Disney's live-action Beauty And The Beast is a gorgeous reimagining of the beloved 1991
animated classic and it's loaded with callbacks and easter eggs to the animated movie that
many even casual viewers will notice.
But the new movie also includes many delicious details that only super-fans might spot the
first time around!
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, it's Jan here, and in this video, I'm going to reveal 17
easter eggs and details that only real fans will notice in the new Beauty And The Beast.
And by the way, I'll be including some fascinating facts from my interviews with Beauty And The
Beast director Bill Condon and composer Alan Menken about how they used deleted scenes,
characters, lyrics and dialogue from the original animation in the new movie.
Just before I start, I'm giving away this amazing Disney hardback book from DK, which
is loaded with behind-the-scenes artwork, photos, and information about Disney's live-action
and animated movies over the years.
For a chance to win, all you have to do is subscribe and leave a comment about the new
Beauty And The Beast movie or your favourite easter egg from the film.
And for bonus ways to enter, check out the Gleam link in the video description below.
Ok, quick warning: there are spoilers ahead, so if you've not seen the movie yet, why not
check out my spoiler-free review, then come back here after you've seen the film!
When Beast suggests Belle use the enchanted map to 'travel to the one place [she's] always
wanted to see', the destination she chooses is a lovely nod to a Beauty And The Beast
cameo in another Disney animated movie!
Can you guess where I'm going with this?
Yes, Belle and Beast travel to Paris, where Beast suggests they visit Notre Dame, all
of which is very exciting because Belle popped up in Disney's animated feature The Hunchback
of Notre Dame, where, in typical Belle style, she walked along the street while reading
a book.
There's an interesting moment during the opening song "Belle" where Belle enquires if Monsieur
Jean has lost something again, and he replies that he believes he has, but he can't remember
what.
Given that Emma Watson's best known role before Beauty And The Beast was as Hermione Grainger
in the Harry Potter series, this feels like a homage to the scene in the first film, The
Philosopher's Stone, where after Neville gets his Remembrall, he says to Hermione that he
can't remember what he'd forgotten.
Although Harry Potter fans may well love this line, Beauty And The Beast director Bill Condon
has said that it's a happy coincidence because the reason Monsieur Jean can't remember what
he's forgotten is because of the Enchantress's spell and how it's made the townspeople forget
that the castle and the enchanted objects ever existed.
So, what Jean can't remember here is that he's actually Mr Potts, and his conversation
with Belle is some clever foreshadowing for the reveal later on that he's married to Mrs
Potts.
Perhaps a somewhat unfortunate consequence of the changed dialogue is that we never got
that brilliant line from the original where the baker rudely interrupts Belle with the
line, "Marie!
The baguettes!"
- because he's bored of listening to her talk about the book she's been reading.
In the new movie, Belle's conversation with Monsieur Jean replaces that conversation with
the baker, but [perhaps] there's a nod with a twist to that moment as Belle still gets
brushed off, but this time it's by Monsieur Jean when he says the book she's returning
to Pere Robert sounds boring.
His line is also a joke at the expense of the story of Romeo and Juliet which is the
book Belle's just been reading in this film and also the one she taught the Beast to read
in the original animation.
In the new movie, the Beast also pokes fun at Romeo and Juliet when he introduces Belle
to his library saying there are so many things that are better to read than that Shakespearian
tragedy about heartache and pining.
Jean Cocteau's 1946 film La Belle et la Bête is one of director Bill Condon's favourite
movies and he found it a source of inspiration for his own 21st-century remake of the Beauty
And The Beast story.
For instance, there's a different set-up to the 1991 movie for Belle's father.
In this version, Maurice is taken prisoner by Beast for picking a white rose.
Given Condon's love for the French film, his use of the white rose is a hat-tip to Cocteau's
film where Belle's father is caught by the Beast when he takes a rose from Beast's garden,
the idea for which itself came from the original mid-18th-century French story.
And Beauty And The Beast's filmmakers included a nice easter egg and homage to the author
of that very first Beauty And The Beast story, Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, when
they named Belle's hometown Villeneuve.
Shortly after Maurice enters the Beast's castle, seeking shelter, Cadenza the harpsichord starts
playing 'Be Our Guest', but suddenly stops when Maurice goes into the room.
This is a delightful easter egg to the fact that, in the animated movie, 'Be Our Guest'
was initially actually going to be performed by the enchanted objects for Maurice, rather
than for Belle.
Maestro Cadenza, who's married to the Italian opera singer Madame de Garderobe and becomes
a harpsichord under the curse, is a new character created for the live-action adaptation.
But Cadenza's inclusion in this film is still a hat-tip to Villeneuve's original story as
well as to LePrince de Beaumont's adaptation a few years later, which feature Beauty playing
the harpsichord in her own home, and also reveal that Beast has a harpsichord in his
castle.
On top of that, Maestro Cadenza is also a little musical homage to the 1997 direct-to-video
midquel, Beauty And The Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, in which the main villain was the
music conductor and composer Maestro Forte, who became a pipe organ during the curse.
The live-action film makes this connection when, just before 'Be Our Guest', Cogsworth
asks Cadenza to 'play quietly', and Candeza replies, 'Sotto voce, of course.'
Sotto voce and Forte are musical terms which are basically opposites of each other, which
is fitting because Cadenza is a good character and Forte was villain.
The songs in the new Beauty And The Beast also include homages to a variety of classic
musicals.
For "Be Our Guest", director Bill Condon has confirmed the new musical number includes
over a dozen references including West Side Story, Singin' In The Rain, Cabaret, and Chicago,
which Condon wrote the screenplay for, as well as nods to Esther Williams and Busby
Berkeley, both of which also influenced the 1991 version.
Plus, there's also a little reference to Moulin Rouge, which starred Ewan McGregor, who plays
Lumiere in Beauty And The Beast.
When Disney were going through the music archives of the animated film, they came across some
original lyrics by the late Howard Ashman which didn't make it into the final film back
in 1991.
So, director Bill Condon decided to put them to good use in his live-action version.
And when I interviewed Bill Condon recently, I asked him what those new lyrics were, and
he told me that they're the last lines that Emma Thompson sings as Mrs Potts when she
reprises the Beauty And The Beast song at the end of the movie, which are: "Winter turns
to spring, famine turns to feast, nature points the way, nothing left to say, Beauty and the
Beast."
But that's not all, folks!
When I interviewed Alan Menken, he told me that some of Howard Ashman's unused lyrics
from the 1991 movie also made it into the live-action version of the song Gaston!
The lyrics in question begin with Gaston singing: 'When I hunt, I sneak up with my quiver, and
beasts of the field say a prayer; first, I carefully aim for the liver, then I shoot
from behind.'
By the way, Menken told me that those lyrics didn't make it into the original film as 'sneaking
up and shooting an animal in the liver was probably a bit much for a younger audience'.
Music boxes play an important part in the new film as Belle's father, Maurice, is an
artist who makes them.
But they're also a call-back to the animated feature.
In early drafts of the 1991 script, Mrs Potts' son Chip only had one sentence of dialogue,
and the other scenes where he appears in the film as we know it today were going to feature
in his place a Music Box character which spoke only by making little chiming noises.
But when the producers realised the movie would benefit from a child's perspective,
they increased Chip's role and got rid of the music box character.
After Chip says his famous line from the original animation, 'Momma, there's a girl in the castle',
he follows it up by asking Mrs Potts what kind of tea the girl likes and then lists
a few different types including chamomile, which is a delicious easter egg to the original
name the filmmakers were going to give the talking teapot in their animated movie.
Yes, back in 1991, Mrs Potts was very nearly named Mrs Chamomile, after the soothing herbal
tea, but the filmmakers decided to go with the name we know and love today as they thought
'chamomile' might be difficult for young children to say.
Toward to the start of the movie, we see Belle teaching a young girl to read and pointing
to a page with a Blue Bird on it.
The page says "The Blue Bird that flies over the dark wood", which is a nod to the blue-birds
that fly over the wood at the start of the animated movie, and also to the blue-coloured
bird that appears during the song "Something There".
When we hear that song in the original film, Belle is trying to bring out the Beast's gentler
side by encouraging him to feed the birds in his garden.
At first, they're all scared away with the exception of a little blue bird who jumps
into his hand.
By the way, look closely at what Belle's wearing as she teaches the young girl and you'll see
that her cardigan has blue birds embroidered into the pattern.
After Gaston and LeFou finish their big song-and-dance number at the tavern, Gaston compliments his
loyal side-kick on how great he is and asks, 'How is it that no girl has snatched you up
yet?', and LeFou replies with a nice easter egg to Frozen, saying that, 'I've been told
I'm clingy, but I really don't get it.'
Josh Gad, of course, plays both LeFou and Frozen's Olaf, an adorable snowman who just
loves introducing himself to the movie's human characters with the line, 'Hi, I'm Olaf, and
I like warm hugs', and who's also happy to melt for the right person.
As well as being a Frozen easter egg, LeFou's reply also foreshadows what the movie's director
has called the character's "gay moment" at the end of the movie.
Just outside the tavern's doors, there are two wooden carvings of wild boar heads, and
one is used by the angry mob to try to ram down the door to the Beast's castle.
Although this is a change from the animated film, where the villagers chop down a tree
to batter the Beast's door, it's actually a really nice hint to the design of the Beast.
Wild boars were one of the animals that Disney artist Glen Keane took inspiration from when
he was creating the animated Beast's look – in fact, if you look at the Beast in the
1991 movie, you'll see he has the tusks of a wild boar.
But long before Disney's much-loved classic, the Beast was already associated with boars.
Back in the late nineteenth century, for example, the English artist Walter Crane portrayed
the Beast as a wild boar in his illustrations for children's picture books.
Speaking of boars, the coat of arms in the Beast's castle consists of a lion, a boar,
and letters WD.
Just as boars influenced the Beast's design in the animated movie, so too did lions – with
the Beast having a lion's mane.
As for the WD monogram, that's a nod to Walt Disney!
When Belle is surprised that Beast is able to complete a quote she reads from Shakespeare's
A Midsummer Night's Dream, he explains that he had 'an expensive education.'
This is a change from the animation where the Beast has trouble reading, but it's also
a reference to the role that made actor Dan Stevens, who plays the Beast, famous.
In the popular period drama Downton Abbey, Stevens's character Matthew Crawley also enjoyed
an expensive education, which included a private boys-only boarding-school followed by Oxford
University.
And interestingly enough, that's mirrored in Stevens' own life as he too attended a
private boarding school before going on to study at Cambridge University.
At the end of this movie, Belle looks at the Prince and asks, 'How would you feel about
growing a beard?', which director Bill Condon told me is an unused line of dialogue that
lyricist Howard Ashman came up with for the animated classic.
Interestingly enough, Glen Keane, who designed the animated Beast for that film, didn't want
the Beast to turn back into the Prince at the end of the movie so had Paige O'Hara who
played Belle record that line about the beard, though, of course, they didn't end up using
it back then.
Now, I'd love to hear if you spotted any other easter eggs or interesting references in the
new Beauty And The Beast movie.
And how do you think it compared to the original animated classic?
Don't forget to comment and subscribe for your chance to win this awesome hardback Disney
book!
Coming very shortly, I've got more detailed breakdowns of Beauty And The Beast, so be
sure to turn on your notifications for Flicks And The City and you'll get those as soon
as I post them.
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Thanks for watching and see ya next time!
Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers.