November 1997

So this one is a little different. Basically all of the entries up until now have been for television specials and cartoon shorts. Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas is a feature-length direct-to-video Christmas special based on Disney’s version of Beauty and the Beast. It’s sort of confusing to describe, because I guess you would call it a midquel (assuming that’s a real word), but it’s also a sequel since the events of the film are told via a flashback. See how that can get confusing? Anyways, I’ve mostly been running through the plots of these specials scene by scene, but doing so for a feature would take quite awhile, even though it’s admittedly a pretty short sequel since it only runs about 71 minutes, so I’ll try to be brief here, but probably won’t succeed.

The Enchanted Christmas was released in November of 1997 and is yet another direct-to-video film based on a popular animated one. Disney was churning these things out left and right during the 90s until John Lasseter was hired to oversee all of Disney’s animation and basically put an end to them. They’re mostly terrible and do nothing to enhance the value of the original films that spawned them. They’re basically cash grabs meant to capitalize on the popularity of those films without sinking in the capital required to make a legitimate sequel. They did more harm than good to both the Disney brand and the original films, and I honestly haven’t seen one that I consider good, though I admittedly haven’t seen many of them because of their subpar reputation.

As you may have guessed, The Enchanted Christmas is no exception. I did enter into this thing expecting the worst, and I can at least say my expectations were not met. This film isn’t terrible. On its own, its a serviceable piece of entertainment. It would probably be more fondly remembered if it had just been a television Christmas special rather than something you actually had to spend money on to either purchase or rent (and these videos usually weren’t any cheaper than the released to theaters features) in order to view.

Belle and The Beast get to enjoy a nice moment early in this one, but some meddlesome instruments mess it all up.

The Enchanted Christmas opens with the characters from the film preparing for Christmas. They’re human, so we know this is occurring after the events of the movie. They start talking about the previous Christmas, which is what sets up Mrs. Potts to tell us about the Christmas that almost wasn’t. Now we’re back in time and everyone is enchanted as household objects. Belle is imprisoned in the castle following her escape attempt and The Beast is somewhere licking his wounds. The main chunk of the movie is going to take place in this window, or essentially the montage from the original film in which Belle grows accustomed to The Beast and they have a snowball fight and it all leads to the ballroom sequence. The main plot of this story is Christmas is coming and Belle is a bit excited about it. The servants of the castle also view her enthusiasm for the holiday and the general good vibes it typically brings about as an opportunity to perhaps bring Belle and Beast closer. The problem is that the curse they’re all under was apparently inflicted upon The Beast and his subjects during the Christmas season, so Beast has a hatred for the holiday as a result. It’s a convoluted setup for a film, but in the end it’s a pretty conventional setup for a Christmas special.

This is Forte and he looks pretty terrible, but with Tim Curry’s voice at least he sounds good.

Surprisingly, basically everyone from the film has returned to voice their character for this. I’m not sure if they were contractually obligated to, but at least Disney was willing to spend money to make the characters sound the way they’re supposed to. There are some newcomers, of course, and one of them is unveiled early. Tim Curry is the voice of Forte, a large organ in the bowels of the castle. He apparently is a trusted advisor for The Beast and someone he confides in alone, making it at least somewhat believable that he could have existed during the events of the original film without our knowing. Forte is actually quite content as an organ since he’s essentially immortal. He doesn’t need to eat, or sleep, and is free to compose his music for as long as he pleases. Since he likes being this way, he has a vested interest in keeping The Beast from falling in love with Belle. He also has an assistant named Fife, a piccolo voiced by Paul Reubens. We’ll also be introduced to Angelique, the former castle decorator who was turned into a Christmas angel decoration and Axe, who works in the boiler room.

The gist of the movie is Belle trying to bring Christmas to the castle, and something preventing that from happening. Fife works for Forte because Forte promised him a solo in an opera he’s written. It seems like a pretty silly incentive, but I guess when you’re a literal musical instrument something like that sounds promising. He’s so eager that he interrupts Belle and Beast when they’re having a little moment while ice skating. He basically serves as Forte’s eyes and ears since Forte is immobile in his present form. Meanwhile, Belle sets out to decorate the castle, only for The Beast to intercede and forbid it.

Belle’s machinations lead her to finding Angelique among the castle’s Christmas decorations. Angelique is convinced that The Beast’s foul mood and general pessimism towards Christmas won’t end well and does not wish to participate. She’s also a bit glum, since being a Christmas decoration, she’s not really free to roam the castle either because she’s out of season or because The Beast hates Christmas – I’m not sure which is the reason. Belle uses her gift of song to raise Angelique’s spirits and gets her to come around to the whole Christmas idea allowing this feature to at least pretend that it’s a typical Disney movie.

Angelique, who as a Christmas decoration is apparently banished from sight until December, or at least until after Halloween.

Fife lets Forte know what Belle is planning, and he basically uses that info to further drive a wedge between she and The Beast. He tells Beast that Belle doesn’t care how Christmas makes him feel, only how it will make her feel and trys to play it off as Belle being selfish. It works too as we find out Beast is pretty easily swayed. This sets up a nasty confrontation between Belle and The Beast when she tries to secure a Yule log from Axe. She explains to Beast that everyone is to place their hand on the log and make a Christmas wish, to which The Beast mocks her by asking what her wish was last year, because it certainly could not have come true for her to be where she is now.

The little guy next to Chip is Fife, who is voiced by Paul Reubens.

Like most Christmas stories, a heartfelt gift is a way to thaw a frozen heart. Belle creates a book for Beast, and even though he’s put a wrench in her plans, she still gives it to him. When Beast is alone with Lumiere he ponders opening it, but the candlestick man says he can’t open it until Christmas, but does remind him that people typically make gifts for others they care about. This gets through to Beast, and he returns to Forte to command him to write a song for Belle as a gift. Forte is not surprisingly pretty irritated at this request, but he goes along with it and starts playing an enchanting melody. It gets the attention of Belle who comes into the room to check it out. Prior to this, she was talking about getting a Christmas tree, and Forte preys on that by telling her where to go for a tree:  The Black Forrest. Now, Belle is apparently none too bright because that sounds like a pretty ominous place to venture. Of course, Forte is setting her up, and Belle plays right into it.

I bet you can’t guess which one is Axe.

To my surprise though, The Black Forrest isn’t so bad. All Forte wants is for Belle to break her promise to never leave the castle. Following that whole wolf attack in the first film, it sounds like a sensible idea anyways. Once Belle sets off with Chip and Axe, Forte brings her absence to the attention of The Beast which just sets him off. He destroys the Christmas decorations in the main hall and races off to bring her back. Before he gets there, Belle and her horse Philippe fall through some ice after Fife startles the horse. The Beast arrives in time to save her, but that doesn’t spare her from the dungeon.

Angelique visits Belle during her incarceration in the dungeon. She admits that she was wrong to deny Christmas and gives us our first lesson of the holiday:  Christmas isn’t about fancy decorations and gifts, it’s about being with those you love. They resolve to have the best Christmas they can, given the circumstances. Beast, after being told to destroy the rose by Forte and give up on being human again, finds himself alone with the enchanted rose and watches as another petal falls and lands on his gift from Belle. Opening it, his heart grows three sizes that day and the true meaning of Christmas enters his soul and The Beast gains the strength of ten Beasts – plus two! Maybe not exactly, but pretty much, and he goes and apologizes to Belle and lets her out.

Forte, before the enchantment took hold. How did Beast not know this guy was a villain?!

Forte is pretty pissed at this point and decides it’s time to just reduce the castle to rubble. He begins playing as loudly as possible, and since his pipes run through the castle wall he’s capable of really getting the place shaking. Fife finally figures out a solo in some opera for no one probably isn’t a good enough reason to allow a bunch of people to die, and he gets The Beast. When The Beast enters the room he’s not really sure what to do, but Fife instructs him to destroy the keyboard on Forte. In doing so, Forte is unable to continue playing and he gets destroyed. The Beast mourns him a bit, but who’s going to let such a thing stop them from having a good Christmas? Certainly not The Beast! We jump back to the present and everyone seems happy to have relived those events through story and Belle receives a single rose from The Prince as a gift. She seems happy to have it, though I personally think he could do better.

Beast’s showdown with Forte is very…green.

Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas is okay. I’ve seen worse. It kind of retreads a lot of tropes from Christmas specials that came before it. As a midquel, it does okay at fitting the story into the events of the movie. We can kind of believe that the story could have taken place without some of these extra characters showing up. It would have been nice if instead of creating new characters like Fife and Angelique if they could have just given a voice to a background character from the film, but I can’t say it really bothers me much. The animation is obviously not on par with the original film, and Forte is animated using some rather crude CGi. This is that era of film making where CGi was new and exciting and being shoe-horned into traditional animation even though it looks way out of place. Forte isn’t the worst instance of this sort of thing, but he doesn’t look good. Tim Curry gives a nice performance though, and I actually enjoyed the concept of Forte more than I expected. He works as a villain, just not as a visual. Had he been animated in the same style as the others he would have been all the better for it. The new songs are not memorable though, and it’s a major drop from the original film.

And a merry Christmas was had by all! The end.

If you want to see this film you’re best bet is to just go out and get it. It went out of print for a little while, but I started seeing it show up at retail last year probably to capitalize on the excitement over the forthcoming live action film. My guess is that Disney probably prints off a few this year as well to sell at Christmas and that’s that. Whether or not you encounter a copy “in the wild” might be a matter of luck, but online retailers are likely to have some stock and it’s available digitally too. For a little while, it was a bit pricey on the second hand market, but that seems to have come down. I’ve never seen this film shown on television, and since most of these sequels, prequels, and midquels are kind of regarded as Disney’s dirty little secrets it’s probable that the studio likes to distance itself from them and not air them on television. Or they actually sell well enough on their own at retail and they don’t want to diminish that return (and this one has made a ton of money for Disney, reportedly almost $200 million). If you choose not to watch it though this holiday season you probably won’t be missing much. This basically exists for those who really adore the original film to the point that they don’t care about the quality of the story here, they just want a chance to spend some time with these characters once again.