How Emma Watson Butchered Belle in the Live-Action Remake (Sorry, Not Sorry)
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- Опубликовано: 2 мар 2024
- #disney #beautyandthebeast #review #film
Just like almost any other Disney movie remake, Disney has committed some major offenses to us long-time fans, and this time, it's the 2017 Beauty and the Beast Remake. While there are many atrocities in this remake, I believe that none are worse than misrepresenting the MAIN LEAD heroine, Belle. Belle is a geek. She's a nerd, and we love her for it! She's unafraid to shout from the rooftops the adorkable things she enjoys. She's one of Disney's best examples of an escapist, and she is SO relatable! It's almost like both Disney and Emma Watson both conspired to butcher that iconic aspect of her personality, causing this reformed Belle to leave A LOT left to be desired from fans of the original film. Let's have a discussion and review how this beautiful rose of a heroine became wilted!
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She turned Belle into Hermione
Belle wasn't reading books in pursuit of knowledge. She was reading them for escapism
ABSOLUTELY! 💯
Exactly! To escape the monotony of provincial life! And not because she's monotonous, either. Emma's Belle gives me the vibe that she's the problem? low-key-don't-come-for-me, you know? ❤️
🤷🏽♀️ *E x a c t l y !* 👌🏽
I believe Belle is more similar to Luna Lovegood than Hermione, BUT NO ONE SEEMS TO NOTICE. Belle's "essence" isn't like Hermione's
Her favorite part of her favorite book is literally when the lead meets her Prince Charming, Belle is a _romantic_ and that's what _the entire plot_ is about
Emma Watson's belle saying that Romeo and Juliet is her favorite book is the most cliché thing ever and i'm truly mad about it.
It was VERY cliché! In the original, whatever was her favorite book that the shopkeeper gifted her - that sounded far more interesting! (I believe it was alluding to her own story/adventure to come).
Yeah she’s French, idk if French people were aware of Shakespeare back then
It’s cliche but however I think it is the book she is reading to the Beast in the original movie, during the remaster where they re-added the song “Human Again”. To my knowledge they predate the live action film. However however and also also we must not forget that though she likes this book and helps the beast read it, it is NOT her favorite and that makes all the difference. She can say “It’s one of my favorites” in the new one in a whimsical way but not her favorite. Heck not even her favorite romance story. She would love a more fantastical adventure romance story like Princess Bride.
ITS not even a book by itself It Is a play, 😅
I rather hear from Belle that the Most romantic story ever conceived was that of Francesca and Paolo AND the way Dante's Inferno play with the concept to make the characters More memorable cause they were sticking together for all eternity in the Most dreadful place posible AND they still loved echo other very deeply to keep flying around forever. Being the hopeless romantic she is She would love stories like that.❤❤❤ She seems like the Most obsessed with love stories type of princees, i even inclined to say she Is kind of autistic because of these traits . I thik the reason she said in the original movie dhe wanted "More than this provincial life" was because she was so imersed in the stories she read she wanted to live those fantasies And run by the Hills and be free. Like some kind of imagination life
Just like (you guessed It) julie Andrews' Maria in
She Is a geeky dremy like girl in the remake she Is an inventor AND a very calculated one if I might say
It has nothing to do with the I want to go out of this stupid village because nobody Lets me read and do ingenering. It would have work out even more towards Gastons' dialogue if he would be perfecto to say some interestingly misogynistic things about her interest or saying incorrectly how she wouldn't achieve anything because of her gender.
In the original movie, Belle's favorite book was Beauty and the Beast. That was so much better.
The "reading isn't for girls" thing was so stupid because girls DID read at the time. Beauty and the Beast was written by a woman, for a women's literature magazine.
Also, nobody but Gaston had a problem with her reading in the original movie, they thought she was weird because she read ALL THE TIME and read fantastical things that other people in the village didn't really seem to have an interest in.
Very true, in fact, it was considered one of if not THE most "acceptable" pass-time for young women! Why? Well, because a girl reading at home, was a girl "behaving" at home and propriety was a HUGE part of 'acceptability. (Meaning she wasn't out on the town embarrassing the family's reputation.)
But didn't Gaston tell her to stop reading because she might get ideas and start thinking?
@@Ashbrash1998a “proper” lady of the time would read books about etiquette, being a good wife, religion, etc…things that lead women down a specific viewpoint.
Belle was read fantasy novels to escape the life she had, thus giving her ideas to think outside the box. It was more so about the kind of books she was reading AND how much time she spent reading and trying to talk about them.
@Ashbrash1998 that's Gaston being Gaston. - not the best frame of reference. (As the movie shows, he's a vain, opinionated a-hole with an extremely fragile ego.)
Notice how he's LITERALLY the only character to say that.
It's the same on how Amazon Prime's 2021 Cinderella movie made it so that Ella's passion was dress making but because it was a business, she couldn't do it. Even though sewing was literally a job made for women to do in that time period, they needed a reason to girlbossify Cinderella even more than the other 10 Cinderella remakes.
How annoying. Belle in the original movie WAS written in a feminist way. She was a soulful, romantic, intelligent girl, she stands out by just being a hot nerd, a bit pretentious because she’s disenchanted with her current surroundings. She gets in way over her head as you can in life. She felt way more like a real person in the cartoon than she did in the remake. It was obnoxious to make the literary girly into a “STEM QUEEN!” Stem is important and to educate girls, but she is the romantic word lover who don’t put up with f*ckboys.
I don't have anything to add to this, lol. Spot on! 💜
Yeah, and I feel like it implies that only people that are good at stem are smart, and people who prefer humanities is just too dumb to do stem even though intelligence can come in many different ways.
Agree 100%. Though forcing girls into STEM is just eh. Despite the aggressive push, girls still organically choose literally anything else, on average, myself included.
Idk what it is but as soon as puberty hit, I just didn't care about maths anymore, and it did also get more complicated/I liked other subjects more, like literature.
@@fatuusdottore Honestly not just girls, it's literally anyone with an artistic bend. Ever asked a theatre kid how they feel about math? We all either hate it or we do math like Narancia and run for the calculator app from what I know (source: informal survey consisting of yelling in my artsy discords).
The closest I've gone to tech and science was learning it unwillingly to get better at writing because I needed spec evo stuff for my merman/marine biologist fanfic (I really wanted to shove a sea dragon seaslug and feather star into an orca merman design so I learned way too much about nudibranchs and echinoderms).
(STEM nerds are necessary but eff me it most of them apart from the squishy bio sciences and explore-the-unknown-hands-on nerds aren't boring as all H-E-double-hockey-sticks.)
@@neoqwerty as someone that weirdly enjoys both storytelling and science, I feel a need to point out that many of those that get into STEM would find your interests, and thus you, painfully boring as well.
What really irked me about her performance was the scene where she and the Beast are eating together, and instead of giving him a look of, "Here. Let me meet you half-way, and let's eat this way together." Emma gives him a look of, "Okay, you big stupid animal, let's slurp this tripe down so you don't feel so awkward." She did not portray Belle's kindness, empathy, or compassion whatsoever. There was a review I watched about this movie and they said it pretty spot on by saying, "This is Emma as Hermione playing Belle."
“It's leviOsa, not levioSA!”
😮💨
If by any chance you remember the name of that reviewer or the title of that review could you share it with me ? 🙏 I was so bothered by Emma Watson's portayal of Belle in that movie that i decided to watch all the reviews/rants about the matter .
@@eglantinepapeau1582
*Same!* 🤷🏽♀️
Also Belle was willing to meet Beast halfway when he stopped being a jerk to her not becuase the people on his payroll told her a sad story about how it wasn't Beast fault becuase he's had a rough childhood.
@@jodieg6318 *Exactly She got to know Him.. and fell in love with Him for who He was even though He looked/was so different!*
It shocks people when I point out the irony in the live action Beauty and the Beast film. During the inventor scene, a guy says 'You're teaching her to read? Isn't it bad enough that there is one of you?' The story of Beauty and the Beast was written by a woman who lived around the time depicted in the film and it was written in a female magazine. Meaning not only were women reading but they were reading in such number as to be able to support an industry.
*Facts!* 🤷🏽♀️
I feel like Emma Watson rlly needs to look into the history of women and feminism in general, bc she misrepresents women of the past frequently. Like you said, women of the time read enough to support an industry. And the corset was not a tool of male oppression! It was a supportive clothing garment! Feminists who refer to the corset as simply an aesthetic garment have no idea what they’re talking about, and need to do their research. History is not black and white, there is nuance to every topic. Personally, if I was a woman living in the past, I would’ve worn a corset every day with enthusiasm, bc I have big honkers and going without the support of a bra is extremely uncomfortable. The corset is the first iteration of the brassier, and without it women today wouldn’t enjoy the comforts of the modern bra. I’m very passionate about this topic and it annoys me how many feminists don’t do their research before speaking on it. Sorry for the long rant lol.
@@aziura
*I have a "medium-sized" bustier so to speak.. and have a very bad back.. so I too would've worn a corset.. and I even wear them in My free time.. because they're not just comfortable.. they actually make Me feel more Feminine!*
Those lines were put in a story that was written by a woman published in a woman's magazine! To be read by women.
Its almost satirical
I other words, they just want to push a delusional political ideology, even if that means ignoring every piece of history or register that exist.
I still contend, Emma Watson owes an extensive, heartfelt apology to EVERY actress (especially Christie Carlson Romano) who played Belle on Broadway. The Broadway actresses had to know all the dialogue, wear a dress on stage (that CCR said weighed about 40 pounds) while walking down a staircase, and most of all, they had to sing WITHOUT autotune!
👉🏽 *And wear a corset while doing it!* 👈🏽
*Something She simply refused.. because of Her disgusting & very toxic attitude!*
Truthfully, a 40 lb dress (which I fully believe, by the time you factor in the skirts, petticoats, cages or crinolines for the shaping, etc) you absolutely need a corset underneath, and probably one with good honing. Because that corset prevents the dress skirts from hanging directly from the soft part of your waist and cutting into you.
It'll be heavy either way, but the difference is between hanging a weight on a string around your bare waist and wearing a heavy backpack. Even if you carry the same weight in pounds one is much less painful.
She doesn't owe them anything, its not her fault they CHOSE to act act as Belle, and its also not her fault that they were too irrelevant to play Belle in the movie...
@@ahmadalimi9784maybe not, but it’s a disservice and insult to talented actresses who give fantastic performances of and inspiring character to see a soulless performance of that same character. And for the actress who gave that empty performance claim she improved the character by sucking out everything fun about her and making her a mouthpiece to promote an agenda and demean other women.
Imagine being a hardworking actress who has broadway worthy talent and dreamed of playing Belle, and you see Emma Watson play “Hermione granger and the beast” simply because she is more “relevant”
@marycorbett3109 It'd suck, but again, not Emma Watsons' fault. Its not a disservice to the actresses because they do not own the character of Belle. Also, as an actor myself, there are differences between stage and film acting, so the assertion that the Briadway actors would somehow automatically be excellent in the film role is platently untrue. Furthermore, and to the crux of my argument, the directors of the film witnessed Emma acting during production, and they likely would have asked to change her performance if they really thought she was bombing. Emma is by no means an excellent actress byt she has more range than people (especially in these comments) give her so if the directors had MEANT for Belle to be portrayed differently they woukd have made this known to Emma and her performance would reflect that. This is all to say that the decisions of the character not fitting to animated movie/book character falls to the screenwriter, director, producers, and Disney as a whole. So even if they got a Broadway talent instead they may have geared the actress to play Belle way the exact way Emma "ruined" her. I dont agree with Emmas brand of feminism but the hatred she gets from salty theater kids for the crime of being in a movie that cast her, and acting a performance that was likelt encouraged by the director is inordinate. The only thing i agree on is that the singing would have been better. But even then, although i noticed the autotune, it was never egregious enough to be jarring, and i even liked a few of the songs.
Belle loved reading bc it was a way of escapism, not necessarily to be high brow , intellectual and snooty. She was still witty and smart, but gentle and kind when she thought that kindness was deserved. She had integrity in making promises but instinct to leave when she felt danger. How in any way did she need to be "improved?" I miss the nuance of her gentleness-- touching the beast to dance with her, laying her head on his chest when they danced, touching his cheek when she was let go...so many problems I had with this movie and Emma having so much say in belle's character was only one of them
As I read each example that you listed of her gentleness, I VIVIDLY recalled each and every moment! You did a beautiful job!
I also think of the moment when she was encouraging her father right after his contraption failed by gently touching his shoulders.
Welcome to 4th wave feminism.
@WondrousJoJo she's my favorite Disney Princess. I was vastly disappointed. Not to mention they gave Beast's iconic line of his emotional metamorphosis, "because I love her," to MRS. POTTS. Don't give me "well they gave us evermore." Not the same. They both had horrible chemistry. The fact Beast scoffed at her liking Romeo and Juliette and offhandedly shows her the library for something better is so insulting
Not only did he scoff at the story of Romeo and Juliette, but in the original, Belle reads him that story, and he enjoys it! Like what???
Emma Watson besides not having the personality nor the singing voice also looks nothing like Belle. Belle has this softness to her that makes her very gentle like. Whereas Emma Watson I think has harsher features, and comes across aggressive.
A small thing, but one of the things that bothered me so much about Watson in this role is that she refused to wear a corset and claimed it was for 'feminisim.'
Because of their use post world war 1 to create more 'appealing' bodies for women, I do understand the initial dislike, but here's the thing: that was kinda only a recent thing. Corsets were used for a long time and functioned as bras and back support, and they''re actually really great (I have one myself, and it's incredibly comfortable). There's so much history behind them, and they were made for the BENEFIT of women (seriously, I can't state how much they help with back pain).
I understand where Watson was coming from, but I'd argue that ignoring the history of women like that, making something that actually benefited women into something that only restricted us isn't progressive. Women in the past didn't just lie down and accept their fate. Many women in France in that time period could read, so why change it so it's only Belle? Why change what corsets meant to women? Why have Belle tuck her skirt into her UNDERWEAR?? Why even do that???
Sorry this is long, I just find it strange that a lot of the 'feminist' changes in these live-action remakes will change things and claim it's for feminisim, but what they're really doing is erasing what little history women have. Women in the past were strong and they didn't need to constantly be breaking gender norms to prove it. Don't erase them or their lives just because they don't fit perfectly with your idea of feminisim, because feminisim looks different for every women.
Thanks for watching! You made great points!
In the original, while reading was discouraged (evidenced by Gaston saying "it isn't right for a woman to read"), that didn't mean that all women were illiterate in the story. In the remake, it pretty much suggests that all women/girls are illiterate, other than Belle herself. I believe Disney was trying to imply that women can read in this movie, but it's usually women who aren't as valued in that society. However, because Belle is very conventionally attractive and in her youth, I think that makes her stand out as an oddball because at that age, and with her looks, she'd be expected to be married off or courting some aristocrat, or a higher-ranking town member (like Gaston), at the least.
Also, I didn't harp on this enough in my video, but the changes with the townsfolk irritated me. She actually had a very cordial relationship with the other townsfolk. They respected her to her face but called her odd behind her back. In the remake, the town is practically almost out to get her, and that is so annoying! Belle didn't feud with her community, and she was still a "regular" member of the town. No one went out of their way to ruin her.
-JoJo💜
Oh the corset thing annoyed me
The main reason why your seeing feminists doing or trying so hard to be progressive is mainly kinda comes from insecurities in my honest opinion, I think Emma like other feminists in Hollywood remove corsets is because so it doesn’t appeal to “male gaze” oh the horror!
The skirt tucked into the pantaloons is a….choice. It’s a choice a toddler hurrying to daycare would make but a choice nonetheless. The decisions on her costuming to be more “action oriented” makes no sense. “Belle can’t run and do action in a dress.” Tell me you’ve never read a history book without telling me you’ve never read a history book. Actually tell me you’ve never been a woman because we can do anything in a dress and heels if life demands it. Like what does she think will happen? The dress will rip? So??? They could have just made the dress shorter oooorrr have her hike it up ooorrr have her go barefooted to run faster ooooor novel idea…just deal with it because trust me you can still run jump and ride horses with a ball gown. It was already kind of tiring when Alice said she would t wear corsets or stockings because she’s against them but at the bare minimum she had a verbal reason, a whole speech. Belle didn’t say anything. Belle defies convention with what she does not what she wears. I can tell you right now Belle wears a corset and I can also tell you Belle doesn’t wear an ear cuff!! Those didn’t exist yet!
to be fair, women being against corsets isn't a new thing. there were women against corsets in that time too, who lobbied hard for the choice not to wear them. they are not all good, and they are not all bad. it is something that is and always has been both something for the benefit of women AND something used against them. also consider: neurodivergent people. bras may be perfectly fine and comfortable for the majority of neurotypical people, but bras can be absolute hell for nd people. personally, they're a sensory nightmare for me. extremely uncomfortable, even though i mostly wear sports bras, and i always remove them immediately when i get home. i imagine it was the same for nd women and corsets. perhaps many of the women against them at the time were nd.
Something else I really dont like about how Emma Watson portrayed Belle is how she seemed to remove the more kinder and softer sides to Belle. She's too snarky and passive-aggressive to be considered Belle, and it makes the romance between her and the Beast feel even more unnatural. I wanted to give her a chance when I first saw the remake because while her singing wasn't the best, I thought she could at least give Belle's character justice, but even that failed too
I agree with you in every way. I also wish that was something that I had touched on in my video regarding her softness being removed. That's one of the things I love about Belle. She has a softer nurturing side.
I incorporated snark and sarcasm into my “Belle” but mostly in response to her snotty sisters. And rebellion against a tyrannical father who constantly locks her up and tries to stifle her imagination/love of books, and later an aunt who tries to turn her into a lady instead of being friends with other young people in her new village. My version of her father was a knight-merchant and her uncle is the inventor…but he still doesn’t have an open mind in regards to commoners in his domains (he’s an earl) reading.
@@MistbornPrincess
*You're clearly not talking about the Disney version.. You're talking about that French movie..*
@@scarlett19b I mixed versions together.
@@scarlett19b as I said, I mixed versions together. MyBesuty’s father is a merchant who was knighted, and died at the end of the first act, for reasons. She is descended from royalty (Villeneuve’s version). I gave her one brother and two sisters. They are named Josette and Emilie, after two actresses who played Beauty in other versions. Her best friends I named Robin (after Robin McKinley, one of my fave authors of B&tB novels), Paige (Paige O’Hara).
She has two cousins I named Emma and Hermione…guess the reason 🤪! lol they are all a little commentary on various versions, while my Beauty is a sheltered,voracious reader, a little rebellious, a loyal friend, self-sacrificing, and determined to solve the mysteries around her!
Also, Emma Watson can only ever play slight variations on herself, like the Rock. So they had to change Belle
To suit Emma’s limited acting range and interests.
The sacrifices weren't worth it. 😭
100%
The Rock at least has a little entertainment value as a jacked Samoan guy. Emma Watson is a deadpan Brit. You know, because Hollywood isn't oversaturated in those.
@@cherrylimeali4393 As a Brit, I can confidently say most Brit’s you see in Hollywood are too far up their own arse to even touch on reality. I hate the way British people are in Hollywood. Grosses me out. It’s like they’re trying to be something they’re not.
People watch movies with the Rock because they want to see the Rock. People see movies of Emma Watson because they see her as Hermione.
She went from a passionate dreamer who the town unjustly made fun of for seeming lowkey autistic to a pretentious bore who looks down on the townspeople.
Also, it was normal for upper class women to read in France during the era this is set. It would make more sense if the illiterate villagers were mad at her for taking their kids away from their chores if anything.
I know, right? The story was literally written by a woman, for women, and they named the village after her - and yet they claimed women couldn't read? I've lost track of how many times I've facepalmed over their stupidity
*Belle was basically just like Her father.. Low-key Autistic / Different than everyone else.. who dreamed of something more.. **#Wanderlust** **#UrbanExploration** etc.!*
i do think belle and her dad are a very interesting and realistic portrayal of "high functioning" autistic people in the old days before there was a word for it. or adhd people, meaning the type of adhd that's very similar to autism and often inherited from autistic parents.
these days they call it adhd inattentive type. but the symptoms are so identical to autism it will probably be absorbed into the spectrum in 20 years like "aspergers" before it
in any case, people like this are often not high power individuals amassing status money or other traditional successes like emma watson tried to portray with an entrepreneurial version of belle. of course that's an impressive skill set any woman can be proud of, but belle and her dad were not that kind of talent and that's great too. they represent brilliance, kindness and creativity found in non-traditional minds, and finding their own idea of goals and achievements and finding their own lifestyle and pace that makes them happy and healthy
@@KitKat_293
*What do you mean with "the old days"!?*
@@scarlett19b i mean the time period beauty and the beast takes place in, which seems to be the 1700s ish. i also meant any time before the 1900s when autism was first identified and given a name. adhd & autistic people always existed, but there were different words, labels and opportunities open to them than there are today.
As a woman it frustrates me to no end how many of these modern takes on Disney women try to claim they are making these characters "feminist" WHEN THE CHARACTERS ARE ALREADY FEMINIST!!!
So many of these woman are already strong and brave and geeky and adventurous. Making them know-it-alls who hate men is not adding anything to them. If anything it's completely misunderstanding the characters and taking away everything that made them so wonderful.
Belle was geeky, she was adventurous, she was brave while still being compassionate. She doesn't NEED to be anything else for her to be a feminist icon. She's already there!
Thank you!!! 💯
This! Especially with the Mulan LA movie! 😭😭
@@MrsHyde1018 *Yeah that was/is an abomination!* 💣💥
@@MrsHyde1018 *I wholeheartedly agree!* 🙌🏽
If you want to have a bit more feminism in Beauty and The Beast then by all means, but France had some of the highest female literacy rates in Europe at the time. It makes no sense for Belle to be the only literate woman in a country with lots of literate women, especially when the live action version of the town looks way wealthier than the animated version. If you’re gonna do it, be accurate.
*This Right Here!* 👆🏽
Speaking to the progressivism of France... I went back to my family tree to find my relatives who came from France and boy were there a lot of husbands to one woman in my family tree! 😂
And the original character of Belle represented an authentic feminist effort already. It was more than implied, it was literally a part of her story. She wanted more than what was expected of her or what box she was being put in. Idk, it just doesn’t make sense to me and comes off as silly and redundant to feel the need to come right out and say it in such a way. Cuz duh.. Belle already had a feminist spirit.
Always here for the remake slander! They really missed the subtle and wonderful messaging that Howard Ashman had in the original, and instead decided to focus on Watson’s brand of feminism. Such a waste of potential.
Exactly! Belle was already progressive, and Emma even acknowledged that. I guess she just wasn't "progressive" enough in her eyes. I guess being steadfast and true to yourself and finding your own adventure wasn't good enough.... 😮💨
"Watson's brand of feminism" is spot on. Emma wanted Belle to woman the way she womans. She's not the first young person to think her way is the best way. I'm sure we all are/were guilty of similar thought. Age and experience will hopefully teach Miss. Watson that there are many perfectly acceptable ways to woman. Too bad she had to muck up Belle on her journey.
😄❤️ this is giving remake of snow white. Didn't that lead actress also try to woman Snow White like she woman's? I think that's a great point to explain what these young actresses are doing with these established beloved characters. ❤️
@@J.Soffer
🤷🏽♀️ *Rachel Zegler is exactly like Emma Watson.. It's their narcissistic view they need to push on everything they're doing which is absolutely disgusting.. not to mention Halle Bailey.. who didn't even care about the OG Danish🇩🇰 Fairy Tale📖 in the first place!* 👎🏽
Also, he collaborated with screenwriter Linda Woolverton on the original, and they worked with the storyboard artists.
What is all the more remarkable about this is how rapidly Ashman‘s HIV was progressing. He must’ve been taking AZT. That was the first drug for AIDS, but that had some nasty side effects.
Also, this is not the first time that Emma's character has stolen major positive traits from another character - Movie Hermione was handed so many of Ron's character moments, leaving Movie Ron a neutered, bland husk of the character he was in the books, and forgetting all of Book Hermione 's flaws that made her feel real.
I remember watching a video here on RUclips about that topic now that you've mentioned it!!! I only grew up with the movies, so I never knew how they were in the books. Poor Ron. He always did seem so undervalued in the movies. 🥺
Let's not mention movie Ginny, who was just... there.
@@WondrousJoJoyeah I think I watched the same video, I believe Hermione was a favourite character of the director of first two movies and I guess that had set a standard for her depiction that was followed in the rest of the adaptations. I vaguely remember Rowling saying she really likes Ron, which is extra weird, since she was involved in the movies. I do think that movie Hermione and by proxy miss Watson would be more likeable if her portrayal was closer to the books. Perhaps her struggling and wanting to quit at some point was caused by people disliking the change, and let’s admit it, she was just a child so I can imagine it must have been such confusing experience at times.
@@WondrousJoJo No idea who that ginger impostor was in the movies, but he wasn't Ron. The saddest part is that Rupert Grint does a damn good job.
I always thought it was ironic that, by trying to perfect Hermione, the filmmakers made her more flawed. Everyone says that The Goblet of Fire got Dumbledore wrong by making him angry all the time. I do too, but Hermione was on her period in that movie. She's either in tears or having angry outbursts.
No live action remake makes me angrier than this one. Belle was MY princess - nerdy, weird, but still kind and loving. The Beast was a trainwreck of a person but still willing to learn and not actually cruel. Emma's Belle is such a jerk to everyone and I truly believe this Beast to be cruel and malicious. I could go on for hours about everything wrong with most of the Disney remakes but this one is the one that I burn with eternal rage about. Don't even get me started on the absolute disrespect that the character design and color palette of the live action deals to the thoughtfully created animation.
I feel the pain.💔 Belle is my all-time favorite.
I feel you. Ariel was my princess and they destroyed the story and characters in the remake.
Before the little mermaid remake though, this is the first remake that made my blood boil. I hate it so much! The second they cast Emma Watson I was like oh heck no. Some how I knew she’d mess it up. I could rant forever about how they messed up on this movie so much and how I hate what Emma Watson did to Belle. Belle and Ariel hold a special place in my heart because they’re as old as me and I’ve been watching them since I was a year old pretty much lol.
I feel like I'm one of the few fans who lucked out. Cinderella is my favorite Disney princess (though I do love the kind, nerdy Belle!) and the live-action Cinderella was so wonderful and magical to me. I legitimately have no idea how they made that movie work but butchered every other remake attempt...
They’re both so weirdly cruel and snooty in the live action film, they’d be the perfect evil power couple if they had even a fraction of chemistry between them lol
*I hated almost/basically all of the "so called" Live-Action versions of these characters.. they were all completely soulless.. and don't get Me started about changing the appearance of a already existing well established & beloved Disney character.. Like they did to TLM.. and sort of did to Jasmine as well.. and are going to do with Snow White.. It's just disgusting.. completely unnecessary and basically Cultural Appropriation/Theft of European Fairy Tales by very famous European novelists such as Hans Christian Andersen & Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm etc. Like it's basically what WB did to Wonka.. it doesn't make ANY SENSE.. and you're actually destroying another person's legacy which is simply unacceptable and I'm sick of it!*
My opinion is Emma Watson doesn’t have a romantic face, her face feels more sophisticated like she is pretty but I imagined someone else honestly. Emma looks like an intellectual person but not super warm or friendly in a way.
I can see what you mean
@@WondrousJoJo in fact I was very surprised she was casted as Meg from Little Women because Emma doesn’t seem all that motherly no offense.
This! Anna Hathaway would have been the perfect Belle, she even dressed up as Belle once.
I think she looks very boyish, like a pretty boy. At the same time I think she looks very similar to Justin Bieber
@@Alex_Bell79 I thought she had a kind of elegant youthfulness, young yet sophisticated, angular but not overly sharp.
My memory may be wrong, but in the original, I don't recall there being an issue with girls learning how to read in the village. I thought that villagers criticized Belle for choosing to engage with the worlds in her books rather than the expectations of society. The remake doesn't capture this. Great video!
Thanks, Lizzy! And you're absolutely right! The remake fails on several accounts 😅
Plus the towns folk just thought she was weird but kind and nice.
It was Gaston and the Gaston-fangirls who looked down on Belle in the animated movie.
@@sindy1014 Precisely! They say she's "Strange, but special" and several even watch her as she goes throughout her day. The townspeople may not understand her, but they don't outright hate her like they seem to in the remake. In fact, I'd wager a great number of them probably figured her kindness and her beauty somewhat made up for her 'oddness'.
I think Disney forgot that a big part of their audience is the nerds, geeks, collectors, enthusiasts, etc. like you mentioned OG Belle was so validating for a lot of people (including myself) and for her to have that part of her personality taken away was very disappointing
Extremely disappointing!! I absolutely can not relate to Emma's Belle, like not at all!
@@WondrousJoJo I lied to myself when I went to see the movie twice in theaters that I liked Emma’s Belle😭 I wish I didn’t but I was in the Disney editing community at the time and everyone was loving this movie
Oh no!!! That stinks that you felt pressured! Pardon my ignorance, but what is the "Disney editing community"? Is that a group of fans who make GIFs, video sequences, or clip alterations?
@@WondrousJoJo you’re totally fine! It’s a community where people make picture or video edits of Disney movies! I had two accounts disneysavior and disneyhonor on instagram for better context on the edits I’m describing. On disneysavior I even have a quote from the live action Beauty and the Beast too LOL
How are people acting like Belle wasn’t a feminist icon to begin with? Like, she is literally the personification of the strength and beauty of femininity
💯
Yes! There was nothing to improve! I’m not really sure what about Belle needed to be changed! Did she think Belle just wanted to get married or something? Like, I really don’t get it, lol
The thing that also annoys me is that they didn’t make her into a romantic which the original Belle was like so you can’t want love and be an awesome woman at the same time??? Also I hate how bitchy Emma was while to me Belle is more whimsical and kind and nurturing and selfless to put it in Harry Potter terms Belle is more of a Luna then a Hermione and I hate how Emma played her like a Hermione.
the problem is that she kinda always does "Hermione" attitude, like in Little Women which comes to mind.
She can’t act and is very one tone. She annoys me in everything she does. Even her Hermione wasn’t Hermione. Proof that some child actors should stay as that.
@@darthtepes I heard she played hardball with the costume designers in that movie too , refusing to wear certain outfits because they weren't feminists enough or something . The best adaptation of "Little Women" for me remains the one with Winona from the 90's.
@@eglantinepapeau1582 absolutely
Right. Belle as we all know her isn't against romance at all, far from from it. She just wasn't necessarily looking for it. She looking for something else, but it came into her lap anyway and taught her that finding your soulmate maybe wasn't the adventure she was looking for, but the adventure she needed.
You can be totally for something even if it's not what you actively looking for for yourself.
The washing machine fiasco drives me nuts. My grandma grew up in a time when women had to wash their clothes in the river. She had her first washing machine when she was in her 30´s, and se describes it as a HUGE thing. I don´t believe that the women in Belle´s village would frown at a device that makes washing clothes easier, much less destroy it
Tbh it would’ve been cool to see her bond with the women in the village over her smarts. Would’ve been incentive for them to learn as well if they still wanted to go with the “women can’t read” narrative.
They act as if none of the other women feel the oppression lol
They wanted bookish. They went for the wrong type of bookish. Emma Watson gives very much the non-fiction reader type, but Belle was 100% the fantasy type. And it may not be obvious at first, but the difference is in how they talk about what they read. "2 cities in northern italy" is very much rooted in reality, it could just as easily been a history book about conflicts in northern Italy as it could have been a forbidden romance between two star crossed lovers from different cities in norther Italy. And because she didn't add anything to it, we are left to think it was the former: a history book.
And that non-fiction type of bookishness did work for Hermoine granger, bit it didn't work for belle. And well, it comes through in the movie. And I don't think the writers genuinely knew enough about the different types of book nerds to be able to differentiate when they went fir the casting. They just saw Emma Watson, the woman who played that book nerd girl in Harry Potter, and thought she would be great ro play Belle, a book nerd. Without realising there are different types of book nerds. And it's a shame. A big old slap in the face. because different types of book nerds do exist. There's fantasy, there's sci-fi, there's horror, there's Thriller, there's true crime, there's history, there's travel, there's science, there's feminist/political, there's philosophy, there's detective whodunit, there's western, there's romance, there's saga. And sure there may be overlap (I like fantasy and biological science, my brother goes for travel writing and historical adventure fiction, when he does read (he generally prefers video games and playing his music), my dad is more into scifi and thriller/horror) these subsets of book nerd do overlap, but there's always a difference in how they talk about it. For example, there's a book I'm reading currently which is a fantasy adventure with a romance subplot: a fantasy nerd may gush about the world building and setting, and romance nerd eould gush about how the romance is written and how the relationships develop with the plot, someone who is a nerd fir both (like belle) might jump between how cool the dragon is and how the romance is written.
And Emma Watson just doesn't. There's no wanderlust about the fantastical aspects, no gushing about princes or dragons that are actually people (and therefore viable love interests, unless your into monsterf*cking witch, well, I can't exactly comment. Disney likely wouldnt have included that even if it was an aspect of belle's character)
You make such an important distinction between expressions of the same interest, and I love it! You are so right!! The way passion is expressed definitely helps differentiate between the genres. Thank you for contributing to the conversation. This is such an important aspect!
Thank you! That NO ONE in the casting team thought about THAT! Or they just wanted to provoke and spit in our faces! I also have enough of snobby snooty Emma Watson!
Had it been “Romeo and Juliet”, she wouldn’t have said just “two cities in Northern Italy”. But yeah, I completely agree with your comment, and thank you, because this is the comment I was looking for.
Your comment makes me think that Emma Watson looks like someone who reads Hogwarts: A History, while Belle looks like someone who reads Harry Potter 👌
I HATE with a passion, when movies set in the past add bigotry or discrimination into the story that didn't really exist in the setting or wouldn't have likely been a major problem just so they can make the hero or main character look better more modern and progressive by comparison, there have been so many actual injustices and problems please pick one of those. A little girl in rural france in that time period would more likely have been criticized for reading things that aren't the bible or told that both boys and girls where wasting their time reading. I guess you can see my own nerd side coming out here.
Yes!! My biggest gripe is that they casted someone who couldn’t sing as a lead in a musical.
They sacrificed the character's presence, all for a bigger name. 😞
I agree. Watson didn't carry the movie at all despite being the star. The Beast saved the movie for me and I'm glad they gave him that solo.
@@Bunninja
*I wholeheartedly agree.. also it didn't make ANY SENSE to change His name {Adam} into this stupid made up name which they literally picked from The Internet obviously.. Like that's beyond absurd and actually ridiculous!*
*Gerard Butler looking around nervously*
@@lordtrigon1733 *Is that some sort of meme!?* 🤔
I love how it’s been years since this movie came out and the entire internet still haven’t forgiven her for it 😂 well deserved tbh
We haven't forgiven nor forgotten. 😂
As they shouldn’t, lol. But seriously I usually don’t blame the actors, they are just doing their job but Emma had a lot of creative control in this & they were awful & ruined it. She honestly had no business having that much control . Having ideas is fine but come on, she just wanted to put herself in the movie, not Belle.
Belle was "my princess" growing up. She looked like me, loved to read, dressed in my favourite colours, was the weird outsider, and was seen as a wonderful character because of it! Then came Emma to spit in my face and utterly destroy Belle by "finally" "make her strong", which at the same time tells all us nerds were wesk and worthless. Someone else here in the comment section said it felt like betrayal and that's a really good description!
She was my princess too.
As an autistic child there wasn't many characters I related to. She represented a level of calm confidence and gentleness I felt I could aspire to
Also Emma Watson’s Belle is just plain RUDE
• Gaston asks her to dinner and she doesn’t even attempt to come up with an excuse why she doesn’t want to and she walks away with a disgusted look on her face. (Look i get that Gaston is the villain but Belle was never nasty in anyway to him, especially if he wasn’t doing anything wrong).
• Belle walks threw the girls doing laundry without consideration
• Shoves the candelabra into The Beast’s face Immediately after DEMANDING he comes into the light.
• Tells The Beast “I’d starve before I ever ate with you.” Like come on girl I know you are a prisoner but in the original she never lost her civility and to me that speaks of her strength at being able to treat her captor with minimal respect.
• Reluctantly drinks the soup without utensils after basically rolling her eyes
I’m sure there are other examples but that is all the ones I could think of on the top of my head.
In my original script, I was going to talk about how she turned his dinner offer down! To me, it was lame, poorly done, and it was supposed to be a major "boss betch" moment that failed miserably. In the original, Belle would have never acted that way. She would have kindly and respectfully turned him down without any of the snarky or condescending attitude. Emma's Belle comes off as very highbrow and judgmental.
@@WondrousJoJo 100% this Belle does not deserve ANYONE in the village or castle! Another BIG Rude moment for Emma Watson’s Belle was after she leaves the west wing and flees the castle. In this version she almost seems MAD at the beast for yelling at her! Like really girl YOU walked into the ONE place you were told not to go, the beast has EVERY RIGHT to yell at you! At least in the original she was fleeing in terror and says “promise or no promise i can’t stay here another minute” (her tricking her father and the beast instead of promising to stay there is another thing I didn’t like that they did to her character).
Belle being civil to the beast is one of the main reasons that they were able to grow their relationship. The scene with the soup was a way for her to connect with the beast even in a simple way, showing that he can still eat without utensils OR making a mess.
@@cherrylimeali4393 Emma Watson’s body language spoke of her irritation of his eating habits and a reluctant middle ground, not compassion. This is very different from the same scene (this time with porridge) in the animated version where Belle sees the beast struggle to eat with a spoon before putting down her own utensil and picking up her bowl to drink. There is no making him feel bad, just understanding and compassion
@@moviemelody2210 I was referring to the original scenes with my comment. The remake's aren't endearing at all and lose their purpose.
Them letting her wear ear cuffs and no corset like fit the theme and setting 😭
Yes! Her dress is by far the worst because of it! They had a different design originally. And it’s so aggravating because the original dress is such a classic and my personal favorite!
Oh boy, as one of those nerd girls the original Belle represented, the remake was a monstrosity. Well, ok, maybe not the worst overall, some of the cast did quite well. But Emma Watson as Belle ... she really was the worst one to play Belle. And then the costumes ... Oh man, I have watched a few videos from fans of the cartoon compare and contrast these two and show just how bad the remake is. You all put into words how I felt about this remake, but I don't think one word has come out, and that's betrayed. I feel betrayed because everything Belle stood for, everything about her that I looked up to, was stripped away from her like the stepsisters tearing up Cinderella's dress. So yeah, those are some of my thoughts on it.
P. S. I'm into writing because of Belle too, so it really hits hard.
I think you've got a point! Betrayed is definitely a valid feeling. I love the analogy of the stepsisters tearing the dress off! Belle is my top favorite, with Cinderella being a ridiculously close 2nd. I am VERY particular about the both of them.
Thank goodness I never watched the 2017 movie. From the reviews I seen and read Emma Watson’s Belle was so rude and snotty! Belle was into fantasy and magic. Belle is a very imaginative person just like me because I love writing stories using my imagination.
Yes, I agree with the consensus that Emma's Belle was snotty. I was considering adding in examples and dedicating an entire section to it, but I ultimately decided against it.
And yes! Belle is very imaginative. One of the best escapists Disney had to offer. I love her!
The original Belle had a sense of joy and wonder about the outside world. She had an openness, and sweetness and awe that made us want to experience that world with her. Watson's Belle is already jaded and pessimistic by the time we meet her. She is arrogant and closed off to her own world and also to the audience, so it makes it hard to relate to her.
Lily Collins should've been Belle. She's had experience portraying a fairytale princess, she can sing, and she has that youthful, innocent, optimistic yet elegant and mature Disney-esque look to her that Belle has. We were robbed. I'm sure Emma's great in other projects, but she was painfully miscast as Belle. 🥀🌹
I had to look her up. I don't think I even knew Phil Collins had a daughter. From looks alone, I absolutely agree with you! She even has the hazel eyes! I do see what you mean about her having "fairytale princess" experience (because of "Mirror Mirror"). I haven't heard much of her singing other than "I Believe", so I'm not fully sold on the singing just yet. But yeah, so far, she seems like she would have been a more promising choice!
100%
She has the right looks, charm and intelligence
Agreed with everything you said. Here are my two cents as well: The way she treated Gaston told me everything I needed to know. Gaston is not a good person in either version, but OG Belle came at him with light-hearted humor and a cleverness that was charming to watch. She found unique ways to insult him and get him out of her hair. She was still entertaining him despite his pestering because he wasn't too awful, until she finds out what he did with her father. Watson's Belle was more dismissive from the jump, unfunny, and came off more rude than he did at times. I didn't feel happy watching Watson; she came off like a big know-it-all, so much so, I found the villain to be more likable!
Emmy Rossum would have been the perfect Belle
Cause that was Emma Watson's self-insert not the Belle character from the animated movie
Emma always just plays herself. she was 100% the weak link in Little Women too.
Same Jo.
It's like Emma decided that Belle needed to be a snooty highbrow girl -- none of this genre fiction, only literary, only classics, only things high school and college students are forced to read while a pretentious instructor goes on and on about why the curtains are colored blue and the symbolism behind it. Like... way to suck the fun out of a story.
XD
It kind of felt like Watson tried to make Belle's story in the image of a romanticized Bronte-sisters character.
Her Belle was truly giving us nothing. I will also never recover from how badly they butchered Belle’s yellow gown 😭
"Giving us nothing." 😂 I love it! And yes, that dress was a massive letdown.
I was bullied severely as a child because I was a geek. When this movie came out, though the bullying didn't stop, I saw myself in Belle. The changes here are AWFUL. Emma was actually given a lot more sway than she should have had. When she said "We thought X," she really means she was a part of that. She also had majority say in her costumes, and she wanted the ball scene to have less emphasis on beauty, and for her to toss the dress on the way back to the village (how did she undress while on the horse?) and then throw is to represent shunning beauty ideals. She went so heavy-handed with the changes she wanted and got that it was like being beaten upside the head.
I was so excited to see this movie. Genuinely. Even excited about Emma being in it. Since then, though, I can't stand watching anything with her in it.
Totally agree. While I like Emma Watson, I don’t think that she fits as Belle. Maybe this isn’t fair, but I feel like she almost comes off too posh, which takes away from the quality of Belle. She can relate to Belle, but she doesn’t embody Belle.
I actually like Emma Watson, too. However, yeah, I think her Belle comes off as too uppity, almost like she thinks she's better than everyone else in the town... kind of smug. I genuinely believe that Emma adores Belle. But, as you've suggested, you can love something and simultaneously just not be a good fit or match.
Belle is already feminist.
French
Educated
Doesn't accept a relationship that's forced on her
Doesn't accept stereotypical gender roles
Shes just a romantic who connects with outcasts. Yes the beast imprisons her. He was gonna imprison her dad. It wasnt a "dominate the woman" thing it was a "living in shame" thing. And when Belle realized he was actually pathetic and lonely he lets her go and she thinks its sweet.
Preach!
“Two cities in Northen Italy, I didn’t want to come back” doesn’t that invalidate her desire for adventure and “something more than this provincial town”? It gives wealthy Eat Pray Love vibes rather than teenager stuck in her 1800s century small town. Travel is arguably still today a hobby for the elites!!
Good point. I agree.
I hated how they took away Belle's ballerina movement. The animatiors studied how dancers moved, walked and gestured, and they created her movement from this.
I grew up dancing ballet and i loved this aspect so much!
Emma's stomping her way through 'Belle' with slumped shoulders and ugly boots was not in any way Belle.
Finally someone who talks about this 🙌 All Disney princesses had grace and poise, and Emma as Belle had none! She so badly needed Julie Andrews as a coach in princessing 😂The shoulders especially drove me up the wall. Stand up straight, dammit! You're a _PRINCESS_ !
Belle was perfect the way she was in the 1991 cartoon. Maybe it's because she's portrayed by Emma Watson, but she's just so unlikable in the 2017 movie. The villagers are still ignorant, but she has this uppish, holier-than-thou vibe. It's crazy, because you have the men saying "Women shouldn't be doing this" and then you have Belle being all "I'm better than all of you! Everyone's an idiot except me!" and she ironically comes across as the rude one.
I definatly agree.
Also...
Speeking of nerd:
Quick History lesson
Does Italy have a monarchy?
No, we don't. At lest not anymore.
But in Belle's time there would have actually been many diffrent kindoms ruling over northen northen Italy, with the big kindom of Naples in the south. So it was a perfect set up for a royal story.
Consider me educated! 😁
Ummm.......isn't this story French? Did I miss something? Like, Cinderella is an English story? Rapunzel is German, right? Maybe I'm missing something and that's the problem? ❤️😄
@@J.SofferRemake Belle talks about a story that takes place in "two cites in northen Italy". Which it's just kind boring compres to what animated Belle reads. Even if thr Beauty and the Beast is set in France that doesn't mean that other countires didn't exist back then. Since Italy was a place full of diffrent kindoms it's a perfect setting for a fantastical story about knigthhood and royalty
Belle would have been the D&D player with explosive energy and imagination that gets forced into the forever DM role XD
I remember 17 year old me was really excited for the movie. The trailers really did move me in A way because of the soundtrack…and because one of my favourite Disney Movies was getting a live action adaptation! Who wouldn’t be excited?!
I remembered when I watched it the first time, I admit I was blinded by nostalgia and I loved it. But then rewatching it a few years later, I begun to notice some problems. Plus my disappointment for her yellow iconic dress amplified. Not to mention that at the end, I just felt like the chemistry and true love felt between Belle and the beast just…wasn’t all there.
They definitely got Belle wrong. If I thought any better, her live portrayal would be kind of like Giselle. But of course not as naive, intelligent, a bookworm.
I agree about the "romantic" chemistry. It didn't feel genuine to me.
Even when you look at her interactions with the Beast, like in that scene where they were eating. The way she was glaring at him made her look as if she was scolding him, and even when she decided to meet him half-way, it felt like she was doing him a favor.
Yeah, that scene gave off the wrong vibe. Have you ever heard of the song "Rich Girl" by John Oats and Daryl Hall (Hall & Oats)? Emma's character reminds me a little of that song, haha.
I mean live action Beast acts like a snob/a jerk throughout the whole film anyway so . . . I wouldn't blame her.
Belle was written to be in her late teens - it is a particulalrly challenging role as at that time of one's life you have left some of the childishness and naivity behind, but not completely. Emma Watson plays the role like a bored Victorian aristocrat who is so frustrated with life and having nothing better to do he smokes all day, drinks scotch and shoots people with sarcastic remarks.
In my view, Belle is like Juliet in the ballet - it is such a technically challenging part that only a mature ballerina can tackle it, yet by the time you reach that level, you no longer have the energy and vibe of the 14 years old Juliet.
I also don't think Watson is beautiful. Certainly not enough.
Some notes on the feminist BS that Watson pushed into the movie-
1) Most girls of the time knew how to read. It was standard at the time period for girls to learn how to read at home. It nessisary for them to know how to read in life- for cookbooks, pamphlets, letters, etc. Hell, the original sort that beauty and the beast was based off of was written by a woman and published in a ladies magazine! Also, women were the center of the French Revolution, remember!
2) She refused to wear a corset as a feminist statement. 1- She wouldn’t wear a corset, she’d wear a pair of stays. 2. Corsets weren’t torture devices. They were basically bras before bras. Everyone from the richest noble ladies to the poorest peasants would wear them! 3. They would be worn over a shift- basically a slip- this would absorb bodily monsters and prevent chafing.
I was named after the original movie. My mom was in high school when it came out and she absolutely fell in love with it. So she promised to name me Belle, which she did. (My legal name is Isabelle, but everyone calls me Belle.) I grew up watching the original, Belle is the reason I read and the reason I sing. The remake was such a slap in the face to me because it felt like a part of me was being stomped on by people who just wanted to make money. I had such high hopes for this movie and I was so disappointed in it.
This is both a beautiful and sad story. To be named after an amazing character... only to then have the company soil it decades later. Ugh!
Don't worry, you're not alone. I HATED this remake. My grandparents keep saying "It's the same, you should love it." IT IS NOT the same and IT SUCKS
I hated it. It's not the worst of the live actions but I still hate it
Thanks, I hate it
Edit: That interviewer sounded so bored XD
"Thanks, I hate it!". Reminds me of a Lindsay Ellis video of the same topic, haha!
@@WondrousJoJo I actually watched her video on this movie and it must have stuck with me or something.
Also I'm a fellow nerd :) Your video was great
Thank you so much!
@@WondrousJoJo that was literally the title of her review. She was the target audience for this, and she still didn’t like it, yet Disney has double down on it since then and after the latest board vote, it looks like there is no end in sight to this Weaponized cringe.
I think the writers had watched to many nitpicky moviesins videos. Because we didn't need a backstory for Gaston, we didn't need to have the "plothole" of how no one remembered the prince and the castle, no one actually wanted to know where Belles mother was.
I've... never liked Emma Watson. I always found her acting to be, well, very act-y. She was much better when she was younger, but around Prisoner of Azkaban and definitely by Goblet of Fire, her acting suddenly got atrocious ("I'm not an owl!" stands out to me as a moment of just bad acting. That whole scene by the lake where she goes off on Harry despite passing messages for Ron. Also from PoA "If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too!"). I knew the second they cast her that she was only cast because she was Hermione and had been fancast as Hermione for at least a decade before any live action remakes were annoucened. The second bad omen was the fact they missed how NOBODY WEARS BLUE BUT HER AND THE BEAST.
I don't know if it's just her or how her characters get written, but Emma's nerd girl character is always very.... very aggressive. She (but mostly screenwriter Steve Kloves) also removed the "nerdy" aspect from Hermione in favour of making her more of an ass-kicker. Something that irked me very much was how Belle rejected femininity. It's subtle, but there. She tucks her skirt into her belt so she has her petticoat (pants) out, and tears off the prom dress ballgown to wear basically underwear but most importantly, pants. The whole scene with the wash bucket and the teaching the girl to read are *rejecting femininity* as it's seen in the movie. Live Action Belle is NOT a feminist icon like Emma thinks.
Emma Watson is such a... bad feminist, because she seems to think there is a wrong way to be a girl. I think she very much buys into the idea that a "strong female character" is one who gets to kick ass (even if just verbally). Belle's power was always her compassion and kindness. Her selflessness. But that gets taken away. It felt like Belle was just trying to do brave things to reject femininity? She wouldn't wear a corset. She got rid of Belle's skirts the second she could. Emma Watson thinks feminine is not feminist. This mindeset of hers- that's what ruined Belle. Along with the writing. I have to blame the screenwriters for this. But I also know a lot of it is her fault.
Almost every single one of Disney’s remakes misunderstand what made the original princesses so interesting.
Every single one but Cinderella!
It's crazy how Rachel Zeigler was harassed and bullied by the entire internet last yeay by SAYING that Disney changed some parts of the Snow White story for the reboot to be more progressive than the original movie that's been CONSTANTLY criticised by the internet for being unprogressive, and how she was scared of the original story as a child, but Emma Watson actually ruined Belle in Beauty and the Beast and talked shit about the original movie, despite it already being a progressive movie, and most of the internet is fine with it.
Neither of these were OK, but between the two, Rachel Ziegler was more obnoxious. Both of them seem to have forgotten key plot points and character traits from the originals.
I'll be the devil's advocate here: whenever stars say "Oh I tried to give this spin to the character", especially in a Disney production, that just means this is what the director told them to do with the character. So Belle's more prominent feminism is more on the directors and writers than Emma herself. I do agree with all other critiques of her performance though, which was indeed lackluster.
About the geek part, tbh I never thought about that in this perspective when I was a kid. I'm a huge nerd myself but even as I grew up, I saw her as someone who used books as escapism from her average reality in a small town. Not just to fantasy worlds, just... outside! (which I did and still do relate to)
And considering how they made both Belle and the Beast to bond over this desire to explore the world later on in the movie, I feel like it was a choice that made sense. Doesn't mean she doesn't like romance or fantasy. Just means she wants to explore the world and books are part of what helps her with that. It's still a part of her character, as she mentions in her song . "I want adventure in the great wide somewhere, I want it more than I can tell". Beast also having that desire to discover and explore (in the movie) and being trapped in his castle fits the second part of the song ("and for once it might be grand to have someone understand") more than the original, since Beast doesn't really "get" her love for books and adventure (but still supports her which is fine!)
That's a-ok! Devilishly advocate away!
I've always had a sneaking suspicion in the back of my mind that the actresses are really just doing what they're told by the actual people pulling the strings. With that said, I believe that the actress is still given a lot of room for their own ideas and influence. This is where they can use that creative freedom to help bring the character to life in best-faith to the original. This is especially important when these girls say things along the lines of "_____ is my FAVORITE Disney Princess, and I loved her so much growing up!" Well, if they love her that much and claim her as their all-time favorite, then why don't they seem to really get the character or her story? It reminds me of how Halle Bailey said that Ariel's story was "all about a boy". 😮💨
I do think that that's the case a lot of the time, but Emma has been a feminist activist for a long time. So I don't think it was the directory or Disney etc in this case. I truly think she had a big influence on Belle's portrayal and wouldn't be surprised if she was doing so by bullying others around to get her way.
I’ve seen trees and wood with more passion than Emma in this film.
My boy is out here speaking straight facts yet again 👏 ! Until we had Big Hero Six with Honey Lemon we didn’t really have a nerdy female character who was both feminine and geeky. Belle was, and still is at least in the official list, the neediest Disney princess. Ariel might be second because she wants to learn about things too but it’s more curiosity than being a nerd. Idk she’s a nerd for human things I suppose. Every princess was defined by a single trait almost, if you wanted to be that guy. They all believed, they were all as smart as they could be, they were mostly romantics, but they had one big characteristic or skill. Cinderella can sew, Ariel can sing, Rapunzel can paint, Merida can shoot arrows, Tiana can cook, etc etc. Belle was the bookish one, now she didn’t make a lot of smart decisions sometimes so i wouldn’t call her the most “smart” princess but she’s educated and there is a difference. I think in terms of clever and smart, Mulan would be the one. But Belle is still the only one who loves fantasy and books. She would adore Lord of The Rings, she would love going to Renaissance fairs, she would do cosplay and read comics and collect different variants of books and shockingly she would like Harry Potter, though she would identify with Luna NOT Hermoine. Quirky outcasts with quirky outcast father and dead mother, befriends beasts and is sweet natured but head strong when need be. Now for me I identify with Cinderella more, though I have hoarding tendencies of Ariel, the artistic inclination of Rapunzel, the sweetness of Snow White, and the stubbornness and sass of Jasmine when I want to. Belle has always been there, never disliked her or adored her. I liked her just fine. However the remake made me realize how much I loved her truly. That’s what stuff like this can do, that’s all they are good for is reminding you the original was better even if it wasn’t your favorite. I’m tired of Disney feminizing their ladies. It started with Alice and kept getting worse and worse. Jasmine was the worst case because she was already progressive! Same with Mulan! Already progressive! But dang guys what did you do to Belle? Her dress is awful, it looks like you got it from the clearance section at Ross and then took scissors to it like a preteen cutting their bangs for the first time. The designs for her outfits are bad bad bad but beyond that her personality is…it’s stinky. She’s stuck up, she’s snooty, she’s a know it all, she’s got a minor superiority complex, she’s bland and mono tone, she can’t sing any better than decent enough not get booed off of a cruise line karaoke night, she’s ignorant, she’s stand offish, and her romance with the beast doesn’t even make sense. It feels by the books like they have to for a quota. It feels like a movie, which sounds odd but the original is an experience, it’s art. When you watch a movie you want to forget it’s a movie, not see the actors or feel them rehearsing their lines for other parts, you want the chemistry to dazzle you and to cry when it’s sad, you want to laugh when it’s funny. That’s why I hate it’s just a movie people because it’s more than that. Everyone was destroyed in this film, except Maurice somewhat and don’t even get me started on Lefou. As a bisexual Disney fan, it was beyond stinky to make him a flamboyant gay. Belle being an inventor by proxy isn’t bad, she kind of was because she knew what items to give her father to help with his stuff so if she picked up a couple things she could have some inventing skill. It wouldn’t be bad if she’s a tinker and a bookish person, just don’t steal it all from Maurice. Maybe have her doing the laundry the “normal way” and have her make an invention to hold up the book and flip the pages? Or invent something that preserves the paper so it doesn’t yellow or invent the book mark I DONT KNOW something small and relevant. She can teach a girl to read too, that’s fine, but have Gaston, the town A-hole, be the one to say his line “It’s not right for a women to read,” yada yada. Maybe even instead have her teaching a small group of kids because kids are the only villagers who don’t judge her and Gaston says the only stories she should read are stories about him to their future 6-7 male children. Also have her invite the book shop owner to live in the palace or get him a bigger book shop and fill it with the books form the library so everyone can read! And her father can marry Miss Potts and Belle could read stories to Chip, he would be her little brother. Just ideas that could have been added to make this story fresh and new but still feel like the old one. Anyways I rambled ALOT but thanks for your review. Amazing as always ❤️
I can always count on you to give so much detail, opinion, and insight on a topic. 😁
When I was in my late teens, I always thought that Maurice and Potts could marry. I mean, why not? They're both older single parents who have adventurous and curious children who both get along very well.
If Maurice had stayed an inventor who was aspiring to create a name for himself (a "world-famous inventor"), but there were also signs that Belle dabbles in that arena thanks to her father, I'd be far more accepting of that. But no, Maurice became a shell of his former self. His ambitions and dreams were taken from him, all in the name of 'improving Belle'. It grinds my gears that current Disney keeps reducing men to uplift women. It's to the point where I almost want to make an entire video on it! Ugh!!!
I meant to shout out other nerds in the video, but I forgot. I was going to shout out Milo (even though he's a guy). I love Milo's nerdy/geeky disposition as well. Belle had everything BUT being male. That's where Milo came in for me (and having glasses, haha). I appreciate them both.
As always, thank you for your support! 💜
@@WondrousJoJoYou’re so welcome! If you make a short or a shorter video about the nerdy characters Disney has made I would love that. Include: Lilo, Zoey from Proud family, Wade from Kim Possible, Milo Thatch, Honey Lemon(pretty much everyone on that movie is a nerd to some degree but Honey barely gets any love and it’s still not often we get an overly feminine kawaii nerd), Ferb and Phineas, honestly PJ, Bobby, and Max all feel like a bit dorky/geeky in the first Goofy Movie especially PJ and Bobby, Merlin is a bit of a nerd, Jane from Tarzan(though this may just be she’s an excitable primatologist and zoologist), if you wanna get obscure Doctor Doppler from Treasure Planet, in the Tangled Series there is Varian(though this would take seeing the series but he is best boy lol), and pretty much every girl and Tyler from Turning Red are nerdy/geeky/dorky to some degree. I’m sure I’m missing someone but I don’t want to get so obscure that only I would know them lol
I have to agree I didn't like the change in personality. I am a girl nerd who loved to escape into a story but wasn't very "smart". I lived that about Belle and I feel like the new version feeds into this idea that women can't be weird or different unless they are the best at something masculine. When I had first heard she was cast I didn't like it because she has an "everyday girl next door" look. People kept saying that was accurate because Belle is "an outcast nerd" so of course she's a bit of a plain Jane. Completely forgetting the movie starts off with people singing about how she is a drop dead baddie.
Yes! She's a gorgeous geek. Those exist! The stereotype that geeks look weird and usually aren't attractive is so stupid!
I'm not entirely sure if the problem with Emma Watson's Belle was a writing problem or an acting problem. Possibly both. Rather like Watson's singing, the character was auto-tuned to a perfect technical performance with the result of essentially sucking the life out it.
I think the fault was between them both. At the end of the day, Emma did not use her leverage to keep the spirit of the chatacter intact. She instead used her power to avoid corsets and make Belle an inventor. 🙄
@@WondrousJoJo both of those rubbed the wrong way so hard! First of all Belle would not have been wearing a corset in 18th century France she would be wearing a flexible, and very comfortable, set of stays. You literally cannot do the Victorian cliche of lacing them till you fainted becuase it destroy the stays. But my history nerd rage aside, Belle the Inventory was completely arbitrary and a prime example of how the Checkov's Gun rule is supposed to work; Belle is showed being an inventory and it's set up as a character point for her but we never see the payoff from it. The most we get is Belle giving her father a hairpin to pick a lock.
Omg the auto tune was sooooooo annoying!!
It should have been called Lady of the Night and the Beast. Seriously with how much we see her underwear and her undergarment if she was really in living 1800 she would have been a scandal. I would disagree Belle isn't a nerd she is a dreamer and usess book as an escapism ......dreaming of advanture to get away from her everyday to day but that might just me since if she was a nerd she would be researching information up that she has read in her book.
I laughed at "scandal"! 😆
I personally classify Belle as a geek than a nerd, and I'm quite sure my thumbnail alluded to that as well. Society typically doesn't know the difference and just lumps us all together, although we do have some overlapping.
I feel your pain. In recent years we've transitioned from "show, don't tell" in media to "tell, never show", making every message shallow at its core as it comes off as political statement in an inappropriate setting. Entertainment turning into education isn't a good thing in my book, it kills subtlety and undermines critical, independent thinking in audiences.
I hate that Emma talked about adding depth to Belle like she didn't already have depth.
She was already a feminist
Emma Watson's nauseating pretentiousness overall ruined the move for me.
Unfortunately, she did bring an air of pretentiousness to the role. :(
In the original, the fact that the villagers were just talk makes the violent mob at the end more shocking and impactful. As a child, you are surprised that Gaston is able to work these people into a frenzied mob. And children receive a warning about such things happening. Try to keep an eye out for manipulation.
Where as with the live action you're like, these people are going to kill someone. The ending impact isn't there, and the lesson is more so that people are dangerous. As opposed to, a mob and mob mentality is dangerous.
Yes! I agree!
Tbh I always imagined Emma Watson as Belle. Not neccessarily the Disney Belle, but just in general from the orignal fairytale (or any adaptation) as "Belle" or "Beauty", I even once really randomly found a GIF of Emma Watson in some pretty dress and the GIF was titled sth like "Emma Watson as Belle" and I was like oh wow. Then I found out oh Disney plans a Live Action adaptation of their own animated Beauty and the Beast with Emma Watson playing Belle. I was so hyped, I thought they did the perfect choice.... then I watched the movie. The story: bland and not logical, the music was ok (I watched the movie in german so it wasn´t that bad), Belles ballgown HORRIBLE and Belles personality... bland as well. I was sooo disapointed
I laughed when your story transitioned from your ideal Emma as Belle to the unfortunate reality of her performance. 😆 (For real, though... I'm sorry your ideal pick turned out to be a mess. We're all dissatisfied 🥺).
@@WondrousJoJo haha thank you
She's Hermione in every single role she played. In fact she's not even authentic, book Hermione, she is EMMA WATSON watered down, flawless, Mary Sue like portrayal of Hermione.
She carries none of Belle's gentleness and authenticity, it's like if I was to speak to the character I would expect to be admonished somehow.
The gentleness is definitely missing. I feel like this Belle gets a pass to be snooty and judgmental because 'she's female lead and must be aloof to show she is modern and progressive'.
@@WondrousJoJo Exactly ! I can't fathom why people seem to think gentleness and strength of character are mutually exclusive. Belle was gentle, that doesn't mean she would let people (or men specifically) walk over her, and indeed she didn't. When it was time to show authority or firmness she did, but she didn't make people feel stupid
Yes, completely agree with everything. The visuals were nice and in general it was an alright movie, but pales in comparison to the original. You nailed her characterization she felt very plain and boring in the remake. Completely took away representation for us nerds and geeks😔Another change emma did was work closely with the costume designer and refused to wear a corset for a “feminist approach” which is ridiculous cause in the time and setting they’re in it’s historically accurate, has nothing to do with oppressing women, and its equivalent to a modern day bra. Thats why the dress felt like a party city costume and it’s so forgettable. So many changes and yet I feel animated Belle was more of a feminist icon
I heard about the corset, and I think it's a little ridiculous. It's not like she was asked to bind her feet to fit shoes or something more drastic like that. I also don't understand why they used CG on the dress rather than just making an amazing dress. Surely it costs more to add all those elaboarte (yet still underwhelming) effects versus just making a dress. Yes, I feel the same - Belle was already a fantastic feminist icon on top of a geek/nerd icon as well.
@@WondrousJoJo I just searched it up and apparently some guys also wear corsets in the 18th to 19th century, and in the 1700s and 1800s, in the pursuit of the fashion trend of clothes that fit your body like a second skin, some men do wear corsets, in the 18th to 19th century it was mostly about maintaining a desired body shape for men.
And because people had to lace it up tightly, over time it trains you to have an upright posture.
And like if you wear a corset and feel uncomfortable, then it means you lace it up too tight, it should never be laced up so tight that you feel like you cannot breath.
I once read a novel about someone living in the 19th century, and I was just so happy to see how they added the detail of the female lead wearing a corset because it was historically accurate and it just immersed me in the story even more than I already was, I never viewed it as oppressing when I saw that in the story.
it made me so sad, because growing up belle was one of my favorite disney princesses (along with mulan and pocahontas), and i was super excited for the live action, but then they cast emma watson and i was immediately disappointed because she just didn't really fit the image of belle imo, and as a brunette kid who loved the only brunette disney princess, it was frustrating seeing her made blonde. and then she went and ruined the dress.... frankly breaks my heart how horribly they ruined the movie. :(
I second your feelings of disappointment... but... when was Belle blonde?
In my very shortlived childhood, it was rare that i was allowed to watch what i wanted. When i did, i always chose disney. My mother would twist the messages, like when we got tangled she sided with mother gothel and was both shocked and upset that mother gothel was the villain. Needless to say, tangled wasnt put on the list of options after that and she claimed gothel was a good mother.
It breaks my heart, the way women today see the disney princesses as weak or characatures, or damsels in distress. Because growing up in a home that cut ye world out and told me women were ony products for sale, a home where girls werent allowed to speak for themselves, have personalities, and where i was toldevery day that i had to make somehing of myself by having and raising children (barefoor and pregnany is a womans legacy mind set), a real damsel in distress situation, these princesses were my heros.
Belle gave me the want for an education.
Snow white taught me work ethic (she kept a house full of men tidy. We couldnt keep our house full of women even a fraction of tidy for more than ten minutes. That takes dedication!)
Ariel taught me that curiousity and looking beyond what you know doesnt have to be terrifying.
Aurora/brier rose and Cinderella taught me to dream and to wish.
Pocahontas taught me to defend others and see with eyes unclouded by hate.
Mulan taught me loyalty and standing for those who cant.
Jasmin taught me to be brave.
And while i know theyre not technically recognized as disney princesses:
Kida taught me to be open to possibilities.
Nala taught me to look for solutions to my problems (yes, i realize her solution was simba, but that wasnt an easy journey. Think about ye time skip.)
Meg taught me its never too late to redeem yourself.
And Esmeralda taught me to be kind.
Wtf... Gothel literally kidnapped Rapunzel.
@@cherrylimeali4393 yeah. And my mother was a narcissist who turned our family into a cult, put me into an arranged engagement when I was six, and rented my sister's to pedophiles. Gothel was her hero.
I can never forgive Emma Watson for what she did to that dress. And, YES, Emma Watson. Hollywood needs to stop the trend of letting actors make decisions they are unqualified to make. She is not a customer, historian, expert on the original movie, nor has ever done costuming for major motion pictures.
Same goes with her modifying Belle. She is not a script writer, director, etc, etc, etc… Her job is ACTING and promoting the movie.
How could she even travel when she’s taking care of her father? Thats why she had to travel by books
back when i saw this remake in 2017, all we could talk about how lumiere DABBED in be our guest. that was the only thing i remember the remake for.
Lol, I didn't even notice that!!! 😂 I just looked it up, and it's TRUE!!
I tried to convince people that movie was bad. Idk why they didn’t listen. It sounded autotuned heavily. They went historical for everyone else’s costumes except for belle, which wouldn’t be a problem if they did the dress from the animated movie, but they didn’t do that either. We basically got a Cinderella live action dress in yellow. Belle has such a unique dress in the animations
Yeah... and we're not getting another remake any time soon. That pathetic dress is going to be around for many decades.
I'm gonna just say it.
I don't care what her age was. Anne Hathaway should've been casted as Belle if all they wanted was an A list actor.
For many years now, I've felt like Emma is just repeatedly portraying herself in every movie. She never really embodies other characters unless a director pushes for it. She did a pretty great Hermione in the first movie, but it wasn't long after that, that I felt like I was just watching Emma on screen, only they had her saying a bunch of long words. She can emote when she wants to, but when it comes to characterization, the girl has absolutely has no imagination whatsoever
She just wasn't right for this role. :(
I used to really like Emma Watson, as a person, but I never thought she was a good actress. She was good in Noah, but that's pretty much it.
I never lkned Emma Watson.
And the way she turned against JK Rowling was just disgusting.
Agreed. She’s so hypocritical, she slanders JK Rowling for spitting facts but she refuses to disavow Ezra Miller for gr00m!ng!
I'll have to look into that whole situation.
@@WondrousJoJo Basically some lady in England was fired for saying she didn’t think trans women are biological women and that there was a difference. Which they aren’t they’re trans women and there is a difference. Sex and gender are different concepts. If it wasn’t people wouldn’t have to go through a transition. JK Rowling made a tweet saying and I’m paraphrasing that “love who ever you want to love so long as you’re both consenting adults, dress and identify however you want, but to force women out of their jobs for stating sex is real is wrong” Many trans people actually agreed with JK Rowling. People like Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe attacked her though. Calling her a transphobe and said she’s a bigot. Emma Watson says she will never work with her again because of this stuff. Then her best friend Ezra Miller was in trouble for doing stuff so messed up I don’t even think I could type it out on RUclips. You can google what he did because I don’t think I can even type it out. Emma Watson refuses to speak out against him and he was reportedly always her best friend. People say she’s hypocritical for attacking JK Rowling but refusing to speak out against Ezra Miller. I agree with this because what he did is actually awful and all we hear are crickets from Emma.
JKR is the reason Emma has a such a big career in the first place.
Also, despite the metoo movement, rape apoligism is still as prevalent as ever in Hollywood. It's only a matter of having the right political views and all that.
I don’t hate Emma Watson as Belle, but if there was anyone else I would have picked it would be Emmy Rossum, shes a singer and actor. But who knows maybe she never auditioned because she was on shameless at the time
Woah! This girl is pretty! I don't think I've ever seen this actress before! I can see her looking the part for Belle!
@@WondrousJoJo watch her in the phantom of the opera
I’ve always wished there was a Time Machine Do over where Emmy was belle! But nobody auditioned for this part, the movie was made for Emma, which is maybe why she was able to have so much character input.
@@jasminewilliams1673 oh that makes a lot of sense now
In the animated movie you can literally hear the smile in Paige O'Hera's voice when she sings! Bell was kind but had her head completely in the clouds so she was oblivious to the village around her. The live action version failed to capture the spark that illuminated the characters in the original.
I’m still livid that she made such a huge deal about the stupid corset! And that she was given so much creative control over her portrayal of Belle just because Disney really wanted Emma to be Belle.
Thank you so much for this! As a representative of the nerds, we stand with you! Belle was literally my favourite princess. She is clever and soft and feminine all at once. She doesn't have to or need to be a girl boss. Infact it's what makes her more realistic and more appealing and relatable. I loved your point about her being a woman 2nd in the animated and a woman 1st in the live action. I feel like that's such a big problem nowadays. A character's gender shouodn't be any more a part of their personality than their hair colour. Who cares. Belle was loveable and relatable (and hated by the village) not becuase she was a woman but because of her character. Because she was different amd misunderstood. And apparently she continues to be misunderstood😢. This was honestly my biggest issue with the live action. Well and the lack of chemistry with the beast...and the sucking of colour out of everything...and the lack of the enchanted objects...and Belle's ballgown.. who are we kidding there were too many problems😂 But thank you for outlining this one so calmly and with so much love❤
You're most welcome! It was a labor of love. It needed to be done for our culture! 💜
If Rachel McAdams were a little younger (not even) she would have been THE BELLE we all deserved. She has the same charm, kindness, sweetness, and intelligence. The looks are UNCANNY.
Plus everything u said in the video - Emma Watson was the wrong choice, she was as up her own ass about her intelligence as Gaston was about his looks. Why would she have a reason to hate him if the narcissism is the same?
Not sure if McAdams can sing but they use singing voices all the time, like with Rebecca Ferguson in Greatest Showman.
Emma Watson and Dan Stevens had ZERO chemistry. Belle and Beast (Prince Adam) had a deep attraction to each other intellectually and physically. That connection was there.
Thank you for this!!!
Belle is my favourite Disney character much less Disney Princess.
Growing up I was seen as “odd” and an “outsider” because of my absolute love of books, music, singing, and fantasy.
Seeing Belle as a little girl, I saw myself.
I always took the story to heart and I believe that not judging someone by appears but by their actions and their heart is one of the best lessons Disney ever gave.
Emma’s Belle broke my heart. As a musical theatre performer who at the time dreamed of playing Belle on stage, saw an actress with an agenda who created a completely different, snobbish and rude character, not the Belle I grew up with, which was both Paige O’Hara from the animated movie and Susan Egan from the Broadway musical.
She also is not a strong enough singer for the role. Having a few months of voice lessons doesn’t all of a sudden mean you can lead in a movie musical!!
When you’re feeling more for Gaston and his character development, dealing with this PTSD from the war as well as his obsession with “protecting” Belle, that’s a MAJOR problem.
I think you really hit the nail on the head. Belle was already strong, smart and feminist, but she’s also a lovable and passionate geek who tries to see the best in everyone, is polite, kind and most of all, compassionate and loving.
Emma unfortunately had none of those qualities.
Fun fact the first thing my dad, one of the original DND nerds, tried to get his children into was DND. And when I started going around as a girl, trying to get people to play dragon games and fantasy stuff, *everyone* looked at me weird. Nerd stuff might have been a little rude to women in specific circles, but there were always people hoping to bring everyone, boys and girls, nerds and jocks, into the nerd fold as long as they were willing to learn and play by the same rules. It wasn't a boy's thing even back in the 80s, *everyone* thought fantasy nerds, both boys and girls, were weird.
You're right though. That was why everyone thought Belle was weird. She was too busy with her head in the clouds and imagining things instead of staying down-to-earth. The baker was dismissive of her because he had *work* to do making bread and didn't have time to talk about beanstalks. I'm sure if she was helping the baker *and* imagining things, no one would have thought it as weird. Girl didn't do anything around the town. Didn't help the shepherd with his sheep, hitching rides on carriages without so much as a "thanks"... she was a loafer. No wonder everyone thought she was weird. It was only Gaston who didn't like her reading because of his hatred of women "thinking".
I was that geaky girl who LITERALLY walked around the playground reading books (and somehow not bumping into things!)... lost in the magical worlds of adventure within.
I had no friends. I was odd. I would go off by myself and create beautiful fantasy worlds full of adventure and romance.
When i first saw the original at 13 years old it changed my whole perspective of my identity... and it helped me love my geakiness.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I couldn’t put my finger on it but you really made me realize that’s what felt off about Belle’s character in the remake.
I used to really like Belle in the original and it was perplexing to me why I no longer liked her. Unfortunately if I’m being honest, it affected my feelings about the original Belle character too-it’s hard to explain-but it made me wonder what I saw in the character because I couldn’t understand it myself what it was in particular I originally liked.
This was a good review.
In my family I’m the only geek and so I kind of don’t fully understand my own feelings when I haven’t yet been able to determine the logical reasons behind my feelings. And if I try to figure it out with my family basically that doesn’t work because they don’t have the same feelings or interests.
So props. You definitely made a good analysis.
Thank you so much. I am pleased that my analysis resonated with you.
This may be an unpopular comment, but I dont think Emma was beautiful enough to be the most stunning woman in the village. She's pretty and quirky and cute, but we are talking about a character who was renowned for being beautiful. I thought the triplets were lovelier. To me it was stunt casting.
When they cast Cinderella, I got it. She was lovely and had a real kindness about her expression. In Maleficent, I questioned Aurora at first, but when she smiled I was like - yup- I see it.
But no other Disney princess has a name the literally means beauty. Her beauty was what Gaston wanted, but we learned she was so much more than her beauty.
I agree with all of the comments and either Emma isn’t pretty enough to play Belle or they styled her in a way that she doesn’t appear pretty enough to make her look more mature and feminist. I mean she’s supposed to be the most beautiful girl in town it’s not a superficial thing, it was a fact and something that provided a contrast that people weren’t used to or didn’t expect… the most beautiful girl in town likes to read books and doesn’t want the most handsome man in town? What? Emma Watson looks like “a” girl in town who reads books but there’s no way Gaston would choose her for her looks alone, give me a break.
The only things I love about this movie are Luke Evans and Josh Gad as Gaston an Lefou respectively.
The dress didn't fit the silhouette of the time the movie was supposed to be in, it also doesn't look like a "Disney Princess" dress, more like the wish-version of it.
"We took the inventor-characteristik from her father" and why then, didn't you have it set so both are into inventing? If you go down that road make it something she shares with her father, something to bond over.
Reading romance books is apparently not feminist, unless it's a classic where everybody knows the storyline. (I read what I want, and if that's romance then that's that. Reading something you like doesn't have to be anything but fun, and just because you like reading about something doesn't mean you have to like it in reality)
The autotune... If she can't sing good enough, get at least a singer to sing for her? Why do we have to suffer?
Let's not talk about the actual use and functions of corsetts, there is a lot of important history bound to it. (Ballgowns are heavy, a corset helps to better carry that weight, straighten your back and support you. Yes at some point women started to tigh-lace them for thinner waists, no that wasn't what happened all the time and corsets were demonised later on for that reason.)
Why did they make Beast an adult when he got cursed? It is well known he was a child when that happened. (Did they not want to send the message of a child being cautious about a stranger and being promptly punished for having common sense?)
"We turned Belle into a feminist" She already was... that was part of the point in the animated movie?! She's more progressive than the people in the small village with her "big city" thoughts, because she grew up under a mother and father who wanted her to think and question things. Belle didn't need to change to be a certain fraction of what it means to be a feminist in this time, Belle was a feminist in her time. Why make a life-adaptation with modern views? Change the setting if you want modern views! Give us a new movie and don't just call it Beauty and the Beast.
Yeah Emma completely missed the point of Belle women weren't "oppressed" at all in the movie Belle was just, as you said, the oddball nerd who did her own thing ( thus confusing the whole town.) She never had any ideological motives. She just enjoyed reading
I think a lot of the problem, a part from all the things that you stated in the video, is the over-exposition issue going on in current storytelling. The fact that they think audiences are dumb and won´t be able to read between the lines and what is implied rather than directly over explained. Nuance is almost lost nowadays. I don´t think it is that good to try and "morally improve" this films, that really feels like talking down to the audience. Like, "Hey! we have a superior moral than back then and if you don´t agree you are a bad person". That´s why the only live action adaptation that I like is Cinderella. It really feels like it´s own thing yet still doing it´s homage to the direct source material (1950 film) but also taking from the original fairy tales and adding extra things but not to "improve" the 50s animation rather than to expand. Lily James is also great casting as she really embodies the loving personality of Ella. The rest of the adaptations really felt as if they where ashamed of the source material and wanting to make it better or fix it... They choose Emma precisely because of her role as Hermione as a lot of people always compared the two... just because they both like to read?... Like sorry guys but Belle is nothing like Hermione... And Emma is also not a great actress either... No offense but honestly I have seen her in different films and she just plays herself all the time.
Also can we pls setting putting fairytales in the real world? Like ofc you gonna take inspiration from a specific time period and place, but it´s still a fairytale! Idk why but when (both in the animated and live action ones) I hear real life stuff like 1. the stepsisters in 2015 "Cinderella" say sth like "she [Ella] can´t speak french" or 2. in 2017 "Beauty & the Beast" the narrator actually says "Once upon a time there lived a Prince in France" or 3. how Eric in 2023 "Little Mermaid" casually mentions actual zodiac signs like Aries, it kind off ruins the vibe for me. It´s a fairytale, it´s in a different world. You can have much more creative liberty regarding costumes, scenery and even casting when you make it clear that it is NOT set in our real life world.
Just like every other Disney live action, it was dark and depressing. If your character has to drag down the strength of others to build your own up, you’ve missed the boat.
I hate when people say "the original still exists, you can watch them instead", sure you can watch the original but what most people forget is that the kids will grow up not knowing those movies because unlike us those remakes are they're childhood movies. those are the characters they get to know without knowing they are lifeless recreation of an actual good written characters and some won't even bother watching the originals because it would be too old for them to care.
This is pretty spot on. I loved Emma Watson in other films but she felt so flat in this movie. There were just so many frustrating major character and personality changes that I really struggled with this movie, and I wanted to like it. The father doesn’t have the charm or goofiness. We don’t get the humor with Lumierre and Cogsworth. Chip isn’t endearing. And it was all great actors! Their performances just felt wrong. Very frustrating all around for original beauty and the beast fans.
I wanted to love it, too. This was especially true because Belle is my favorite! 😭 The characters were, overall, shells of what they once were.
For the past month it's been like a pastime for me to watch videos roasting the BatB 2017 live action. They are not only fun but insightful and informative as well. And let me say this remake deserves every criticism coming its way.
I think this live action overall tried to "fix" a movie that is already perfect and has nothing that needed fixing to begin with.
I could pinpoint each of Emma Watson's statements about Belle and say how wrong she is or how she doesn't know what she's talking about.
I truly enjoyed this video. Good work👍
Thank you, fellow PS gamer! I'm also into RE as well! But anyway, yes, we have to give the criticisms where necessary. I didn't see anyone else talking about Belle being a geek and having the remake ruin that...so...hey, I took care of it. 😁