Beauty and the Beast Trailer Introduces Us to Belle and Her “Small-Minded” Village
"My dear Belle, you're so ahead of your time."
This new full-length trailer for the live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast starts off by reminding the viewer, in an oblique way, of an important change that has been made to the canon of this movie: Belle is the inventor, not her father.
Although this trailer doesn’t actually show Belle working on her inventions or engineering, we do hear from her father that Belle has received some pushback against her free-thinking ways. In the opening of the trailer, he tells her, “My dear Belle, you’re so ahead of your time. This is a small village. And it’s small-minded, as well. But small also means safe.”
In the original animated movie, Belle’s father also wanted to escape the “smallness” of their village, on some level. He hoped to take one of his inventions to a big fair to show it off, and it was on that fated expedition that he got kidnapped by the Beast. In this version, however, it’s unclear why Belle’s father ends up in the woods on his own, since he’s no longer an inventor. He does make music boxes, but his character motivation seems to be an aim towards keeping Belle at home with him, and discouraging her adventurous side… that is, if his quote in this trailer is any indication.
I hope that Belle’s father won’t end up being a total spoilsport in this movie, since in the original, both Belle and her father are “outsiders” in their town. They unite in their weirdness. Belle may not be an inventor in the animated movie, but she’s still considered unusual because she loves to read, and she was still a forward-thinking heroine for her time. I’m guessing that will be a plot point in this version as well, since Gaston appears to be just as smug and self-important in this trailer as he does in his original animated iteration.
Near the end of this trailer, we get to hear a brief part of Ariana Grande and John Legend’s duet version of the Beauty and the Beast theme song. You know, the one that starts out “tale as old as time”? I’m not sure if that’s the version that will actually appear in the movie, though, because I would assume that Emma Thompson (who is playing Mrs. Potts) would be singing the song during the ballroom scene. Perhaps Ariana and John’s version will appear over the credits at the end of the film.
Aside from the dynamic between Belle and her father, which seems very different in this version, the rest of the movie looks to be a faithful recreation of the original animated movie’s plot. It’s possible, however, that there will be other story changes that aren’t yet clear to us, since this trailer is pretty short. In any case, Beauty and the Beast will be coming to cinemas on March 17th this year.
(via Polygon, image via screencap)
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