MovieChat Forums > Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997) Discussion > Wow...

Wow...

posted 19 years ago by jacks_smirking_revenge_
9 replies | jump to latest

While I commend you all for your anal attention to detail, I really am surprised at what I have seen on this board.
You argue about little errors as if pointing them out would make the movie better.
I just wonder if any of you have sat down and watched this movie with a small child (a.k.a the audience this movie was made for.)
I watched it with my little sister on Boxing Day.
Her little eyes lit up and she loved the whole movie.
But she didn't sit up at the end of the movie and say 'Don't trees float?'.
Maybe your experiance was different from mine.
I just think that wasting time ruining a movie by arguing over petty details is exactly that.
A waste of time.

It is a child's movie, not a great masterpiece.
It was never meant to be anything more.
If you watch a movie looking for continuity errors or plotholes, you miss the story.
This was a cute movie about how Christmas is a time to forgive and love.
That's all.

[–] Siel_O 19 years ago

i don't agree,
if the creators were so dumb to create such mistakes only because their audience will probably be unknowledgable or something like that then it's just sad and they should recieve the harsh criticism.

[–] gangstabarney 19 years ago

I agree to a certain extent. People are blowing this movie out of proportion. Don't get me wrong, I wholeheartedly dislike the straight-to-video disney movies and recognize that they are created solely to milk the franchises. I also realize that the films are inferior to the originals, this being no exception.

But despite all of this, I see these films for what they are: entertainment for young children. Both Beauty And The Beast and The Enchanted Christmas are similar in the fact that they are childrens movies. This is not to say that adults cannot watch them, it simply means that its target audience is young children. Of course, I never viewed Disney as deep or poetic when I was a child. Now I'm 16 and I still don't see them that way (what with the current affairs of the company). It seems to me that the intentions of the filmmakers of the original Beauty and the Beast was not to create complex social commentary or metaphorical content but rather to create a diverting love story with positive messages. And I don't wanna say that interpretting it on a deeper level is wrong, because everyone is entitled to their opinion. But I hate it when ones opinion is forced on me.

I understand that my point may be undermined by the fact that it is solely my opinion, but I believe this psychotic urge to destroy this film simply because it isn't as deep as the original is extremely idiotic and more importantly, unproductive. Once again, I don't believe that seeing your favorite film on another level is wrong. One of my favorite films is John Woo's The Killer, and even though many view it as just a well choreographed action film, I see it as an amazingly deep film with beautiful images and social commentary.

To summarize, express your opinion as much as you want on this movie, but don't force it on others and realize that it is just a film that is not to be taken seriously but as entertainment. If you don't like it don't watch it and definetely don't dwell on it when there are more important things in life to worry about.

peace, joe

p.s. I haven't seen this movie and don't plan to.

[–] TheLittleSongbird 15 years ago

BETHANY COX
"Music comes from within, from your heart and from your soul."

It isn't as bad as some people say. It is nowhere near as good as the flawless original, but superior to the forgettable Bele's Magical World.

[–] enedving 13 years ago

Don't force your opinion on someone by telling them they shouldn't force their opinion on you.

[–] my_heart_beats_in_breakd 12 years ago

I get it. These direct to VHS / DVD releases seem to be tailored for younger audiences. Unlike the originals from which these sequels, midquels, and prequels spawn, there is often very little that an adult can appreciate.

I also think however that films are an important educational tool in the modern day, and if basic logic is forgotten (I'm not talking about objects being able to talk by the way) then the influence can be damaging. Should the tree have sunk - no - does the child watching the film now think that trees sink - yes.

This film is dire by the way...but there are certainly far worse direct to VHS/ DVD Disney releases out there.

[–] Oddark123 11 years ago

I love people like this that use the term "adult" when trying to express displeasure within animated features. Get a grip you aren't being an adult your being a man-child. This film isn't any less for children than the original. It's an adaption of a story told to prepare girls for marriage in olden times done by a company that's primary mission was to make money from kids. People who act other wise are products of the ridiculous literature-head culture raised upon by those who embrace there own opinions as that of truth.

Art is subjective in that everyone has their own experience. There is nothing to make these things facts. There is no proof. There is only ever a fact when your official author tells you what it meant. It could mean nothing. My opinion and your opinion aren't somehow more accurate, neither of us have any facts to back up claims.

The only thing in this case we have is historical proof of how people used the story, does this mean the person who originally created it meant it to teach girls to marry? Not exactly, but it does show that's what a lot of people felt it was.

That whole message isn't really even there in the Disney version of the story. Tell us what does this mean now? As an "adult" you clearly must feel this drivel of changing things for children make the whole original film unwatchable. Oh wait...

People like this really need to get their head actually out of the clouds. If you can't watch a Disney film as an "adult". You need to realize it's your own fault. Somehow in your "growing Up" which is a term i really use as meaning you got more dense, you have lost the ability to enjoy entertainment. Instead we have people prowling IMDB message boards complaining that films should mean these imaginary things and not matching up to what you want makes them trivial for children.

If anything the real "adults" are people who know that books, movies, all the like are put out for entertainment and analyzed secondarily. In fact the people who write fiction who are apart of that movement of thinking everything should mean something are often highly polarizing in their products. Why is this? Because often any one of them either has people eating up their subject or feeling they tried too hard because they didn't grasp that entertaining the audience is supposed to be the top priority. There's a reason a lot of people get bored reading the likes Lewis, Tolkein and Orwell. Because unless you really like that kind of story it's not hard to see they tried far too hard to hammer some kind of analysis into their books that they often lost sight of how to actually tell a story.

Gamefaqs has a far worse population than IMDB

[–] 11 years ago

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[–] millyskittles 11 years ago

Given it was only a child's movie and that it was aimed at a small child (even though, I don't fully agree with that because Disney films are widely considered family films), my issue with this film isn't for the small details, it's for the whole thing.

This was nowhere near a good enough sequel to follow the original Beauty and the Beast film and its achievements for one thing. The animation was not as decent (most of the sequels around that time feel like they should of just been used for a TV show) and they seemed to make a mockery of the characters.

Belle didn't seem to be the strong character that she was (she still had her sense of hope but she seemed to take a lot of the Beast's tempers which she didn't originally and seeing as it wasn't that long after the wolf attack, that's a bit soon) and the Beast, himself, just seemed to have more of a bratty personality rather than the personality depth of the first film. The only characters that seemed to stick to their original characters would probably have been the side characters.

The only saving grace in my opinion was the fact that Tim Curry did the voice of the organ. I know that it was just a sequel but c'mon, they could of made a tad bit more effort, maybe with better songs or something and keeping intact with more of the original character personalities. It would of made a better follow up to just follow more closely. It's not asking for great things, just something better.

[–] 11 years ago

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