The Direct-to-Video sequels that Disney put out in the '90s and early 2000s are a bit of a mixed bag for me. My favourites are The Return of Jafar, The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, and The Lion King 1 1/2. Then there's Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas. It's good, but not only is it not as good as Beauty and the Beast, it's also not as good as the three movies that I just mentioned. It's also not really a sequel either. It sort of is, but the primary story is a midquel. Let me explain.
So a midquel is a movie that's made after a particular movie, in this case Beauty and the Beast, but takes place during the movie that came before it. The Lion King 1 1/2 is a midquel because it takes place during the time of the original film. The Enchanted Christmas takes place during those months in Beauty and the Beast that we gloss over in both the 1991 film and the 2017 remake. They were glossed over because we didn't need to know what was happening during those months. They weren't necessary for the audience to follow the plot of the movie.
The problem with midquels is that, because they take place during the events of the movie that preceded it, you can't really progress the characters very far, especially if the midquel is set before the part of the original movie where a character has a big change, for better or for worse. The Beast is a good example of this because The Enchanted Christmas takes place between the scene where Belle and the Beast reconcile after Beast saves her from the Wolf pack after she runs away from the castle and the scene where Beast decides to get Belle a gift to show that he cares about her, and decides on giving her the library just before they go into the song "Something There". Because of this, the Beast can't change too much in this movie, because he hasn't fully realized how much he cares for Belle yet, and even Belle has only just started to soften towards the Beast. And because they're the protagonists for both movies, there isn't any growth in the characters, except for Beast coming around on the idea of Christmas.
Forte, the villainous pipe organ in this movie, has to fail in killing Belle and the Beast because they still need to get on with the plot of the original movie. Which he's not in. At all. You don't even see a hint of him in the West Wing in the point of the original movie that happens before this movie, since he was destroyed at the end of this movie and therefore, is absent from the rest of the original movie. I didn't realize this, but Forte is voiced by Tim Curry, which is fascinating since Curry also played Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island, which came out almost two years before this movie was released. He also did alot of other acting work at Disney in the '90s, which is interesting.
What this movie does well is maintain the relationships between all of the characters from the original movie. Lumiere and Cogsworth are still at each other's throats, Chip and Belle still get along very well, Mrs. Potts is still a mother figure to all of the characters, including Belle, and of course Belle and the Beast's relationship is still cool though it's getting warmer as the film goes on, just in time for the final act of the original film. It also does a good job of shedding more light on the circumstances that led to the Prince's transformation into the Beast by the Enchantress who visited the castle as an old beggar woman. While it wasn't necessary to go more in depth in those events in order to enjoy the original movie, as it was quite successfully conveyed to us in the film's prologue, it was cool to see it, albeit in a flashback. They used this scene in the 2017 remake though they changed the events from Christmas to just a formal ball, as was common in those days. But still, this is the first place we actually saw those events play out. The animation in this movie's version is pretty good and I like how the Prince's transformation into the Beast isn't as drawn out as his transformation at the end of the original movie is.
Because this movie was produced by Walt Disney Television Animation, rather than Walt Disney Feature Animation, visually it doesn't look as good as Beauty and the Beast does. The CG used to bring Forte to life isn't as bad as it is in other movies at the time, but it does clash with the traditional 2-D animation style the rest of the movie was done in. It also definitely isn't up to par with what Walt Disney Feature Animation had done in the Disney Renaissance films of the late '80s and early '90s, nor is it as good as what Pixar had done in Toy Story in 1995 or what they were doing in A Bug's Life, which was in production at the time this movie was released at.
The acting in this movie is very strong though. Aside from Tim Curry and the entire cast from the original movie, aside from Richard White as Gaston, Jesse Corti as LeFou, and Rex Everhart as Maurice, you have Paul Reubens as Fife, the Piccolo servant to Forte, and Bernadette Peters as Angelique, the Christmas tree angel, who was originally the castle's decorator, who also doesn't appear in the original movie. Despite it having been several years since they were together, the cast from the original movie, including Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Potts, feels like they hadn't been apart very long. Though Haley Joel Osment replaced Bradley Michael Pierce as Chip so the voice isn't quite the same though similar enough that you can hardly tell the difference. It's like how James Arnold Taylor sounds enough like Ewan MacGregor in Star Wars: The Clone Wars that if you don't know his voice, you might think that it is Ewan MacGregor reprising his role from the prequels. It's kinda like that with Chip in this movie.
If you've read this far into this review, then you may have noticed that outside of which studio produced this movie, I haven't talked about this movie like it's an animated movie. That's because it doesn't matter. Whether it's made in an animation studio or on a sound stage with physical sets, props and actors, a movie is a movie, the medium doesn't matter. And I think there's too much stigma towards animation, despite the fact that for years we've movies and TV shows made in Animation that are aimed at adults. The Simpsons, Family Guy, Archer, Akira and Star Trek: Lower Decks are all examples of movies and shows that are done in Animation but are aimed specifically at adults. Despite that, there are many adults who still think that Animation is for children only. If you're one of those people, then obviously you've never seen Warner Bros.'s direct-to-DVD DC Comics based animated movies. Those are definitely not "kids stuff".
Now I don't have as much nostalgia for this movie as my sister does. Of course, we owned it on VHS when we were kids, but being that it's a Christmas movie, we didn't watch it nearly as often as we did The Lion King II: Simba's Pride or A Goofy Movie. We also didn't watch it on repeat during the Christmas holidays like we did Frosty the Snowman, Barney & The Backyard Gang: Waiting for Santa, or The Muppet Christmas Carol. At least I don't remember watching it as often as those other movies and specials. What I do remember is that I didn't like this movie as much as I liked, and still like, Beauty and the Beast and Simba's Pride. I just felt like the Lion King story lent itself to sequels and midquels better than Beauty and the Beast does. And I still feel the same way about it now, watching it as an adult, as I did watching it when I was 11 years old. In fact I'm pretty sure we got this movie for Christmas in 1997, so it was pretty early on. It's a good movie, I just don't like it as much as I do the original movie, or Simba's Pride.
Overall Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas is a decent movie. It's just not my favourite of the direct-to-video sequels/midquels/prequels Disney put out in the '90s and early 2000s. I'm probably not going to be buying it on DVD or VHS any time soon, but I'm glad I'm able to watch it on Disney+. It brought back memories of the few times I watched it with my brother and sister when we were kids and VHS was still the primary home video format.
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