It is a dark time for the free peoples of the galaxy. The evil GALACTIC EMPIRE was dealt a severe blow with the destruction of LE DEATH STAR by the Rebel Alliance at Yavin, but despite this hard-won victory the evil emperor continues to tighten his grip on systems within his domain. However, even in an era of great tyranny, hope lives on in the seasonal rituals celebrated by all species, times that celebrate kindness and charity. As New Life Day approaches, the BEAST must return to his home planet of France to reunite with his family and friends for the yearly time of both somber rememberance and euphoric joy. However, the evil DARTH GASTON, still reeling from the loss of the ultimate galactic weapon, is in pursuit with a fleet of heavily-armed Imperial Star Destroyers. Accompanied by the beautiful BELLE, the Beast makes his way carefully along scarcely travelled hyperspace routes...
-----------Synopsis-----------
The film begins roughly one year A.G. (Anno Gastonini) as the now-human servants and employees of the Beast's castle exchange less-than-witty repartee as Christmas guests stream in from parts far and wide. Cogsworth mentions that although this season is quite lovely, it does not compare to the last, the "time he saved Christmas." Lumiere disagrees, recalling a previous holiday in New York when there were no homicides to investigate, all the Santa-themed spree killers were in Riker's, and the day was spent lounging about in the company of one Jack McCoy (Oh wait, that's another Jerry Orbach role). As neither can agree on the official version of the story, Mrs. Potts is convinced to tell it in a disturbingly omniscient way.
Briscoe: "I want to go to law school so I can learn how to turn gold into lead."
The now-cursed servants, seeing the Beast wandering alone on the snowy grounds of the castle, decide to hatch a minor conspiracy and try and convince Belle to join him. In a happy mood on account of the date being Christmas Eve, Belle decides to teach the Beast a little about ice skating. The Beast... falls on his bottom in depressingly uncharacteristic slapstick. Meanwhile, inside a darkened hall of the manor, we join the likely villian: Forte, a pipe organ voiced by Tim Curry, and his lackey, a piccolo. Forte seems to actually enjoy the curse, and does not want to return to previous days of being an unappreciated court composer. He begins to brood ominiously, as is the custom of anthropomorphic giant musical instruments, waxing poetic about how the Beast needs him and his music (It is a little-known fact that the Chicago fire of 1871 was caused by a scheming 80-foot Tuba named Fritzl. His remains constitute much of the city's sewer systems).
"I cast no shadows, ya'll biscuitheads!"
Knowing that the only way to stay in his organ form would be to keep the Beast from falling in love, he sends his piccolo servant (Fife) to make sure no relationship can form between Belle and his former friend. Both are sent careening into a snowbank; taking advantage of the mishap, Belle makes a snow angel. The beast only sees his enormous imprint, and starts to rage, clawing mercilessly at the hexagonal crystals of H2O which have mocked him so cruelly. Returning to the castle alone, the Beast is comforted by Forte as he looks at the rose, the object of his curse. Turns out that the Beast is something of a grinch when it comes to Christmas. Musical number follows.
Against the wishes of Cogsworth, Belle and the other servants conspire to celebrate Christmas in the castle. Cogsworth actually says "Don't whine, glasses" to wine glasses; sometimes I wonder if these writers load themselves into the back of a pickup at Home Depot. Promises of pudding and brandy finally convince Cogsworth to offer support to the plan. Belle, Chip, and Lumiere begin a long procession up the stairs of a tower to find decorations long in storage. They discover Angelique, the former castle decorator who has been transformed into a christmas angel. A snooty, stereotypically french christmas angel. Yet another musical number.
Unfortunately for the non-goth members of the house, Forte's lackey discovers the plot; he tells Forte, and Forte proceeds to tell the Beast. Hey, awesome, an expository flashback within a flashback! Turns out that it was on a Christmas day long ago that the Beast was visited by the old enchantress who laid the curse upon him and his house. Convienient, eh? Forte consoles the Beast. Meanwhile, Belle, searching for a proper yule log, makes her way to the boiler room and encounters the castle's central heating system, including an axe with an accent best described as New York jewish (more on this later). In fact, the entire room sounds like a stereotypical New York street right out of an episode of Seinfeld (Festivus is absent). Something about a group of Jews working at an oven... but no. The Beast discovers Belle, and rages once more.
LOL PWNT
The Beast, discovering that Belle has left him a small present, asks Forte to compose a song for her as a gift in return. Forte, angered by this request, decides to compose a song that will bring the entire holiday to a halt. Meanwhile, over the obnoxious kvetching of an axe that actually sounds exactly like a member of Dr. Zoidberg's species, Belle tries in vain to find a Christmas tree on the grounds of the castle. Her search is interrupted by music streaming from the castle. Belle finally meets Forte, who lays on the faux charm. He sends Belle and Chip into the forest to find a better tree... and to their doom! Another musical number as the Beast smashes stuff.
In the forest... the wolves hunger. Belle finds the perfect tree, and the stowaway piccolo makes his move to complete his mission by stranding her on a floating platform of ice in a river. Belle is dragged under as the rope around the tree lashes around her ankle; the Beast appears and rescues her. Convinced that she had tried to escape, the Beast confines her to the dungeon. ANOTHER MUSICAL NUMBER with Belle and Angelique. As the Beast is about to smash the rose, he discovers Belle's present, and opens it. Enraged, Forte tries to destroy the castle but is defeated by the Beast after an epic battle. The time returns to the present, and the now-human Beast and Belle celebrate a proper Christmas.
-----------Analysis-----------
...All too easy. The problem with introducing a three-dimensional villian into a two-dimensional world are manifest. It turns out that having volume is of great value, and this is tragically unexploited by Forte. Let's say you wanted to eliminiate someone on a piece of paper. You could simply draw a box around them; air would quickly expire and they would have little hope of escape. All Forte would have had to do was extend himself into the third dimension, draw a small box around Belle, and waited a few minutes. Classy? No. Effective? Very yes. If he were more creative, he would have taken advantage of relativity in two dimensions: A sufficiently steep dimple could have reached a critical mass, an event horizon would have formed, and Belle, unable to move at superluminous speeds would have been sucked into a black hole. It's actually a quite elegant solution, but I suppose it would have swallowed everything else, making the venture a bit of a last-minute tool of vengeance. Still, the amount of power wielded by a being not bound to conventional relationships of space and time is unimaginable, and I don't even think the Genie would have been able to intervene.
"Your intelligence and plucky determination are no match for my three orthogonal vectors!"
"I gotta take a wicked yes." Stereotypes. For some odd reason, the Beauty and the Beast franchise is rife with them, and this film is the worst offender so far. You have the effetely British Cogsworth, Lumiere, the typical French paramour, and now Angelique, the snooty female French stereotype. It's as if the writers of this film decided "hey, let's not worry about making actual characters, let's just play on preconcieved one-dimensional archetypes." Nowhere is this seen more than in the character of the axe, who speaks with a yiddish accent and complains endlessly about imaginary physical maladies. It makes me wonder if the original title of this film was actually "The Protocols of the Learned Gardening Tools of Zion."
HDTV Fun Fact: On the blade of the axe is the blood of thousands of Palestinian children sacrificed for the Seder.
Omniscience... Okay, here's something that has been bugging me for a while. This film is told as a flashback by Mrs. Potts, but more than half of the film takes place with her offscreen. I suppose it's possible that the entire story was assembled as a patchwork by the others, but then the reliability of the entire tale comes into question, especially the flashback-within-a-flashback of the Beast being cursed. How would Mrs. Potts know that he was having a flashback to that particular moment in the context it was in? It all just strains credulity, unless the woman is actually Teapot Jesus.
This movie sucked. It wasn't as transparently bad as "Return to the Sea" but it was terrible in almost every respect. The musical numbers were bland, perhaps mercifully so, but the entire affair reeks of low production values and cut corners, all problems endemic to the direct-to-DVD franchise.
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