My daughter, who was the perfect age when the animated version came out, saw it this afternoon with a friend. They were both. . . disappointed.
Both of them complained that the new songs were crap and the singing by the leads was barely adequate.
I think the lesson here is, if you loved the original when you were a little girl, leave it that way.
Already resolved to do so. I will not accept a Mrs. Potts that isn’t voiced by Angela Lansbury.
We saw it last night. It’s awesome.
huh, we went to it last night also, and both the wife and I had the opposite reaction to your’s Clothahump.
The non-musical bits were ok, in a mediocre way, but the musical numbers were really crappy and generally gave the movie a dragged-out, way-to-long feel. I struggled to stay awake during the songs.
Wouldn’t recommend.
It was really good. It had all the charm of the original and added backstory to everybody in a way that did not get in the way. Maurice was a much stronger character and that added to the story. The new songs stood out as much worse than the old songs. Le Fou was given too big a part. The other additions to the story improved it or did not hurt it. Emma Watson was probably not pretty enough for the part but she did a really good job falling in love with the beast.
Yeah I mean don’t get me wrong, Robin Williams was awesome as the genie, obviously. But his death kinda elevated him (in the popular, celebrity hero-worship mindset) from already legendary status while alive, to some sort of ultra-legendary, untouchable status now that he’s dead. But at the end of the day, it’s just a movie. Movies are not sacred. It can and will be remade.
I think Emma Watson is quite pretty, but I remember having much the same problem with Snow White and the Huntsman. And feeling like a jerk about it. Because Kristen Stewart is objectively a pretty woman by normal human standards, but Charlize Theron is “Hollywood beautiful.” There is just no way that even 7 out of 10 magic mirrors are plausibly going to give Stewart the nod as “fairest in the land” over Theron and it IS kinda central to the story. And I know it came up in comments all over the net and reviews, which I would expect left Stewart feeling less than wonderful about the whole thing :(.
It’s always going to be a casting difficulty when the story demands a certain difficult to achieve look, like greatest-beauty-ever. Especially since some pretty, but not drop-dead beautiful actor might just be better for the part in every other way ( including availability, interest and salary demands ).
'course these are mostly medieval-period films - maybe a smallpox epidemic that left most everyone scarred could lower the overall standards a bit ;).
In fairness to the movie, Belle didn’t have much competition within the town itself with her primary “rivals” being the three women overly made up like Parisian courtesans. If you don’t travel much, Belle may well be the best looking thing you’ve seen.
Re: Aladdin, I would be okay with them avoiding the Robin Williams comparisons in the live action version by just, you know, not having a genie who gives Ed Sullivan impressions.
Emma Watson is girl-next-door pretty, or hot-girl-in-English-class pretty. When she glams up for photo shoots she’s amazing, but that can be true of the majority of women everywhere. In real life natural settings she’s “merely” cute as hell.
Disclaimer: She’s exactly my type.
I saw it yesterday and thought it was great! I had no problem with Emma Watson or the singing. I did wonder why they wrote new songs instead of using the additional ones from the Broadway show, like “If I Can’t Love Her” or “Human Again.” As they have never been in a film, they would be eligible for an Oscar, which is the reason for adding a new song.
And the whole gay thing, jeez talk about something being blown waaaaay out of proportion. I thought I had totally missed it and then there was *literally *something that if you blinked you would miss it, barely anything more than what you can see in 90% of all movies. Big deal. :rolleyes:
It was alright. There were a few things they added I liked (more backstory on Belle’s family, more reason for her and the Beast to fall in love, LeFou was much better) but both Emma Watson and Dan Stevens were autotuned like crazy… I don’t think I liked any of the renditions of the old songs more than the original animated ones, except maybe The Mob Song. The additional songs didn’t do anything for me (though I’m very glad they didn’t include “Human Again”) and the fight scenes at the end were definitely lacking. 95% of the good stuff in the movie can be found in the animated one, so I’m not really sure why the live-action one needs to be seen.
Yeah, in a way, it’s a bit of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”… go too far away from the source material and you’ll piss people off, and possibly hurt the revenue stream (just look at how much money BATB has made this weekend). They’ve said for Mulan that it won’t be a musical, and I’m very open to seeing them try something different, as much as I love the original movie. Lion King will likely be exactly the same as the 1994 version, but maybe for some of the other ones they can change things up a bit.
His crush on Gaston didn’t seem to me to be much more than it was in the toon version. Little kids would probably just call him “silly” or “funny” and concerned parents would be at a loss about what exactly they were supposed to explain.
Mom and I saw it today, and loved it. We were a bit concerned by the negative reviews, and even up to a few minutes before buying the tickets I was going back and forth between seeing this one or Logan. Will probably see the latter later, at some point.
We watched the toon version this past weekend with an eye towards seeing LeFou as gay and it just doesn’t work. He expresses lust for the three blondes in “Belle”, never expresses remorse that Gaston is getting married, etc.
Otoh, that interpretation works for the live action version… imho, of course.
I thought the same of Emma Watson, too. I honestly think she was kinda prettier as a kid. It’s not unusual. A lot of child actors are. Her face shape is different now–more angular.
I actually think they could have glammed her up to make her look prettier, but I had noticed in the trailers that she just didn’t look pretty enough. And, knowing she’s not a singer, and Belle had an American accent, I was never sure why they picked her.
As far as not needing to be remade, I feel that simply adapting to a new format is enough of a justification even if nothing else changes. Plus the original came out quite some time ago. There are a few new generations of humans in existence now.
I mean, imagine if people said that kind of thing about theater! Oh geez there was already a production of Les Miserables in New York 20 years ago and now they are doing another one with different singers. They didn’t even change any of the songs! What’s the point?
They did stick “Human Again” back in the special edition of the animated version. I wasn’t a fan of the song, but the sequence it went along with was quite nice.
This thread has gotten really depressing in the last 20 posts or so.
??
Eh, you know what, never mind.
My problem isn’t that they adapted it to a “new format,” it’s that they’re using the exact same interpretation of the story as the animated version. There are hundreds of ways you can retell the story. Look at Robin McKinley–she’s made a career of rewriting Beauty & the Beast and each story is different. Disney keeps telling the same version over and over and over and over. It’s getting a bit stifling.