Beauty and the Beast: An Enchanted Christmas (DVD, 2002, Special Edition)

The fanciful tale and Academy Award Winner: “Beauty and the Beast” continues in to tell the life of happily ever after in the continuing saga: Beauty and the Beast: Enchanted Christmas. This movie is one of Disney’s finest direct-to-video endeavors; staying faithful to the original story line and is just as charming.

It’s Christmas time in the dreamy land and the Beast (Robby Benson - Ice Castles) has a very disparaging feeling for the holidays. Stubborn Belle (Paige O’hara) tries to charm the Beast with the spirit of the season; with the devoted help of Lumiere, Cogsworth, Chip, Miss Potts (Angela Lansbury - Murder She Wrote, Bedknobs and Broomsticks), and reserved Angelique (Bernadette Peters - The Jerk). The same characters are back with some fresh faces as well. Disney created a perfect antagonist, Forte, the arrogant, brooding pipe organ (Tim Curry - Clue) with his ominous features --and his subordinate Fife, a flute, (Paul Reubens - Pee Wee Herman) despises the happy events and does everything possible to keep the Beast and Belle apart. Forte was a portentous musical composer before he was transformed.

Despite Belle’s attempts for a warm and luxuriant festivity for the holidays, the Beast refuses to allow the celebration. Angelique, the castles former decorator, is not an ornament and Belle enlists her help in softening the Beasts cold heart, in hopes the spirit of Christmas will seep into his heart and change his temperamental moods.

This movie, you can’t relate it as a sequel or any part of the original --only, in that it stays with the personalities and tells another story altogether about the same returning characters; with some new ones that are just as helpful to the animated flick. By taking the same recipe and ingredients and adding a pinch of a new plot and a dash more characters; Disney connoisseurs will revel in its lushness and even in its story --being most of it came straight from the original feature.

You may wonder what could possess the Beast to refuse to allow the candy canes and sugar cookies to permeate the castle. The reason the Beast has become an old scrooge for the holidays is because he lost everything on Christmas Day. Jealous of Belle receiving the Beasts attention, Forte and his sidekick do everything possible to keep that idea firmly implanted in his head, all the while, Belle is softening him with her kindness and warm heartedness. And the segment where she tries to teach the Beast to skate is animatedly romantic.

We know after the original Beauty and Beast tale, there was a happily ever after, and all the castle items and house-wares turned back into themselves and the Beast turned into the handsome Prince he was… with that said: this tale had to be told as a flashback --when all were still transformed. (not really making this flick a sequel, but filling in the blanks of what we missed in the original tale- their first Christmas together in the castle before all was transformed back to normal).

Sequels to Disney original features have been a very admired means of keeping the characters alive and the storybook tales going indefinitely. Providing for some luxurious cinematic amusement in such animation classics: The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Aladdin, The Lion King, Toy Story, and many other sequels --Beauty and the Beast: Enchanted Christmas is no different in that, the story continued long after the “Happily Ever Afters”.
The colors are so vivid and explosive you will be amazed