Disney has announced plans to re-render Beauty and the Beast using digital 3-D technology, and will release a 3-D version of the 1991 cartoon in 2010. (Toy Story and Toy Story 2 will get similar treatment, and upcoming releases like Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, Toy Story 3, Rapunzel, and Step Up 3 will have 3-D theatrical versions as well. They should just go ahead and rename the last one Step Up Into My Lap). I’m thrilled by the prospect of the "Be Our Guest" feast items floating more prominently within my field of actual vision — instead of just within my head, as they normally do at least two hours a day. But when I first read this news, I momentarily mistook 3-D for "live-action," and therefore spent the better part of an hour watching fan vids dedicated to Catherine and Vincent (Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman) from the late-’80s TV weeper Beauty and the Beast. Here’s one of ‘em, below. My favorite part’s in the "More info" field: "This is my third BATB fanvid. I love making these." Praise be.
An Instant-Message Postscript…
Slezak this is amazing
Slezak these fanvids
Slezak catherine always looked a little sad
Annie yeah! and her head/face are so disproportionate to her skinny body
Slezak i guess that’s what happens when you love a beast
Slezak who lives under the sewer
Annie WHO! will climb out of the sewer….tonight?
Slezak VINCENT
Annie vincent wants to be on top-top-top….
Slezak I MADE IT 1:30 INTO THAT FANVID
Annie i’ve watched it seven times
Slezak seriously?
Annie no
LOL….silly columnists.
I also initially thought this was about the 80′s tv series.
Come to think of it, the broadway show version was in 3D.
Awww, don’t mock the fanvids! For some of us who are disturbingly attached to shows that were canceled during our impressionable years, it gives us some slight satisfaction that the shows live on somehow. It’s sad and a little sick, but they weren’t made for you! As a side note, we used to call that show “Beast and the Beast” when I was a kid cuz, seriously, calling LH a beauty seemed like a bit of a stretch. (Although I had a new appreciation for her when T2 came out). Just sayin’.
I wish they would knock it off with the 3D..it gives me a huge headache. I mean, yay for technology, but my eyes can never get focused right.
Shasta – your comment had me rolling. Funny thing is, I had the exact opposite experience. As any true product of the 80s, having grown up with Thundercats, I never thought of him as a beast. He looked perfectly normal to this 8-9yr old.
Disney World has a show called Philharmagic, where many of their classic animated musical sequences are rendered in 3-D. Be Our Guest is one of the show-stoppers, with a finale featuring popping corks flying over your head. Don’t be surprised of Disney re-releases all its animated films in 3-D.
OMG– I was obsessed with this show in Jr High. It was the perfect blend of fairy tale romance, and non-threatening implied beasty-s e x. Did they ever actually do it? Am I nuts or was there some sort of half-beast baby in the final season?? I thought it was the greatest. After 20 years…wow. What a steaming fondue pot of cheese! The Def Leppard hair! The crystals! The earth-tone attire! Awesomely bad. Thanks for the memories.
IMHO, the only thing worse than a remake is when a studio tries to get more milk out of a successful movie by rereleasing it with some sparkly crap to make up for their lack of new and original ideas.
No studio is more guilty of this crime than Disney. Given, Beauty and the Beast was pretty good. But THEN they came out with the “stuff that happened that winter” middle of the movie-quel (not a sequel or prequel, but rather a movie set in the middle of the original movie), and then turned that into an entire series! Now they’re re releasing it? What’s the problem with Disney? They’re not content making a few million off a hit movie and then living off the DVD sales. Oh no, it’s much easier to “vault” their great movies and force us to watch them in theaters over and over again. Coming next year…Pinochio in the Whale, the movie! Two hours dedicated to Pinochio’s adventures inside the whale…
“Pinochio in the Whale, the movie! Two hours dedicated to Pinochio’s adventures inside the whale…”
Ep Sato, I would totally pay to see that movie – sounds hilarious!
Maybe, he’d meet new characters like ‘Jonah’ and ‘Captain Ahab’!
Wait, did Moby Dick kill Ahab?
OMG – I don’t actually know how that book ends – I never read it, and somehow that information was never revealed to me through the magic of all-knowing pop culture references!
Bunnyslippers – you’re so dead on. I only recently re-discovered BatB after only briefly glimpsing the show a handful of times when I was 6 or 7 at my Grandmas’ house – and the show is so gloriously cheesy, and yet somehow sooooo achingly romantic. I think it’s mostly due to Ron Perlman’s really convincing, heartbreaking performances as the love-lorn Man-Beast, Vincent. He just melts my little cynical heart every time I watch the show.
Some of the episodes are surprisingly dark, dealing with all kinds of ‘adult-ish’ subject matter, the likes you’d see on any episode of ‘Law & Order’ nowadays, but probably was pretty groundbreaking in the 80′s. Prostitution, drugs, child abuse, gang violence – all kinds of stuff that kind of caught me off guard cuz most of the time the show is all roses and poetry and classical music.
It’s worth a re-visit! To the first 2 Seasons anyhow!
Bunnyslippers, I forgot to metion that there *was* indeed a baby in the 3rd Season – it’s still somewhat of a mystery as to how the baby came to be (some fans think it was clearly *implied* that some Man-Beast/Woman lovin’ went down – but others would rather believe that the chaste couple conceived through a more mysteriously ‘immaculate’ fashion.
But there *is* a super cheesy montage of blooming roses, hands intertwining and lava flowing (and fire works!)…seriously, all that was missing was a shot of a train going into a tunnel!)
I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions with that mental imagery…but it seemed pretty obvious to me what was going down…er, I mean *on* in that tunnel of love…
K, this is my last post – I swear!
Just wanted to link anyone curious to the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ world to my fav. fan-made youtube video.
The song isn’t nearly as cheesy (well, okay, it’s Josh Groban singing – so it’s definitely cheesy) as the one Annie posted!
Here’s the link:
P.S. – Annie and Slezak, this will likely come as no surprise – but I would *totally* pay to watch Beauty and the Beast (the 80′s TV version) in 3D…if it meant that they would finally release a DVD set that contained some decent bonus features that I just *know* are stuffed away in some dusty vault in L.A. or wherever.
This was actually the first film I ever saw in a movie theatre. My mother took me to a Galleria one day and we went to get some snacks at the movie theatre. While she paying for them I opened a door and saw “Beuaty and the Beast.” I had never seen it before nor did I have any idea what movie it was, but I liked it. I was watching the part when Belle was walking through the town and then sat down by the fountain to read her book. When she showed it to the sheep one of them ate part of a page and it made me laugh. My mom called me to come on right after Belle’s father Maurice blew up his machine.
I watch the complete series over and over again. The best TV series made. The most beautiful love story I’ve ever seen. It teaches people beauty is only skin deep. It’s the inner beauty that gives a meaning to Love.