Review: Beauty and the Beast (2017)

Confession: The Little Mermaid will always be my first Disney obsession, and Ariel will always be my favorite Disney princess, but I have no memory of seeing the movie. I have memories of my obsession, and wanting All The Happy Meal Toys, but not watching it.

I do, however, have a very strong, very vivid memory of seeing Beauty and the Beast in the theater. I remember watching the opening scene, as it zoomed in to the castle, and leaning over and asking my mom if we were at the right movie because the movie couldn't start this way. (Little Me didn't know about prologues and backstory.) She said something like, "of course we're at the right movie," because obviously not every movie was animated (but that's all I knew when I was 7). And I remember loving the fact that Belle read books, because even little Lisa was a total bookworm, and that she was a little different. Adult Me has been a little disenchanted with the movie, but I was so excited for this version. And, thankfully, I didn't have to wait too long to see it. (#godblessbabysittinggrandmas).

There's a very spoiler, full review below the cut, but, spoiler alert, I loved it. Accurate gif of me walking out of the theater yesterday afternoon:

Emma Watson Sings "Belle"

Emma Watson is going to be the perfect Belle.

There. I said it.

I know that I've been fangirling and nerding out over this adaptation since Emma Waston's casting was announced, but I was always a little skeptical of her ability to sing. I mean...it's Disney, so I'd like to think that they'd take this into account, and it's true that Belle's role isn't the most musically demanding, but still. I mean, it's not possible for one person to be Ivy-League smart, beautiful, a talented actress, a feminist activist, an advocate for sustainable fashion AND a good singer, is it?

Apparently, it is:

Also, this movie looks epically gorgeous. I especially love the costuming -- it definitely gives the movie a fairy-tale feel, but continues in the tradition of marrying Disney and Broadway-style.

And Emma Watson is absolutely adorable and quirky and I literally cannot wait to see this movie.

Emma Watson as Belle -- New Images Leaked Online?

Okay. By now, you know how much I'm looking forward to Disney's live-action version of Beauty and the Beast starring Hermione Granger Emma Watson as Belle.

This weekend, new images from the film were allegedly leaked online -- specifically, images of Emma Watson as Belle which aside from that one shot in the trailer, have been unsurprisingly scarce.

[I say "allegedly" because I'm not entirely sure that they aren't Photoshopped/fan-creations. My first few hits on Google (e.g. ComicBookMovie and Harpers Bazaar led me to broken links....maybe because they're not as legit as fans want them to be?

This is the "still" that makes me the happiest -- if I had to guess, I'd say it's from the opening sequence where Belle is wandering through the town and ends up in the bookstore, only to pick out about "far-off places, daring sword fights, magic spells, a prince in disguise!" I suppose it could be the Beast's library (although she wears the green dress for that scene in the animated movie), but it's almost identical to the town bookstore (the ladder helps).

Emma Watson is so perfect to make "The beauty and The beast" 😍😍 pic.twitter.com/wIYwV05KKv

— Lorena Alves (@lorena_alves04_) September 30, 2016

This one...I am less excited about. Not sure why. It looks very stiff and posed, and an odd image to "leak." The one above could almost be a trailer shot or movie still, but this one...looks like it should be a promotional image. This is the one that concerns me about doctored photos -- we've been fooled before!

Emma Watson’s Belle Dances With Beast in New Beauty and the Beast Images pic.twitter.com/xlgqtnm0Od

— Great-Stuff (@Splurgehub) September 30, 2016

At the very least -- her hair is styled consistently in both photos (center part), so that's something.  

New Sneak Peek of Beauty and the Beast!

This video started circulating on social media yesterday -- basically, a teaser trailer for a "Sneak Peek" at the live action Beauty and the Beast that's on the special 25th Anniversary Platinum Edition. (Which is the fancy Disney marketing way of getting/trying to get you to buy a DVD you probably already own.)

The clip is, obviously, a teaser for the full video, but you still get a glimpse of Emma Waston as Belle at a table read -- and also Dan Stevens' Beast (complete with grumbly, growly voice!). The scene is, I think, Belle and Beast in the library, poring over a book -- and seems to come from the Broadway musical rather than the film. (In the musical, during "Something There," Belle finds the book and tries to get Beast to read it, at which point he confesses that he can't read, and they begin to bond/fall in love over the book/reading lessons.)

All that to say: if they're deviating, however slightly, from the animated film, I hope that they correct some of the not-so-great aspects of the film. Like, I hope the Beast is maybe emo and not bordering-on-abusive angry. *fingerscrossed*

Also--Disney, I see how you're purposefully withholding images of Emma Watson as Belle since you know that's what we want.

I hope there's a trailer with Moana. Like, a real, full-length trailer.

Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme...

...Beauty and the Beast. 

The teaser trailer.

It's finally here.

I may or may not be having a fangirl freak-out moment over here.

I have been super excited about this adaptation -- and particularly the casting choices -- for awhile. I know that there was talk about Emma Watson playing Beauty in a Guillermo del Toro version (which would have been much darker, for sure), but when Stephen Chbosky (author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower and who worked with Emma Watson on the film adaptation of that book) signed on to write the screenplay, I got even more excited. 

Like most Disney projects, details of this one were kept tightly under wraps. While Luke Evans and Josh Gad were pretty active on social media (relatively speaking), the one thing that the Internet really wanted to see -- Emma Watson as Belle -- was the one thing we didn't get. 

Until now:

It's small, but it's something. (It's also the only shot we get of an actual character in the film.) My husband complained that the trailer didn't reveal much -- that he wanted "more" than just scenic shots and voice-overs. 

My response? "It's called a teaser trailer for a reason." At which he astutely compared it to the teaser trailer for Cinderella, which was basically just a shoe and a butterfly, so at least we got a little more. But not nearly enough. :)