Flights of Fairytale Fancy: Beauty and the Beast

            I appreciate Disney fairy tales, I grew up on them, but something that irks me to no end is the fact that Disney is remaking their movies into live-action films.  The issue with this is that they’re just reusing their already modified plots!  If you’re going to remake the blasted things at least go back to the original fairytale!  The Cinderella movie is mostly forgivable as there are hundreds of versions of that story.  The only part that I find completely aggravating is at the end where the Prince asks her name and she’s like, “I’m Cinderella.”  No woman!  Your mother named you Ella!  Don’t identify yourself by the name your abusive step–family gave you! Seriously!

            Anyway, I’m rather annoyed that they did pretty much the same thing with their new Beauty and the Beast.  The original story is much more interesting!  Admittedly, there are multiple versions of this story as well, but most of them start pretty much the same way:

            A rich merchant falls on hard times.  He is forced to sell all he owns and move to the country with his three daughters.  (Some versions have other siblings, but the most common are the three sisters, and usually, the older two sisters are rather bratty and don’t take well to living in the country.)  Beauty, the youngest, helps her father the most with adjusting to their new life. 

            One day the father hears that one of his ships, which everyone thought was lost at sea, has returned to the port city where they used to live.  Eagerly, he prepares to go meet the ship, believing their fortunes have improved.  He asks each of his daughters what they would like for a gift.  The older two request expensive fabrics and accessories.  Beauty asks for a rose. 

            Long story short, the ship made almost no profit.  The father heads home, but gets lost in a storm and ends up staying the night in an enchanted castle.  Nothing eventful happens until he’s preparing to leave and spots a rose bush.  Thinking of Beauty, he picks one and then the Beast jumps out and is like, “Don’t steal my flowers!  I let you stay the night in my castle, you ungrateful man!”  The merchant explains why he took the flower and the Beast is like, “You have two choices: return to your family for a week and then come back here to pay for your crime, or you can send your flower–loving daughter in your stead.”  Being a decent sort of father, the man determines to return by himself after saying goodbye to his family.

            He goes home and explains the situation.  Beauty’s charming sisters blame her, and Beauty refuses to let her father suffer for getting something she requested.  She is quite stubborn on the matter, so her dad eventually relents and takes her to Beast’s castle.

            Beauty is totally expecting to get eaten or something of that nature, but instead, she’s treated like a princess.  Every evening at dinner, the Beast joins her and at the close of ever meal he asks her to marry him, which she refuses.  Still, they manage to form an odd sort of friendship.  Time passes and Beauty gets homesick.  She mentions this to Beast and he’s like, “Here, put this ring on your finger before you go to sleep and in the morning you’ll wake up at home in your own bed.  Promise to come back in a week though, otherwise, I will die without you.”

            Being so excited to go home, Beauty doesn’t completely register what she’s told.  She puts the ring on before she sleeps and, like Beast promised, she wakes up in her father’s house.  Along with her, a number of trunks magically appeared, filled with gifts for her family.  When she shows her sisters all the beautiful, and expensive things in the trunks they get jealous.  Coming up with a plan to get Beauty in trouble with the Beast, they pretend to be upset when Beauty’s week is up and beg her to stay longer.  She reluctantly agrees and stays another week.  Her sisters again beg and Beauty once again promises to stay longer.  However, that night she has a terrible nightmare in which the castle is crumbling, and the garden is overgrown and wild.  She hears Beast crying out that he will die without her.  In a panic, she wakes up, and putting the ring back on her finger, goes back to sleep. 

            When she awakes everything is like it was in the dream and she runs through the castle and its grounds searching for the Beast.  Finally, she finds him in the garden, almost dead.  She realizes she loves him, etcetera, there’s magic, and the whole, “I’m prince who was under a spell that would only be broken when a young woman agreed to marry me” bit. 

            Honestly, I don’t remember why he was enchanted in the first place, or what happened to Beauty’s sisters, but I still think it makes a much better story than the Disney version.  I suppose the original didn’t have any character villainous enough to be used by Disney without serious revision…. Oh, well.  Their loss, I suppose.