So, I couldn't help myself and looked up spoilers for the new Beauty and the Beast film. The changes made to the film, I just can't help it. It feels like Disney listened to some of the analysis people have done over the years and decided to address the ones that made the film look bad. Stuff like "if the flower lasts until he turns 21 and they mention it's been 10 years since they were transformed, that means the Enchantress cursed a child," "Belle is stuck up in the opening. Those people were trying to do their jobs while she walked around commenting on how boring provincial life was," "why would the Encantress curse the staff? She's the true villain of the movie" and "Belle has Stockholm syndrome."
Stuff like Belle borrowing books from the town church/library rather than the bookseller (in a town where nobody reads, this guy is lending out books to the one girl that does),a or that the curse makes the villagers forget about the castle, that doesn't bother me. But a lot of this other stuff feels like Disney realized how poorly the animated version aged despite being a runner up for best feature film when it came out. Like they didn't really think about the story they were originally telling and the greater implications, and now they're trying to scrub it clean while reestablishing Belle as a strong, independent woman by today's standards.
Again, I haven't seen this but I plan to. Beauty and the Beast was my favorite film when I was a wee lad, and still holds a dear place in my heart. Part of me doesn't like these because it's admitting shortcomings of the original, but part of me feels like they're doing damage control via revision rather than addressing the issues people had.
