YMMV / Beethoven

• Angst? What Angst?: In the first film, despite how angry George frequently gets over Beethoven's messiness in the house, he is surprisingly calm and collected over hearing that his youngest child nearly drowned in a pool, due to a neglectful babysitter.
• Awesome Music: In the original film - "Opening," "Discovering the Neighborhood" and "Ryce's Theme," also the usage of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over, Beethoven" via cover, which gives a rocking guitar solo to it.
  • The sequel is no slouch either, with the new song and love theme "The Day I Fall In Love" by Dolly Parton and James Ingram being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song. How's that for a Silly Love Song?
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Beethoven's Dream Intro about steak in Beethoven's 2nd, with George showing up with a giant steak for Beethoven.
• Bizarro Episode: Despite the rather improbable things that Beethoven does throughout the series (particularly in the third film), the films remained a pretty realistic feel throughout. Not so much with Beethoven's Christmas Adventure, which features one of Santa's elves as a central character, a magic bag which can produce an infinite number of toys, and Beethoven talking to people after they eat magic candy which allows them to understand dogs.
• Covered Up: Quite a lot of people are more familar with the afromentioned cover of "Roll Over, Beethoven" from this film (done by Paul Schaffer) rather then Chuck Berry's
• Crosses the Line Twice: Ted rams the family car into Dr. Varnick's office, saving both his Dad and Beethoven while also launching an entire tray of syringes right into the mad doctor's chest. Ted's response?
  Ted: Cool!
  • Alice watching Beethoven drag Brad and Brie down the street when he crashes their meeting, and while George attempts to stop him, Alice simply smiles and bids them farewell.
• Generational Trauma: A small example, but in the first film, the main reason why George is reluctant to keep Beethoven in the first place is because he's still traumatised over his father taking his childhood dog to be put down and didn't want to cause his family the same trauma. He even confesses this to Beethoven while on the way to Dr Varnick's office after the faked 'attack'. The initial refusal to let himself grow attached to the dog supports this theory.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the 2nd film, Ryce nearly gets date raped by her boyfriend, Taylor. Later on, Ryce goes on to date Seth, a character played by Danny Masterson. In 2017, Masterson was accused of rape by four women, and was eventually sentenced to 30 years in prison after being found guilty on two of the accounts in 2023.
• Misaimed Fandom: One professional critic found George to be Unintentionally Sympathetic and his family and Beethoven to be Unintentionally Unsympathetic. According to him, George works his hands to the bone trying to provide a good life for his family, who thank him by foisting a dog on him that he doesn't want, making him do all the gross parts of taking care of it, and then ostracize him when he gets rid of it. In his opinion, the family isn't just ungrateful and unappreciative but downright nasty towards George. The critic did at least admit that he wasn't a big fan of dogs in the first place though.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • If stealing dogs for sick experiments wasn't enough for him, Dr. Varnick crossed it when he was about to shoot Beethoven as part of his ammunition experiment.
    • He then got worse when he tried to shoot George, who dove in to save his dog.
  • In the sequel, Ryce's boyfriend, Taylor, was prepared to cross it when he was desiring sex from her at his lakefront house, and was refusing to back down when Ryce was not consenting, which would have been rape. However, Beethoven's actions destroying Taylor's house kept this from going any further.
  • In the sequel, Regina is already introduced as an obnoxious and unpleasant woman to be around, given her abusive behaviour toward Missy and snideness around Brillo and even Floyd. But what makes her cross this line is her intention to drown her dog's puppies when she first discovered them, cementing her as a repulsive villain that needs to be stopped.
• Nausea Fuel: The burger eating contest of the second movie. Especially the middle guy with his Jabba Table Manners. The extreme close-ups of the contestants' mouths while they're eating certainly don't help.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Nicholle Tom as Ryce.
  • David Duchovny as Brad, a venture capitalist, whom, along with his wife, Brie, is looking to invest in, and ultimately swindle George out of, his auto air freshener business.
  • Patricia Heaton plays Brie, Brad's wife. Heaton is best known for playing Debra Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond and Frankie Heck on The Middle.
  • Joseph Gordon-Levitt as one of Ted's fellow students.
  • Debi Mazar (Regina) is best known for playing Shauna Roberts on Entourage and Maggie Amato on Younger.
  • Danny Masterson, who plays Seth, an eventual boyfriend of Ryce's in Beethoven's 2nd, is best known for playing Steven Hyde on That '70s Show, Milo Foster on Men at Work, and Jameson "Rooster" Bennett on The Ranch.
  • Ashley Hamilton, who plays Ryce's Jerkass boyfriend Taylor in Beethoven's 2nd, appeared as Jack Taggart (the AIM veteran who explodes in Chinatown) in Iron Man 3- 20 years later!
• Sequelitis: The first film was a modest hit when it came out, but wasn't anything particularly special. However, the success of the film apparently was enough to give Hollywood an excuse to turn it into a franchise, resulting in a film series that became more and more out of touch with the original with every installment. While Beethoven's 2nd stayed true to the original formula with its then-familiar cast and Beethoven still at his usual canine antics, Beethoven's 3rd saw Beethoven transferred to a new family headed by father Judge Reinhold replacing Charles Grodin and with Ivan Reitman stepping down as executive producer, with increasingly uninspired villains and stories appearing in each installment. By the time of Beethoven's sixth film appearance, the series was rebooted and retooled and then the seventh installment, Beethoven's Christmas Adventure had Beethoven talking, finally doing away with what little resemblance the sequels still bore to the original. There was also a short-lived animated series. This hound knows no bounds.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • From the first movie, one can clearly make out a sled attached to the Newtons' deck table as Beethoven drags it and the two scheming venture capitalists down the sidewalk.
  • Also from the first movie, during the montage when George comes home to find Beethoven all wet and caked in mud, the "rain" outside on the porch is very clearly coming from an overhead sprinkler.
• Squick: From the second movie, Ryce (albeit reluctantly) actually touching the puppies' excrement to see if they are nearby after Regina and Floyd have snatched them away.
  Ryce: Eww. It's warm.
  George: Okay, good! They're close. Uh, better wash your hands.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Quite a few consider Beethoven's Big Break to be a major improvement over 3rd-5th, for actually trying to do something original with the series rather than just rehashing the first two films.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Some people may sympathize with George even though the narration paints him as in the wrong for not wanting to adopt Beethoven, since he's perfectly right when he points out owning a dog (particularly a breed as large as a St Bernard) has many constraints. Especially sympathetic are those who are/have been put into the same situation of having to deal with a dog they didn't want, and all the negative consequences that entails when it comes to dirtiness, because they were outvoted by the rest of the family. Doubly so when George confesses to Beethoven that he hated his father for having to put his childhood dog down and knew when the time came that would be his job too.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Following on from the above, some viewers perceive Ryce, Ted and Emily as incredibly selfish. They whine, plead and guilt trip their father into adopting Beethoven — and then despite all their talk of 'learning responsibility' they feed Beethoven things that are bad for him and appear to foist off all the tedious parts of owning a dog (such as cleaning up after it or taking it for walks every day, regardless of the weather) onto George, just as he predicted would happen. They only take responsibility for all the dog chores when Beethoven angers George one too many times and they get scared that he'll actually get rid of their pet. Later on, when it seems that Beethoven should be taken to the vet to be put down, they cry and moan that their father has "always hated Beethoven", yet they never consider that George likely wouldn't hate Beethoven so much if he wasn't constantly forced to take care of a dog he didn't want in the first place. Finally, the children then proceed to pull another guilt trip on George in the second film, only this time it's about keeping four puppies.
  • Alice is also rather unsympathetic; she chastises George for focusing on his career so much that he's neglecting his family, but at the same time she doesn't want to re-enter the workforce for the present because she wants to be there for the children. So George has to support five people plus a large and expensive dog (who is constantly wrecking parts of the house) on a single salary, yet Alice is meant to be the one in the right for telling him he has to provide for them on his own one moment and guilt tripping him for prioritizing his work the next. And again, George seems to be the only one taking care of Beethoven for a large portion of the film, which would naturally add to his stress.
• Values Dissonance: There's been a crack down in the USA on pet stores selling dogs, cats and rabbits in order to combat puppy mills, and people are encouraged to get animals from shelters instead, so of the film were made today the villains likely would have targeted an animal shelter instead. There's also much more of a drive to neuter or spay your pets, so in The New '20s the Newtons as (hopefully!) responsible dog owners would have gotten Beethoven fixed.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The first film hinges on an amoral veterinarian intending to use Beethoven for an ammunition test, and does not make light of all the abuse the animals in his care are enduring on his watch.
  • Even more so in the second movie, where Ryce is very nearly raped by her own drunken boyfriend who has locked her up in a bedroom against her will. This scene was criticized by several reviewers, including Roger Ebert, for being out of place in a family comedy about a dog.

---