Beauty and the Beast

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Myself

Write Up.

Went and checked out the 3D conversion this morning. Theatre full of horrible kids, but what can you do about that. They had the new Tangled short before the feature and that was really fun, very much felt like more of a Warner Bros. cartoon than disney, putting the animal side kicks, the horse and the chameleon, front and centre in a big crazy action sequence. And I got to gaze upon Flynn Rider's hansom mug once again. Sigh.

I believe Beaty and the Beast was Disney's first 3D conversion but they released Lion King first and only decided to give this a shot once that did well. I have a lot of the same comments about the conversion. The flat spaces of colour don't work in 3D and the lines pop out oddly. Especially strange when characters walk behind or interact with something that's a background element and they never quite seem to match up or just come off as strange. But the opening shots and all the split pane photography looks great.

Also I have to note that once again, I'm staggered at the economy of storytelling. I guess it helps when you can blatantly state objectives via song though.

Did I see Taran from The Black Cauldron chasing his pig in the opening number? That was totally him.  I can also see the seven dwarfs shot reused and the final shot of Sleeping Beauty redone as the final shot of this film.

I'll admit I did tear up a little. Perhaps not when you would think though. They put 3D converted character sketches through the credits and I stayed to look at them, they came out pretty great, probably because they didn't have straight lines so there was detail enough to get the depth from and also because they weren't moving so you had time to let the depth sink in. But right at the end Howard Ashman's little obituary comes up. Touching but very sad indeed.

Nice to see again. 3D didn't add much for in this film though, and I can always do without the screaming kids in the cinemas.