Why the Live Action Beauty and the Beast Fell Short

I am all about the characters. I can get by bad music, bad costumes, bad plot, and even bad dialogue if I am invested enough in the characters. So, this will be focusing on some of the characters in the movie and how the changes to their character contributed to the live action falling short of the original animated version of the movie; rather than focusing on the plot changes, auto-tune/pitch correcting, or the costume design (like Emma's refusal to wear a corset or the very expensive, though kind of mediocre--in my opinion--yellow dress).

Belle:

For me, Belle just felt flat. The live action Belle didn’t make me feel the way the original did. As I said in my last article (Ranking Disney's Various Cinderellas from Best to Worst), I identify a lot with the original Belle.

I grew up in a small town. It had a population of less than 2k people, with most living on the outskirts of town. Livestock outnumbered the people 30:1. There was one grocery store, one laundry mat, one school, and no movie theatres, restaurants, or box stores. Everyone knew everyone’s business. And people got excited when someone’s cow gave birth or there was a farmer’s booth set up in the gas station parking lot. The biggest adventure I ever had was walking to the local playground at night because the quickest route was to cut through the cemetery that bordered the playground. And people there still do find it weird to think about leaving and don’t understand why anyone would choose to live in the city. My father is also very much an absent-minded professor type. And he is an engineer who makes things. He is also really nice but weird, but he embraces his weirdness and has always encouraged me to be myself.

I understood what animated Belle meant when she sang about the banality that can come with small town life and the desire to have adventures and see the world, not just read about them. She was a dreamer and she seemed energetic, impulsive, creative, loyal, and reckless. But terribly misunderstood by a small town that didn’t understand why she would ever want anything more. Giving up her freedom for her father wasn’t just about losing the life she had, but sacrificing all the dreams she had and all the possibilities she imagined for herself (realistic or otherwise). It also made sense, because she was reckless. It was also why I could see her being calm about the talking furniture (I mean, compared to the town folks who brought out the pitchforks). As a dreamer, this wouldn’t seem as weird. And she could accept them for the things that made them different because she felt that she was different.

The live action Belle didn’t have the same meaning for me. For starters, the original Belle seemed like she was a little ostracized by town gossip but mostly it was just that she was so caught up in her own world she seemed aloof to them and, for her part, she watched them but couldn't cross over to being part of there conversations. She knew the baker would go by with his tray "like always", but she didn't know his name (when he spoke to her later, she only referred to him as "monsieur"). She watched people greet each other and observed them, but never really engaged with anyone either. And they spoke of her, but not really to her besides the rhetorical, polite "bonjour". Meanwhile, in the same musical number, the conversations happen with live action Belle just walking by/through them without her even seeming to really notice them. She isn't observing them, she doesn't seem to be waiting for them to talk to her, she is just walking by with her gaze focused straight ahead to where she is going.

If you really want to see the difference just watch the difference between the interactions with Monsieur Jean in the live action versus the baker in the animated version. In the animated version, all the baker does is say "good morning, Belle". And she whips around from where she is going and runs towards him. You can feel her excitement being brought into a conversation. She really wants to tell him about her book and share that passion with someone, but he basically dismisses her and doesn't seem to have even really been listening in the first place (not really wanting to do more than exchange some small talk). So, she shrugs and walks away. In the live action, she turns when her name is called (actually she turns twice, we see her turn from the front and then when the camera angle changes we see her turn again, but that's just an editing mistake). She then casually saunters in his direction, more to feed the animal next to him than talk with him. And it then includes dialogue that I think was meant to be a nod to Neville in Harry Potter (that doesn't really make sense, because he didn't appear to be looking for anything so why would she ask). And she is already walking away again when he asks where she is off to and she continues to walk away from him as she describes her book. He then replies in a manner that suggests he was listening and focused on what she was saying. He was more invested in the conversation that she was. She was the one that cut the conversation short and didn't seem to want to continue past small talk.

The live action Belle came off more like she felt like she was superior and intentionally kept her distance, while still purposely drawing attention to herself. Making her an inventor and having her teach the little girl how to read also made her seem less like a dreamer to me and more like a doer.

• Not entirely relevant to the character herself, but her teaching the girl to read seems a little...silly. The movie is set in the 1760s. It is my understanding that this is basically in the middle of the era where women were actually being encouraged to read as numerous conduct books were being written explaining how they should behave and it was seen as important to their moral well being that they be able to read the Bible. Europe has also had girls schools for over a hundred years at this point. So, while novel reading might be considered a "frivolous" or "dangerous" thing, reading itself wouldn't necessarily be considered the same way. I believe this is one of the additions that Watson added to make the character more "feminist", but it doesn't seem historically accurate and changes Belle's character.

The live action Belle also didn't seem to be reading to fulfill her desire for adventure or to fuel her daydreams. Her reading felt like it was more in line with "smart people read, so she reads" and it is something to do. In the small town I grew up in, people used to hang out in the Walmart parking lot that was 30 minutes outside of town and race shopping carts, because it was just something to do.

Also, a Belle was a doer/inventor, wasn’t really stuck in a small town at all. The original Belle was smart and a dreamer, but she was so busy dreaming that she didn’t have a plan to get out. She was always thinking about leaving, but really only in an abstract sense. A Belle that is an inventor who can create things like a machine to wash laundry, should be able to come up with a device or plan to get her out of that small town. She wouldn't be thinking, "maybe I will get out of here one day". She would be thinking, "I'm going to get out and here is how I'm going to do it." We see this further established in the difference between the Belle's in captivity with the Beast. Animated Belle resigned herself to being a prisoner from the moment she volunteered to take her father's place. Live action Belle told her father she would escape when she traded places with him and took advantage of the first moment she had alone to try to escape. So, if she really felt trapped in town and wanted to leave, she would have found a way out.

Also, in the live action version there was an addition to her backstory where we see that she was NOT born in the small town. And her father wasn't born there either. In fact, they seem rather new to town and have chosen to be there. So, between them choosing to be there and her ability to leave, her complaining about the town, the people, and life there doesn’t come across the same way. She isn't someone who feels like an outsider in her hometown, she is an outsider judging a town and the people who call it home. Because of this, the live action Belle came off as stubborn, calculated, reserved, intelligent, and a tad patronizing.

• I do know that in the animated version Belle isn't from the town originally either, but it is just a line in the song ("since we came to this provincial town"). There is not an age specified or a location where she was coming from. So, could have been a slightly bigger town or a city. It even could be a sort of royal "we" meaning her family, not even specifically her. She just feels more rooted in small town life than the live action Belle.

And then the differences in the character’s portrayals echoed through the rest of the movie.

As did a few other changes; including, her tricking her father into trading places with her, them showing how her mother died, and her knowing that it was a curse:

1. The first probably seems small, but actually further cemented the differences in their characters for me. I love my father and I 100% would trade places with him in this situation in the heat of the moment. Because I am reckless and I would be thinking with my heart and not my head. And that is what original Belle would do. The live action Belle wouldn’t have done that. She was established as a doer and a clever problem-solver. Someone calculating, not reckless. Why would she trade places with him instead of trying to get help or figure out a way to break him out herself? It just doesn’t fit with her character. Unless, she was planning to run away from the start and calculated that she had a better chance of escaping than her father, which undercuts the sacrifice that the animated Belle made, because animated Belle really thought she had given up any hope for a better life for her father. While live action Belle anticipated that she would be able to escape.
2. Showing how her mother died also didn’t fully make sense to me the way it was done and I think just created cracks in the plot, because the flashback implies her father and her left Paris when she was basically a baby (or at the oldest, a toddler). But then the song says it was the Paris of her childhood and it is implied she remembers Paris. However, if they had left Paris when she was still very young (baby or toddler), how would she remember Paris enough for it to be her "childhood"? So, did they continue to live in Paris just elsewhere? It doesn't really make sense. However, it does feed into her being a city girl who moved to a small town rather than a small town girl with dreams of the city/adventure. It also essentially gives her a sort of adventure, that she lived through (i.e. her mother's death and fleeing from the Plague). And that does support her character's personality difference between the live action and animated, but doesn't make sense fully for the plot.
3. Her knowing it was a curse also undercuts some of her character, because animated Belle treated them as humans without knowing that’s what they really were. When Lumiere turned human (even after the Beast did) she looked slightly surprised to see it happen. In the live action, she responded by hitting Lumiere when he talked and being greatly disturbed, while animated Belle took it in stride. Which I think is why they had to let Belle know it was a curse in the live action version, to appeal to the more logical character.

To put it simply: the live action Belle is the ambitious, city girl in the beginning of a Hallmark movie that has to visit a small town and doesn’t like it. The original Belle was the small town girl with big dreams but no real plans to achieve them.

Adam/The Beast:

The had a lot more backstory, but at the same time it both makes him more sympathetic, it also takes away from his growth. It basically puts a lot of the onus of his behavior on his upbringing, laying the blame on his father and the servants that raised him. With Mrs. Potts even saying the servants also deserved blame for not doing anything to intervene in his upbringing. The animated Beast was selfish and unkind, because he just was.

In fact, in the live action, no one is even really afraid of him. Lumiere and the others more actively go against him and no one seems to cower the same way they do with the animated Beast. Cogsworth's "I had nothing to do with this" moments come off less out of fear and more like brownnosing. Even Maurice talks back to the Beast from his prison cell and Belle shoves the torch into his face when he won't come into the light and doesn't gasp or shrink back when she seems him the same way.

There is also something that I think is worth noting that comes up in the difference between the live action and animated. In the live action, part of the enchantress' curse is that the nearby town forgets about the castle and all those cursed. In the animated, that isn't part of the curse. Which does raise some questions about how a monarchy could just lose its Prince and have no one ask questions, but also explains some of his behavior.

• It could be that he could disappear without question because he wasn't directly in line for the throne. Like he was the youngest of multiple brothers, so he was just off in his own castle separate from the King and the rest of the monarchy (which I imagine isn't totally ridiculous if he were a problematic relative. Can't kill him because he's royalty? Send him away.). Which would also explain why he was still a Prince and not the King despite his father not coming up in the movie (animated). Which isn't explained in the live action, why didn't he ascend to the throne when his father died? He seems to be an only child as well. So, even if they forgot about him, wouldn't they notice they suddenly no longer had any governing body?

In the animated version, when he finds Maurice he asks why he is there and says he isn't welcome. When Maurice doesn't respond with an answer the Beast says, "so you've come to stare at the Beast". This suggests that like kids in movies knocking on the door of the "haunted" house or adults searching for the Loch Ness Monster or Big Foot, that there had been people who had come to the castle searching for the "Beast". In which case, he was angry about becoming a spectacle to be stared at and turned into a monster of people's old wives' tales. If he was also the town's "boogey man", it would explain why people were some easily dismissive of Maurice's story (like they would be an adult saying they believe in the tooth fairy) and why they were so easily incited into being a mob once they saw he was real.

In the live action version, he watches Maurice come in, sit in his his chair, and eat his food. But then the Beast captures him for stealing a rose. This reflects a difference in Maurice's character that will be discussed later, but also reflects a difference in the Beast's character. He isn't angry at the world for turning him into a monster, he is more forcing a sort of justice onto Maurice by punishing him as harshly for his crime as he feels he has been punished for his own.

The moment where Belle says good-bye to her father also reflects a "nicer" version of the Beast in the live action, but also one that seems more easily influenced. In the animated version, as soon as she agrees to trade places with her father, the Beast grabs her father and he is whisked away. You can then see the regret and guilt on his face when she cries out that she didn't even get to say good-bye to him. And it is that guilt that motivates him to offer her a different room, when he had snarled at Lumiere just seconds before for even suggesting that. In the live action, Belle says she will leave and says she needs a minutes alone with him. But, the Beast is actually giving her what she wants when she calls him heartless. She said she needs a minute alone, he neither said no or sent her away (the way the animated Beast likely would have). In fact, he is in the process of walking away to give her a chance to say good-bye to him alone (like she asked) when she calls him heartless for not letting her kiss her father good-bye as well. Even though, she could technically have kissed him through the bars. The only reason she says this is because she needs him to open the door to switch places with her father. So, she uses the accusation to get what she wants and he does it.

This connects to the live action beast being more open to being told what to do and being more easily swayed by those around him. Lumiere gives the girl a room? He is annoyed, but does nothing about it. They tell him how to talk to her and he doesn't snarl it under his breath, he just does as they suggest. This comes again before the big climax with the dance. In the live action, he is dismissive as they push him to confess. He isn't even convinced she is the one or that there even is "the one". They basically tell him he cares about her and he doesn't answer. But they push him to get dressed up and confess anyway. They even basically threaten him, saying that if he doesn't confess (though he hasn't even said he loves her to them) they will stop helping him with anything and he will be alone in the dark forever. While in the animated version, he says he cares about her more than anything and is scared about her rejecting him but eager to see if she feels the same. They aren't pushing him towards anything, he wants to do it.

The live action Beast also comes across more like a petulant, spoiled child than the Beast of the animated version. This comes across most clearly in the scene after he is injured by wolves. In the live action, he is hurt and lying in bed and he talks back to her, but he is lying down and doesn't yell. He is in a position of vulnerability and being cranky. In the animated version, he is sitting and injured, but not so badly that he needs to rest. He is in the chair and still towers over her and screams into her face with his teeth barred as they argue. She is the first person to stand up to him and not back down to his temper. Unlike the live action version, where most of them don't seem take his temper seriously and often talk back. Then after she helps treat his injury, he rolls over and just lies there listening as Belle badmouths him and accuses him of cursing his servants.

The live action Beast is also established as a reader. It is something he has in common with Belle. When he first shows her his library to make a point about how there are better books than the one she has said is her favorite, it isn't about wanting to give her a gift to make her happy the way it is in the animated movie. In the animated version, Beast specifically shows it to her because he wants to do something nice for her, something that will appeal to her interests. Animated Beast delights in her excitement and gives it to her happily, while live action Beast really shrugs it off as he allows her to have it. We then see her finally have someone to share her passion with as she reads to him by the fire, which really gives them a bonding moment beyond them just saving each other's lives.

Another moment that was different that changed his character is in his confession. In the animated version, he hesitantly asks if Belle is happy and she says yes. He now knows that she is actually close to loving him back, he is close to ending his curse. And so him releasing her moments later when her father is in the woods alone means so much more. Especially because her father is just in the woods alone, he could have gone for her father himself easily. His father knows he is real already. He could have tracked him down easier than she could and brought him back to the castle. I think it was both a test and a gift. He was testing how she felt, while also giving her the choice to decide if that's what she wanted. If she came back, it meant that it was real. In the live action version, he asks if she is happy and she doesn't really answer. She responds with a question that suggests, not only isn't she really happy but she could never be happy if she wasn't actually free to leave. In this version, he is no more sure of her feelings than he is his own. And moments later when they look in the mirror, her father is being attacked by the villagers. He can't go without revealing himself. She needs to be the one to go help her father. And since she basically just told him that she couldn't really love him unless she was free, there was no reason for him to keep her there. If he didn't let her go, she wouldn't love him and the curse wouldn't end. If he let her go, she would leave and he was sure she wouldn't come back. Either way, it ended without the curse breaking, but at least he could free her, even though he couldn't free himself.

Lastly, for the Beast, looking at the ending when the castle is stormed. In the live action Beast was not suicidal after Belle's leaving. He was still sad and didn't fight, but he ran from Gaston, while in the animated version he made no attempt to save himself until he saw that Belle had returned. It isn't said out right in the animated version, but I think this is because when the villagers showed up he just assumed that Belle had told them about him and sent them after him. After all, what else was he to assume? She went to help her father who was alone in the woods and then next thing he knew an angry mob was knocking down his door. In the live action version, she went off to save her father from an angry mob. They could have taken the mirror or it could have been something she had to do to save her father. She had also not said she was happy there or shown him the same affection, so it wouldn't seem like she lied to him about being happy only to betray him.

Another difference is the moment where the Beast had Gaston by the throat. In the live action, Belle was right behind him and could see them both. While in the animated version, Belle was somewhere in the castle. Having Belle not directly there to see it, really made his choice to show Gaston mercy come from his own character development, rather than him not wanting to murder someone in front of Belle.

Gaston:

One of my favorite things about the animated version of Gaston is that in many ways, he had all the makings of a stereotypical hero (something I bring up in my article on my Top Ten Favorite Disney Villains). In many ways, he had all the ingredients to be the hero. He was brave, he had a loyal and quirky sidekick, he was handsome, and he fell in love with the odd, beautiful girl that talked to animals. He even goes off to fight the Beast had that had taken his love prisoner.

Even what he did to Maurice, actually makes sense. Animated Maurice could understandably be labelled by the town as dangerous. His machines have a tendency to blow up, they are designed to throw logs and use axes, and are both relatively large and new. He likely would have gotten himself locked up if he had continued raving on about the Beast, especially when Belle doesn't show up again. I mean, a man known for inventing dangerous things disappears for a few days, then his daughter goes missing and he shows up again without her claiming a Beast has her? And she doesn't reappear? It wouldn't be ridiculous to assume he might have hurt her himself and not realized it. So, using her father is vindictive, but not illogical. He essentially is helping her, in exchange for agreement to marry him. He could keep Maurice from being locked up because the town basically worshipped him. In fact, the town hears his plan to lock up Maurice and they seem in support of it. So, yes, he is manipulating her. But he could justify it to himself to still be the hero. He is putting her father in danger, just so that he can save him in front of her. It's a fascinating dynamic to the character. To himself and the town, he is the hero. He is the main character. He just doesn't know that isn't actually true.

The live action Gaston, on the other hand, was basically a two-faced, psychopath. He was cunning and vindictive. He also wasn't worshipped by the town the same way. LeFou had to pay them and coax them along to sing Gaston's praises in the bar.

He was also more manipulative. He seemed genuinely invested in Maurice's story about the beast and actually offers to help him, even telling people to stop making fun of Maurice. He plays the hero for Maurice because Maurice has something he wants (influence over Belle and his permission to marry her), rather than laughing along with the rest of the town (unlike in the animated version). And he continued to play hero for Maurice until he lost his patience and yelled at him. But when Maurice said he wouldn't let Belle marry him, he went full villain on him and left him to die.

Live action Gaston didn't follow the path of the stereotypical hero the same way. He couldn't really have justified leaving him to die as an act of a hero either. Having him committed? Sure. It was to protect the town from his dangerous antics and win Belle over. But leaving him to die? A clear villain move.

LeFou:

Animated LeFou would have murdered Maurice for Gaston without question and you cannot change my mind about that. He was 100% on board with Gaston's plan to have Belle's father committed. He almost froze to death waiting for Belle to return on Gaston's orders. And when we see him at the siege of the castle, he has a sadistic smile on his face both when he is melting Lumiere with a candle and again when he corners Sultan in the kitchen. This LeFou is as much the villain of this movie as live action Gaston is in that movie. LeFou props Gaston up as the hero, while helping him commit acts of villainy.

In the live action, however, he is more flamboyant and it heavily suggests he is in love with Gaston. He massages his shoulders, wraps himself in Gaston's arms, and sits in his lap. He pays the villagers to sing with him and prompts them to boast Gaston's ego and cheer him up. He is still loyal, but when Gaston starts to cross the line into doing bad things, he starts to grow wary of him.

He questions Gaston's decision to leave Maurice tied to a tree, he hesitates before lying for Gaston when Maurice accuses him of leaving him for dead, he questions Gaston when he is storming the castle and even has a line that suggests he questions whether Gaston is actually the villain. He then switches sides mid-siege and saves Mrs. Potts, fighting with the servants to protect the castle.

Maurice:

Animated Maurice reminds me of my father. He is eccentric, but lovable. People think he is weird, and he knows it but he doesn't really understand why people think he is weird either. He is true to himself and encourages other people to be the same way. He is friendly and chipper, but awkward. He is also a little problematic, because he can be reckless and absent-minded. He might forget something is on the stove so long it burns the pan. Or might accidentally mess up an invention causing it to blow up.

The live action Maurice isn't the same. He is kind of judgmental about the town, calling them "small minded". He is also sad and seems like his loss is causing his scatterbrained (almost distant) nature, rather than just an over-excitement or curiosity. He also makes what essentially look like intricate music boxes. He isn't the revolutionary inventor of the movie, Belle is. Live action Maurice is making things that have already been made, while his daughter makes a new machine to wash laundry. While animated Maurice built a machine to cut and stack logs for the fire, he was dreaming up things that didn't yet exist.

When animated Maurice enters the castle, Lumiere and Cogsworth speak to him. And he is delighted and intrigued by them, not afraid like the live action Maurice is when Chip talks. They also invite him in and offer him hospitality, while live action Maurice just comes in and makes himself at home without being invited, even eating the food on the table without having been offered it. And after entering someone's house without permission, warming himself by their fire, and eating their food he still stops to steal a rose from their garden.

But most central to the animated Maurice's character is his love for his daughter and his desire to see her happy. When she found him in the dungeon, the only things he really said were to Belle, pleading for her to leave, even as he got dragged away he was still trying to convince the Beast to free her. His focus was solely on her getting out safely.

In the live action, that wasn't the case. He does tell her to leave, but he also doesn't talk much at all and when he does talk, he also talks back to the Beast, sarcastically remarking about how he was locked up for stealing a flower (though, he also broke in and ate his food).

Animated Maurice desperately begged for someone to help him save her and when he couldn't get anyone to help him, he decided he would go back alone. As he says, "I don't care what it takes." Live action Maurice is stripped of this moment of fatherly love, because Gaston agrees to go with him. So, we don't see him preparing to take on the Beast all by himself. And after Gaston leaves him for dead and Agathe helps him recover, he still doesn't go after Belle. Instead returning to the village to accuse Gaston of leaving him for dead, despite no one in the village believing him earlier when he said Belle was in danger and Belle still being in danger. Accusing Gaston of trying to kill him wouldn't have made anyone believe him about the Beast or help find his daughter. If anything, it was a waste of time. And after Agathe helped him, not only did he take the time to clean himself up and change clothes, he was sitting there at the bar just waiting for Gaston to return. This is all time that the animated Maurice would have spent trying to bring his daughter home.

If you are interested in a review of the music by a music aficionado, click here.

If you are interested in a review of the costumes by a fashion historian, click here.