Beauty and the Beast Live Ac­tion vs An­i­mated: A Tale as Old as Time

WARN­ING: This will con­tain spoil­ers for both the an­i­mated and live ac­tion films. 

In­tro­duc­tion

Beauty and the Beast is one of the clas­sic Dis­ney princess sto­ries; a young Belle chooses to take her fa­ther’s place as pris­oner of the Beast – who is a cursed prince. This story is so clas­sic that Dis­ney de­cided to con­vert their orig­i­nal an­i­mated film to a live-ac­tion ver­sion in 2017, which starred Emma Wat­son. Ob­vi­ously, there will be dif­fer­ences be­tween the live-ac­tion and an­i­mated films, par­tially due to the fact that there are lim­i­ta­tions to what CGI can do well. How­ever, were these dif­fer­ences big enough to change the plot? Did these changes make the re­make bet­ter or worse? Well, stay tuned while we dive into some key dif­fer­ences in the films. 

Belle’s Dresses

Let’s start easy: the cos­tumes. Belle’s blue dress is ac­tu­ally very sim­i­lar in both films, though the live-ac­tion film ver­sion does have more de­tail. How­ever, Belle’s yel­low dress cer­tainly has many more dif­fer­ences. Af­ter look­ing at French gown fash­ions from the 1800s (the film took place be­tween 1790-1880), I feel that the an­i­mated dress is ac­tu­ally more his­tor­i­cally ac­cu­rate over­all, specif­i­cally be­ing most sim­i­lar to French dresses in 1860.

So, why did Dis­ney de­cide to make this one spe­cific de­tail less his­tor­i­cally ac­cu­rate?

More His­tor­i­cal Ac­cu­racy Ques­tions

Let’s dive into some more of the his­tor­i­cal in­ac­cu­ra­cies in the film. While over­all the film feels more French, I am left with a few ques­tions: the prince and many of his guests in the first scene are seen wear­ing very dra­matic makeup (more info can be found here). 

How­ever, this sort of makeup went out of fash­ion in the 1780s. In the an­i­mated film’s in­tro­duc­tion song, it says that the rose “bloom un­til his 21st year”. If we as­sume this is the same for the live-ac­tion film, we can gather that the life-ac­tion film took place no later than 1811. But, since Belle’s an­i­mated dress is most ac­cu­rate to the 1860s, does this mean that the films take place dur­ing dif­fer­ent times? I don’t be­lieve this to be the case, I sim­ply think that the film is­n’t very his­tor­i­cally ac­cu­rate. How­ever, I do think that the ad­di­tion of the cliché French wigs, makeup, and cloth­ing re­ally aided in es­tab­lish­ing that this takes place in France. Fur­ther­more, there are many more French words thrown into the di­a­logue, which aids with the French feel­ing as well. 

More About the Open­ing Scene

Let’s talk a bit more about the in­tro scene in both films: in the an­i­mated ver­sion, Beast’s tale of be­com­ing Beast is told through stained glass win­dows and a voice-over. 

I do be­lieve that this was an in­cred­i­bly beau­ti­ful way to tell the story, but this method was also changed in the live-ac­tion ver­sion. In the live-ac­tion ver­sion, the be­gin­ning story is told through nor­mal act­ing. How­ever, this scene also fea­tures the dra­matic makeup I men­tioned ear­lier. Why do I point this out? Well, I be­lieve that in the an­i­mated film they chose to make the in­tro scene a stained-glass piece to make Beast’s hu­man form a sur­prise. I be­lieve that this same rea­son is the rea­son why Beast’s princely form had makeup on. We can see ev­i­dence of this in both films when Beast is trans­formed into his hu­man self; he is changed by the magic but we don’t see his en­tire body chang­ing, only his hands, feet, and eyes. When he’s left on his feet, he has his back turned to the cam­era and turns around af­ter he processes that he’s hu­man again and that’s when his face is re­vealed. 

The Curse

Let’s talk about the curse. In the an­i­mated film, Beast and his cas­tle are cursed by the sor­cer­ess, who dis­ap­pears im­me­di­ately af­ter curs­ing the prince. There aren’t any in­ter­me­di­ary con­se­quences, all that hap­pens is that Beast and the staff are wait­ing for their 21 years to be up. What this does­n’t ex­plain is why the towns­peo­ple don’t re­mem­ber that there’s a mas­sive cas­tle and a prince. What do they think hap­pened? This is all changed in the live-ac­tion ver­sion. The sor­cer­ess is a char­ac­ter named Agathe who is some­what in­volved through the en­tire plot.

With each petal that falls from the rose the cas­tle crum­bles more and the staff be­come more inan­i­mate. Beast is turned into his hu­man self by Agathe af­ter the petals fall, while in the an­i­mated ver­sion he is sim­ply mag­i­cally healed. Part of Agath­e’s curse says that the Beast, staff, and cas­tle will be for­got­ten by the towns­peo­ple, which does solve the small plot hole in the an­i­mated ver­sion. How­ever, an even larger plot hole is cre­ated due to this: when the towns­peo­ple sud­denly re­mem­ber the cas­tle dwellers, Cogsworth’s wife and Mrs. Pot­t’s hus­band rush to greet their spouses.

How­ever, if 25 years have passed, why do they all look sim­i­lar in age? Does this mean that the towns­peo­ple don’t age? If so, why haven’t Belle and her fa­ther no­ticed? 

Roses

One change made in the live-ac­tion film that I adore is the rose that Belle’s fa­ther is in­car­cer­ated for: this is the rea­son Belle’s fa­ther is taken in the orig­i­nal book. Belle re­quests “a rose. Like the one in the paint­ing,” ref­er­enc­ing a pain­ing of her late mother. I also quite like the ad­di­tion of roses through­out the plot, since it is very rem­i­nis­cent of the story. 

Beast’s Char­ac­ter

Now for my fa­vorite change in the live-ac­tion film: Beast’s char­ac­ter. First off, it is ex­plained that Beast is the way he is be­cause his fa­ther abused him. As we move through the film, we can see that Beast is much less prone to his fits of anger and starts show­ing emo­tion. In the an­i­mated movie, Beast is­n’t much of a reader and just lets Belle read to him. How­ever, we can see in the live-ac­tion film that Beast is just as much of a book­worm as Belle.

There is a scene where Belle is quot­ing Shake­speare and Beast fin­ishes the quote. Belle men­tions that her fa­vorite play is “Romeo and Juliet” and Beast scoffs since he does­n’t like ro­mance, which shows how he’s very cyn­i­cal and does­n’t nec­es­sar­ily be­lieve in ro­mance. How­ever, a few scenes later, Belle catches him read­ing “King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table”, which she points out is prac­ti­cally a ro­mance due to Guini­vere and Lancelot’s arc. Beast re­luc­tantly agrees, which shows how he’s tran­si­tioned into a bit of a ro­man­tic. And the best part of Beast’s de­vel­op­ment? Well, his new song!

This song, ti­tled “Ever­more”, tells how Beast will al­ways love Belle even as she leaves him. He mourns the loss of the life he could have had with her and re­flects on how he changed from a spoiled prince to the man he is. The best thing? It’s ob­vi­ous that Beast does­n’t re­gret let­ting Belle in, even though it hurts so much, which truly shows the peak of his char­ac­ter arc. 

Six More Changes (Brief Edi­tion)

There are many more changes made that I won’t go in depth to but will still leave with you. 

Firstly, Gas­ton ap­pears as much more of a vil­lain in the live-ac­tion film. 

Sec­ondly, in the live-ac­tion film LaFou is­n’t as much of a brain­less fol­lower and is much more skep­ti­cal of Gas­ton and even de­vel­ops a con­science. 

Thirdly, Belle’s house is no longer in the coun­try but in the vil­lage square. 

Fourthly, the triplet girls have a new de­sign. 

Fifthly, Belle’s fa­ther is an in­ven­tor in the an­i­mated film while he is an artist in the live-ac­tion film. 

Sixthly, Belle’s fa­thers is fas­ci­nated by the staff in the orig­i­nal film but is fright­ened of them in the live-ac­tion film. 

Con­clu­sion

There are many, many dif­fer­ences be­tween the two films, and I en­cour­age you to find them! I per­son­ally no­ticed at least two Harry Pot­ter ref­er­ences – do you see those too? Which film do you think is bet­ter? Which film do you think is more ac­cu­rate? 

That’s all for now. Next time we will be look­ing at Mu­lan, so stay tuned!