Disney's live-action remake of "Beauty and the Beast" is one of the most anticipated movies of next year. With a spot on-cast led by the intelligent and feminist "Harry Potter" actress Emma Watson as Belle, it looks like Disney will keep up its good remake streak with last year's "Cinderella" and this year's "Jungle Book" and "Pete's Dragon," which desperately needed a up-to-date makeover. However, my biggest concern is how the movie will take the beloved hand-drawn enchanted objects and translate them to 3D. I mean, will the famous "Be Our Guest" and the new song for the enchanted objects, "Days in the Sun" look cheap in CGI?
After a pretty long wait, we were finally treated this week to the character designs of Lumière the womanizing candlestick, Cogsworth the neurotic clock, Mrs. Potts the motherly teapot and her son, Chip the teacup, and the Wardrobe the kindly....wardrobe (to be named Garderobe in the remake). Let me break the designs down and analyze them.
Lumière and Cogsworth
(c.) Disney
Both of the designs of the characters are very spot-on while giving them twists. Lumière looks very much like he came out from a fairytale because his trimmings have flowers and I can see that the inspiration is wood from trees. He reminds me a lot of the natural forest set design of the 2013 Broadway premiere of "Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella."
Pieces of the set and props of the Broadway production of "Cinderella" (2013)
Cogsworth has more details than Lumière. What is worth noticing is that the top of Cogsworth could be a shout-out to the end of the animated movie where he wears a admiral's hat during the battle scene.
(c.) Walt Disney Animation Studios
See the resemblance?
He retains his maroon color with beautiful paintings of white flowers and golden trimmings. What is really interesting is that you can directly see the anatomy of Cogsworth. Even though Cogsworth is unanimated, you can clearly see his face, along with his arms, and feet. I'm still concerned about how he will look animated, but I think Cogsworth will look very cute.
My biggest concern here is Lumière. In this picture, Lumière's face is allegedly covered (even though the two circles could possibly be his eyes). However, you do not know where Lumière's face is and how it's going to work. His design is extremely skinny and the candles are too tiny to have a face on them. So, telling from this picture, it looks like it's going to be hard to put a face in a tiny body. One way how it could work is if they do what "Once Upon a Time" did and put Lumière's face in his fire. Overall, the final animation could have disastrous results for Lumière because the design is so tiny that the face that definitely could look forced-on and it could be very creepy-looking.
Disney/ABC Television
Lumière (Henri Lubatti) with Belle (Emilie de Ravin) and her now deceased son-in-law Neal/Baelfire (Michael Raymond-James) in "Once Upon a Time"
Mrs. Potts/Chip
(c.) Disney
Keep in mind that the picture is in low-resolution. Now, unlike Lumière and Cogsworth, this is a concept art of Mrs. Potts and Chip, meaning they could look much different in the final film. And I really hope they look different from this artwork. It looks like Mrs. Potts and Chip have very boring designs that are just white and a little bit of coloring on them (Green for Mrs. Potts and gold/yellow for Chip). While these two were white in the movie, they were still engulfed with purple and yellow colors. I also have different problems with them. Chip might be too big. Mrs. Potts is still bigger than her little son, but he is still pretty big. The animated movie has the right scale with them. Chip is very small in the movie to emphasize with his age. Here, Chip may be too big for such a little kid, even though he's a cursed human child. On the other hand, Mrs. Potts has a face problem. You can see Chip's smile by his handle and it works because it reminds me of Chip in the movie. Plus, it looks like direct paint that you see on objects. You can clearly see Mrs. Potts's face here. It is in the right place in the design of the character, but I don't see the face as appealing as Chip. It find to be creepy because it looks like it's directly photoshopped/glued on the pot. I really hope it looks neat and natural in the final film.
The Wardrobe
(c.) Disney
The last design here is the Wardrobe and this concept art of her makes me excited. Out of all of the main enchanted objects, she is the best designed character by far. She looks very different from her design in the animated version, but it is very appealing. What works is that they calculated everything in the design. If the wardrobe had clothes hung inside of her and not in the drawers, you wouldn't see her face or the clothes would be too distracting. The drawers are pretty big and you can easily hold Belle's fabulous outfits, such as the iconic ball gown, in them. What I also like about the concept art is that you see the Wardrobe in action. She see her arms and hands moving and tangled up, so you know how she will reach and grab dresses out of her drawers. Most importantly, her face looks fantastic. I love that the face is at the back of the wardrobe. It isn't photoshopped like Mrs. Potts, but like Chip, it looks so naturally painted on. She actually looks beautiful with a peaceful and kindly expression in her face. And I definitely can't wait to see her animation will match with Broadway legend Audra McDonald's beautiful, giant singing voice.
Not included in this article are the Footrest and Cadenza, the piano who is written just for this movie (though he could be loosely based on the organ villain in the Christmas sequel). You can see them here. On Friday morning, we were also treated to the first looks of the "Gaston" musical number with "Frozen" star Josh Gad as Gaston's bumbling sidekick, Lefou, Dan Stevens as the Beast in human form, and the quiet village. A full-length trailer, where we will likely see the final looks of the enchanted objects, is expected to be released later next month or October.
Disney's live-action "Beauty and the Beast" will hit theaters on March 17, 2017.
