Thanks to Goodreads, I just finished re-reading Beauty, by Robin McKinley. I still love it, but it inspired me to revisit Walt Disney’s and Mercedes Lackey’s versions of the fairy tale, as well as the Perrault version. I can’t help but be intrigued by the parallels with McKinley’s version in both the Disney DVD and in The Fire Rose. I don’t read French, so I have been unable to read Le Belle et la Bete and find out whether the parallels are based on a common source.
First, there is the idea that Beauty is somewhat of a misfit before she comes to the Beast’s castle. In Beauty she is the plain one of three sisters, but as she grows older in the castle, her beauty begins to show. In the Disney version she is more of a misfit socially, though always a beauty. In The Fire Rose she is (by early 20th century standards) that most unwomanly of creatures, a (gasp) female scholar.
That leads to the libraries. In all three versions, Beauty (or Belle or Rose) loves books–and all three castles have amazing libraries. In all three, the library plays a strong part in convincing Beauty that the Beast is really a person. In all three, Beauty and the Beast read to each other–though in The Fire Rose it is primarily Rose (the Beauty of that version) who reads to the Beast.
The Fire Rose doesn’t have the element that the servants can only be released from their enchantments when the Beast is, but the half-overheard conversations between the breezes and the occasional animated bit of furniture in Beauty seem to me to foreshadow the conversations between Lumiere and Cogsworth in the Disney version.
I’m going to have to re-read Rose Daughter, another Beauty and the Beast retelling by Robin McKinley.
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We all know that “Beauty & the Beast” is a “5 star” movie. It’s too bad this transfer is not. This is exactly the reason Amazon needs a two-rating system. One for the movie & the other for the actual product. Nobody is getting their movie reviews from Amazon, believe me. What we need to know is if the DVD or Blu-ray is good.
So, let me start by pointing out the good. You get all 3 versions of the movie. The sound is excellent. Very level, deep when it need to be & the music sounds clear & full. Colors in the movie are bright, while the darks are perfect, with no sign of artifacts in them.
Now we get to the bad stuff. Let’s face it, when we’re buying any kind of video product, the picture is the most important thing. If the picture stinks, the whole think stinks. And although the picture on this Blu-ray doesn’t stink, it’s not perfect. Far from perfect in fact.
Let’s start with the first problem, the lines. In hand-drawn animation, the lines are everything. If they are not constant & clear, the characters lose some of their realism. The lines in Beauty & the Beast are very thin, which is great for details. However, digital media is just not able to handle thin lines correctly. Several times pieces of a line will disappear into the color behind it. Most noticeably on Cogworth’s face. His clock face will come through & “bloom” over most of the lines on his face, losing most of the detail. But the main problem with the lines in this transfer are the white “halos” around them. It seems like they used edge enhancements on the characters. But I’m not 100% sure this is what they did, as this halo never appears on any of the backgrounds. All I know is that at certain times, characters will have these halos surrounding their lines. The Beast takes the brunt of this & looks terrible in every shot. Just check out the sharp ends of his fur to see what I mean. Gaston also suffers from this, especially his face. What I did notice is that for the first half of the film, the lines seem to have been drawn with a dark brown color. Later on, the lines are black & this halo problem lessens. So I’m thinking that the problem is the digital media of Blu-Ray, even though it’s high-def is not able to handle the dark brown lines against any brown-based back (flesh, brown fur, tan). When I saw this film at an IMAX theater, I did notice some of the same problems with the lines. So maybe the problem isn’t even the transfer, but the actual film itself. Maybe the transfer is just so high-detail it’s showing the film’s flaws. In any case, these line problems can be distracting at times & I found myself noticing them & focusing on them, rather than the movie itself. Which is not a good thing.
Other video problems include graininess within certain colors, especially yellows or gold, like Lumiere. There is also an annoying strobe like problem, when the action seems to be going fast. This was most noticeable when Maurice is escaping the wolves.
To finish up, we all know the movie is great. Unfortunately, this film just doesn’t look as good as let’s say Pinocchio or Snow White. Which is kind of amazing, considering those movies are 50+ years older than this one.
I would have to say that this is one of my favorite Disney soundtracks, second only to The Lion King. There are so many excellent and memorable songs in here, which have aged very well since my childhood. The CD worked fine for me and was attractively packaged, although I just wanted it to copy to iTunes. You will more than get your money’s worth with this album!