Dining experiences usually pale in comparison to the gleeful extravaganza presented by the dinnerware in Disney's animated film Beauty And The Beast. Floating forks, twirling plates and a crooning candelabrum all invite a young French girl named Belle to "be our guest, be our guest, be our guest." Now, 10 years after its debut, Disney is inviting theatergoers to once again be their guests at the re-release of the Academy Award-winning movie, which has been re-formatted to fit the giant screen. The 70-mm version will open in commercial IMAX theaters on January 1, 2002.

Banking on the successful release of Fantasia 2000, Disney artists "spent a year in production on the film, enhancing the image and refining character faces, backgrounds, and special effects, in order to let the film shine brightly on the giant screen," according to a company news release. The team has also added a finger-snapping tune, Human Again, written by the musical duo of Alan Menken and the late Howard Ashman. The six-minute segment was storyboarded but never animated in the original film although it is featured in the Broadway version of Beauty and the Beast. In it, the enchanted household helps go into a castle-cleaning frenzy and daydream about what they'll do when they're released from the sorceress' spell.

In a press release, Dick Cook, chairman of the Walt Disney Motions Pictures Group, was quoted as saying, "The success of Fantasia 2000 clearly indicates that Disney entertainment and giant-screen showmanship go together like Mickey and Minnie, and this is a relationship we want to continue. We think Beauty And The Beast is a perfect match for large-format theaters--with critical acclaim, worldwide box office success, and a hit Broadway show to its credit, this remains one of the most popular Disney stories of all time."

Enlarged to gargantuan proportions, this new adaptation of an old fairytale favorite hasn't lost a sliver of charm from its animated unveiling a decade ago. The tale narrates an unlikely love story between a feisty young inventor's daughter who trades her freedom for her father's release, and the hideous beast who holds the old man captive.

But adapting the 35-mm film to the big screen format is not without challenges. The biggest concerns voiced center on possible distortions in the quality of the film once it is enlarged, and the exaggerated effect of movement on the eye in scenes like the spinning ballroom dance.

Unlike the complaints about distortion in Fantasia's Sorcerer's Apprentice sequence (hardly a surprise when you're blowing up an archived segment from 50 years earlier), Disney's work seems to have paid off this time. The images ring with clarity and limited nausea-inducing camera pans, although there is still something disconcerting about a full screen, close-up mug of Belle or even scarier, a roaring, teeth-bared Beast.

One reason those "in your face" big shots look a little unusual to even regular IMAX aficionados is because movies specifically made for the 8-storey-tall screen rarely contain tight shots. Instead, IMAX filmmakers prefer a wider frame for the simple reason that the audience is able to "look around" the picture and choose what they want to focus in on.

Of course when Beauty And The Beast was being created, IMAX wasn't even on the minds of animators. In fact, most movies today are made with the director and cinematographer thinking about the small screen as they want their product to look good on your 27-inch television after you buy the VHS or DVD release.

Accommodating this wide discrepancy of formats--ranging from your television set, to a regular theater, and finally the huge IMAX screen--will present one of the greatest hurdles to studios like Disney who are eager to create additional revenue through "repurposing" their library of popular titles into giant presentations.

With more multiplexes sporting IMAX theaters, owners are eager to put something on the screens besides documentaries about bugs and space. Unlike giant screen theaters located in museums, the mall crowd wants more Hollywood and less Harvard.

As the only animated film to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, the delightful achievements of Beauty And The Beast's first big BIG screen premiere will hopefully result in another successful run for Disney at the IMAX box office and give many newcomers their first taste of a real monster-sized movie.

Kerry Bennett

©2001 One Voice Communications. All Rights Reserved

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