The Christmas Experiment Hours 3+4: Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas.

I had briefly explored covering this one last year. I thought, found it, what the hell!

Viewing Thoughts: This one begins after the curse in the original is broken. One... very odd thing about this one. So, people are coming to the castle to celebrate Christmas. I would assume they were from a local village only the only local village is the one that tried to kill everyone there a few months prior. Seems like an odd group to invite for Christmas Carols and Christmas Pudding. Also, they're French but singing songs of English Origin. Whatever.

So, Mrs. Potts starts telling Chip the story of the previous year's Christmas. I might remind you that he was there for that. He should know. I think Chip needed to get polished a bit because he's a bit dull.

Turns out, a year ago, Christmas was banned and Tim Curry was a bad CGI pipe organ named Forte who was never mentioned before. He also hates the idea of becoming human again so he sends his fife minion to stop The Beast from falling in love or something. He comes from the Jar Jar Binks school of sidekickery ie being annoying and falling into stuff for humor.

So, turns out The Beast hates Christmas. Chip doesn't know what Christmas is. This... raises a question. Mrs. Potts is Chip's mother. He has to have been born before the Curse. So, then how could he have forgotten about Christmas considering the original movie establishes like 21 years between the curse and here? He should have been alive unless... can teapots give birth? Then wouldn't he have stayed a teacup since that was his original state.

Anyway, Belle sings a song about giving The Beast a book for Christmas. At one point she sings about heroes overcoming all danger. It shows an image of Icarus who crashed and burned when he didn't follow his father's directions. So, yeah, definitely all about overcoming all danger... by burning to death and plummeting to the Earth below.

Anyway, Christmas is forbidden in The Castle but everyone conspires to have Christmas. Cogsworth the Clock is enticed with food. Umm, how is he going to digest it? He's a freaking clock! Lumierre leads Belle to the attic where we get introduced to Angelique, voiced by Bernedette Peters, who got turned into a Christmas Angel. I would hate to be Hortense, the Castle Stablemaid who got turned into a feedbag. Belle sings a song to convince her to believe in Christmas. It's one of the highlights of this movie.

Naturally, Fife hears and tells Forte who tells The Beast. The Beast grumbles. Forte is that horrible friend who is only happy when he's being horrible and everyone is miserable. Anyway, we get a flashback to a young Prince before he became The Beast and turns out the Curse was enacted on Christmas and HOLY CRAP!!! The Enchantress? One of the Weird Sisters from Gargoyles! How did I never notice that? Okay, Beauty and the Beast is in continuity with Gargoyles!!!

So, Belle goes to the Boiler Room for a Yule Log. The Beast hates Christmas. Belle doesn't care and decides to have Christmas anyway and goes to find a Christmas Tree. Tim Curry decides he needs to kill Belle. Belle finds a tree and goes to chop it down until she realizes that her axe is talking and apparently Jewish. Seriously, I'm not quite sure what is up with the Jewish Axe character. I mean, I know everything is the castle is enchanted... oh crap. What about the chamberpots?!?

Forte summons Belle and Chip who baits them to go to The Black Forest for a tree. Okay. 1) They're not in Germany. 2) Belle is an idiot. Belle goes into The Black Forest. The Beast summons Belle for a song that he commissioned Forte to do. Naturally, The Beast gets pretty mad and Forte starts a song. I like a good villain song. This is not a good villain song. It's pretty much "Love is bad because I said so."

Somehow, this is convincing and The Beast trashes the place. In the Black Forest, the Jewish Axe wishes a happy Hanukkah and they load up the tree. Faster than you can say "Death Trap" everyone ends up on a frozen lake. Belle, despite wearing a dress and furs, can swim rather effectively. She saves everyone save herself who the Beast fishes out. He then proceeds to throw the woman suffering from severe hypothermia is a drafty tower.

So, everyone goes to wish the obviously dying woman a Merry Christmas. And then Bernedette Peters finally gets a freaking song. An hour into the movie. And it's a reprise of "As Long As There's Christmas" that turns into a duet with Paige O'Hara's Belle. Really. It took that long. For a duet of a reprise. Sure. Whatever.

So, The Beast opens his present, reads the book, and then realizes he was being crap. Meanwhile, Cogsworth and Lumiere have a terrible buddy song that feels beyond out of place. The Beast reunites with Belle, Forte starts playing a song to destroy the Castle because sure, why not? He plans to kill them all not quite realizing he's probably going to irreparably damage himself in the process. The Beast solves everything by removing the Keyboard from the pipes. Forte collapses and, presumably in around three months, turns back into a twisted corpse torn to pieces.

So, everything ends happily and life continues. Until that pesky French Revolution stars and Belle and The Beast get executed along with all of their servants who don't turn on them but bah, we have a happy ending for right now.

Some final thoughts: This was the first of Disney's direct to video sequels and, sadly, it's one of the better ones. The animation is a marked step down but they were able to get the entire original cast back. Sadly, this wouldn't be the only time that Beauty and the Beast would get pulled through the dirt of that filth but that one isn't Christmas related so not touching it.

The main problem is that it's not even a sequel. It's a midquel meaning it takes place during the original movie. There can be no real stakes or character growth because everything is happening in a small window of time and we know that Belle doesn't develop richer feelings for the Beast out of nowhere. It's full of problems.

Notable Commercials: I ended up dialing up a bunch of random Christmas commercials. Ronald McDonald put in some really creepy appearances back in the day. Like really creepy!

Non-Viewing Thoughts: Why is taking a hot shower so comforting? Is it some kind of memory of the womb? Who know?

Late Christmas Ideas: Clear Weather on Saturday but, with the freakish weather we've been having, not likely.
 
Tally:
Mountain Dews left: 12
Amps left: 2
Coffee Left: 2 Bottles
Pumpkin Pie Left: Whole Pie (Not Even Baked Yet)
Sanity Rating: (1 being The Empire Strikes Back, 10 being Bambi 2: The Revenge): 3