Happy 13th Anniversary Beauty and the Beast
Released November 22nd, 1991
UltimateDisney Beauty and the Beast DVD Review
Fun Facts
- Sherri Stoner was used as the model for Belle.
- "Be Our Guest" was originally animated with Maurice (not Belle) as the guest, but they decided not to waste such a wonderful song on a secondary character.
- Chip originally had only one line, but the producers liked Bradley Pierce's voice so much that extra dialogue and business was written and storyboarded for the character.
- The original "cute" character of the movie was a music box, which was supposed to be a musical version of Dopey. But when the character Chip's role was expanded, the music box idea was scrapped. However the music box can be seen for a brief moment on a table next to Lumière just before the fight between the enchanted objects and the villagers in the Beast's castle.
- The last phrase of Cogsworth's line "Flowers, chocolates, promises you don't intend to keep... " was ad-libbed by David Ogden Stiers.
- The first full length animated feature to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Picture, losing to Silence of the Lambs, The (1991). It was, however, the first full length animated feature to win the Golden Globe for Best Picture (Musical or Comedy).
- A song sung by the enchanted objects entitled "Human Again" was cut before production started. The song was later added to the Disney on Ice and theatrical productions and was recorded and animated for the 2001 Imax re-release.
- Art director Brian McEntee color keyed Belle so that she is the only person in her town who wears blue. This is symbolic of how different she is from everyone else around. Later, she encounters the Beast, another misfit, also wearing blue.
- While songwriters are writing the melody to a song they often use dummy lyrics to help with writing the melody. In the song "Gaston" the writers liked the dummy lyrics so much that they used those in the final production.
- Computer technology was considered for the rooftop fight and the forest chase, but the primitive state of the technology only allowed time to use it for the ballroom scene. Even for that scene, they had a fallback strategy: what they called the "Ice Capades" version, with just a spotlight on the two characters against a black background.
- In the French release, Cogsworth's name is Big Ben, after the famous clock in London (extra, completely irrelevant, detail for trivia fans: the landmark's real name is "The Clock Tower of the New Palace of Westminster", while Big Ben is actually the name of the large bell that strikes the hours - nevertheless, the clock is seldom referred to by any name other than Big Ben).
- The Beast/Prince's real name is never mentioned.
- When Beast and Gaston are having their life-or-death struggle on the castle, Gaston yells, "Belle is mine!" Originally he was supposed to say, "Time to die!" but the writer changed it to fit Belle back in the scene.
- Chip is the only object in the movie to mention Belle by her name. All of the other objects refer to her as "mademoiselle," "she," her, "the girl," etc.
- This was the first Disney animated movie to use a fully developed script prior to animation. In previous films, story was developed through the use of storyboards only, and was further developed during animation. Several previous films had gone way over budget when the animators spent time and effort animating scenes that, it was eventually decided, did not fit the movie, and producers realized that they could save money by having a script written first.
- The dance between Belle and her Prince in the finale is actually reused animationof the dance between Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip Sleeping Beauty (1959). The original Sleeping Beauty pair had been drawn over to become the new Beauty and the Beast pair, and this was done because they were running out of time during the production of the movie.
- When Gaston is falling at the very end, there is close-up of his eyes. For a few frames a tiny skull flashes in each of his eyes.
- In the 1930s and again in the 1950s, Walt Disney attempted to adapt "Beauty and the Beast" into a feature but could not come up with a suitable treatment, so the project was shelved. It wasn't until Little Mermaid, The (1989) became hugely successful that they decided to try it a third time.
- The second Disney animated feature to use their proprietary CAPS (Computer Assisted Production System) system, a digital ink, paint, and camera process. Rescuers Down Under, The (1990) was the first Disney film to use the system.
- Angela Lansbury, the voice of Mrs. Potts, thought that another character would be better suited to sing the ballad "Beauty and the Beast". The director asked her to make at least one recording to have for a back up if nothing else worked, and that one recording ended up in the film.
- The first Disney animated feature to use fully rendered and textured 3-D CGI moving backgrounds in combination with the traditionally animated character animation, a technique that was expanded upon in the Disney short Off His Rockers (1992) and later in Aladdin (1992).
- The film was previewed at the New York Film Festival in September 1991 in a "Work-In-Progress" format. Approximately 70% of the footage was the final color animation. The other 30% consisted of storyboard reels, rough animation pencil tests, clean-up (final line) animation pencil tests, and computer animation tests of the ballroom sequence. This marked the first time that Disney had done a large-scale preview of an unfinished film.
- This film is dedicated to the memory of lyricist/executive producer Howard Ashman, who died of AIDS six months before the film was released.
- Among the trophy heads on Gaston's tavern is what appears to be a frog's head, visible in the scene where Gaston spits.
- When The Beast is getting his hair cut for Belle, the hair style he is given is the same as Lion's in Wizard of Oz, The (1939).
Awards
Academy Award® Winner (1991)
*Best Original Score, Alan Menken
*Best Song, "Beauty And The Beast," Howard Ashman (Lyrics), Alan Menken (Music)
*Best Songs "Be Our Guest" And "Belle," Howard Ashman (Lyrics), Alan Menken (Music)
Academy Award® Nominee (1991)
*Best Picture
