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Review: "Beauty and the
Beast: Special Edition"
Posted on Feb. 1, 2002 by The Crystal Lich
Disney has taken the 10th anniversary of this animated classic to the REALLY
big screen: IMAX. Along with a newly finished scene seemlessly added in,
there really is something there that wasn't there before.
Belle (voiced by Paige O'Hara) is a beautiful, wide-eyed maiden that dreams
of things bigger than her small village or marrying the handsome-yet-borish
town hunter, Gaston (Richard White). Faster than you can say 'Be careful
what you wish for', Belle finds herself the prisoner of the Beast (Robby
Benson), a transformed creature living in an enchanted castle who must earn
the love of another to break his curse. Just as Belle begins to discover
the man within, Gaston's pride erupts into an attack upon the Beast's fortress,
ending in a showdown that ultimately decides the fate of all.
While not always successful in luring both children and adults to its features,
Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" stands the test of time. Even ten years after
it originally toured theaters, the film proves itself as timeless as the
story itself; it was no accident the film received a Best Film Oscar™ nomination.
The scene where Belle confesses her love for the Beast (seemingly a moment
too late) is stretched just long enough to ensure there's hardly a dry eye
in the house, pulling at heartstrings in ways that seems to be lacking in
Disney productions of late.
Now about the IMAX format. With the largest film frames ever projected onto
a screen which ensures no one has a bad seat, there are problems when taking
a film like "Beauty and the Beast" to the extreme. First and foremost, the
film production was never originally designed for such a large screen, so
instead of taking in the entire picture during each scene, the viewer must
choose which part of the screen to look it at any particular moment. This
wouldn't be so terrible in and of itself, but to ensure that each frame fills
the screen, each frame has been transfered from the original drawings, resulting
in a resolution so accurate that animation fans can see almost see the construction
lines for each drawing.
This, then, is another problem with IMAX. Formats not designed in advance
to take advantage of giant-screen technology must either stretch existing
frames to cover it (resulting in a blurred or 'pixelated' image) or forcing
a reshoot for quality. With the viewer's head turned to focus only on Belle
walking up a path to start singing "Little Town," animation that looked good
enough on the regular screen now appears amateurish, even to the point of
visibily seeing brush and pencil strokes on backgrounds and characters. Then,
during sequences like the ballroom scene, the computer animation seems too
perfect and too unlike earlier backgrounds, standing out where it blended
in before.
For lovers of animation, these limitations reveal a great deal about how
each scene was rendered and how the animation was accomplished. For those
less than enchanted by it, it may be seen as distracting or poor quality.
With a screen six stories tall and as wide as the eye can see, fans of this
film (and of animation) can enjoy both the wonders of traditional animation
while appreciating its shortcomings as well. In either case, all the effort
should make for an incredible transfer to DVD later!
(a three and a half skull recommendation out of four)
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