraction to him. Stanley enjoying wearing the dress, then, serves (intentionally or otherwise) as an indicator of his sexuality.
  • Transformation Sequence: The Beast has the most elaborate one as he transforms back into the prince, and the servants each have their own scene, though most of their actual transformations occur off-screen.
  • Travelling at the Speed of Plot: Belle sees Maurice being imprisoned via the magic mirror, and immediately sets out to rescue him. She leaves the castle grounds slowly enough that Beast has time to sing the entirety of "Evermore", but gets back to the village in time to stop Maurice from getting carted off to the asylum anyway. Possibly justified in that the townsfolk may have had to wait for the asylum worker to arrive with the padded carriage.
  • Truer to the Text: Small as it may be, having Maurice cross the Beast for picking a rose rather than trespassing makes it more faithful to the original story in that regard.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: In the end, Gaston's response to the Beast sparing his life is shooting him in the back several times.
  • Urine Trouble: When Froufrou the dog is freed from the curse, he immediately relieves himself on Chapeau the hat rack just as he becomes a human again!
  • Victorian Novel Disease: Averted for Belle’s mother. She clearly shows signs of suffering from a plague. Played more straight with the Beast’s mother, but she is barely shown on-screen.
  • Video Credits: The end credits begin with a curtain call-style montage of all the main cast members, with all characters who had two physical forms appearing as each in turn.
  • Villain Has a Point: Thrice in the film, Gaston engages in his usual loutish behavior — but isn't without reason for them. The first is when he tries to convince Belle to marry him by pointing out what could happen to her as an unmarried woman should her father die, i.e., having to literally beg for scraps just to survive. Given how the rest of the town treats her, this isn't too far off the mark. The second is when he offers to help Maurice find Belle (best-case scenario, he really does get to save Belle from something and wins both her and her father's favor) and eventually gets fed up before losing his temper. Maurice lacks any proof that his story is true, with the only actual piece of evidence that he could offer (the tree that was struck by lightning) being undone by magic. Due to the lack of evidence, and the castle being far away, it’s likely that they’d die in one of three ways — eaten by wolves, succumbing to frostbite, or starving to death — and Gaston points all three out.
  • Villain Song: "Gaston" and "The Mob Song" are both put through their paces again.
  • Villain with Good Publicity: Gaston is beloved by the townsfolk due to being a celebrated war hero.
    Gaston: Call it war / Call it threat / You can bet they all will follow / For in times like this, they'll do just as I say!
    • However, this is played with a bit during "Gaston"; while the original version had the townspeople singing Gaston's praises on their own, in this version, LeFou has to bribe and cajole them into doing so.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Gaston has this twice: first when Maurice tells him he'll never let Belle marry him, second when he sees the Beast in the magic mirror, whereupon he will stop at nothing to kill him.
  • Violently Protective Girlfriend:
    • Belle manages to fight Gaston off for a moment to protect the Beast.
    • During the siege of the castle, Madame Garderobe joins the battle to defend her husband, Maestro Cadenza.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Similarly to the 1991 version, Lumiere and Cogsworth are often at odds with each other, but at the same time have each other's backs in an instant. They snipe a bit less than their animated counterparts; their final words before the curse is fulfilled are to say that it's been an honor knowing each other, and their reunion when they become human again is truly touching.
  • Vocal Dissonance: Cogsworth, a small carriage clock, speaks with the deep and booming voice of Ian McKellen. Most noticeable when the villagers storm the castle, and he drops into a much more familiar Gandalf type of voice whilst rallying the other Enchanted objects.
  • We Used to Be Friends: LeFou starts to hold this attitude towards Gaston as the film progresses; ultimately, he makes a Heel–Face Turn in the climax.
  • What Is This Feeling?: A big part of Beast's character development is him seeing his figurative prison through Belle's eyes and finding the wonder to which he had become inured. After her retort to his quip about some of his books being in different languages, he looks genuinely surprised at himself for making such a comment.
  • What You Are in the Dark: Technically, Belle fails to save the Beast, as she only confesses her love for him after the last petal falls. By then, the Beast is dead and the servants have permanently transformed into inanimate objects. Despite this, the Enchantress chooses to lift the curse anyway, believing the Beast had finally learned his lesson.
  • White Stallion: Belle and Maurice's horse Philippe is white this time instead of brown in the original film.
  • With Due Respect: When Gaston sends everyone off to kill the Beast, LeFou starts up "Gaston, with all due respect..." Gaston cuts him off, asking if he wants to be next.
  • Would Hit a Girl: The female villagers who are part of the mob freely get attacked by the servants too; they're sprayed by Cadenza's keys and Lumiere's firebombs.
  • Year Inside, Hour Outside: Possible explanation for why Belle and Beast seem to grow closer gradually over time at the castle, while Gaston implies it's been five days village time.
  • You Can Talk?: This is Belle's reaction upon first entering the castle and hearing Lumière talk.
    Belle: You can talk?!
    Cogsworth: Well, of course he can talk! That's all he ever does!

 
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Beauty and the Beast logo

The Disney logo for the 2017 remake of Beauty and the Beast uses Beast's castle in place of the traditional Cinderella castle, with Belle's village in the background. The view then zooms back to a trellis of roses, one of which is picked by the Enchantress, which cuts to the prologue.

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