What if Don Bluth stayed at Disney?/Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas

***Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas*** is a 1997 direct-to-video animated Christmas musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. It is a midquel to the 1991 Disney film *Beauty and the Beast* (set after the fight with the wolves and before the ballroom dance), although the prologue and epilogue of the film is set one year after the events of the first film.

The film was created without the involvement of the original film's director Don Bluth. The film sold 7.6 million VHS tapes in 1997.

## Plot

The film starts out with everybody getting prepared for Christmas. Lumiere and Cogsworth argue about who saved Christmas last year. Chip begs Mrs. Potts to tell the story. After hesitating, she agrees. Soon everyone is gathered around Mrs. Potts as she tells the story and the events of what happened after the Beast saved Belle from the wolves...

When the story fades into a flashback of when the Prince was the Beast, his servants were enchanted objects, and Belle was still a prisoner in the castle. All the servants are trying to figure out a way for them to fall in love with each other, and with Christmas coming up, they look at this as a great opportunity to bring them together. To lighten his spirit, Belle teaches the Beast how to ice skate.

Meanwhile, in an unknown part of the castle (through a secret door in the West Wing), an enormous pipe organ is playing very creepy music while his minion, Fife, a small piccolo applauds. The organ is Forte, the court composer during his human years. The organ player though does not want the spell to break (meaning he never wanted to be human again), so he decides to figure a way for the Beast to steer clear of falling in love with Belle. He believes that "humanity is overrated" and that he is of more use in his enchanted form.

He tells Fife that he has written a solo for a piccolo in his opera, which persuades Fife to aid him in breaking up the merriment between Belle and the Beast. Fife manages to interrupt Belle and the Beast's skating, and when Belle makes a snow angel, the Beast sees his "angel" as a "shadow of a monster" and leaves in anger.

Believing that Christmas will brighten the Beast's mood, Belle creates a wonderful new book for him, and with a little persuasion for Cogsworth, Christmas is officially being prepared. The gang goes to the highest tower in the castle, which serves as a storage room for old decorations. In one of them lies an angel doll named Angelique, who once served as the Royal Decorator. However, she is not pleased to hear about Christmas, arguing that she will not raise her hopes again in a belief that they could all get together in celebration, only to have them destroyed by the Beast's foul temper and hatred for the holiday. Belle sings to them about how "hope is the greatest gift", saying that there is always hope, even for breaking the spell, and there will "always be a time when the world is filled with peace and love". Eventually, Angelique reluctantly agrees.

However, Fife has been overhearing all this and rushes off to tell Forte. When the Beast finds out, he is not at all pleased. Forte plays along, saying that "the girl doesn't care how you feel about Christmas", separating the two even more. The Beast reflects on his past: Christmas was the day he was most selfish and spoiled, and it was on that day, the Enchantress put the spell on him and the castle.

Belle enters the boiler room and meets Axe (Jeff Bennett), head of the boiler room. She tells him she needs a Yule Log, and he tells her to help herself. The Beast finds her and demands to know what is going on. She explains that it is a great tradition: "one log is chosen, then everyone in the house touches it, and makes a Christmas wish". The Beast, however, claims that wishes are stupid and bellows at Belle, "You made a Christmas wish last year! Is this what you wished for?!" He shouts that she has no idea what it is to be a true prisoner, but she knows all too well. Finally, he forbids Christmas and storms out.

Belle will not give up, and concludes that they will have Christmas with or without the Beast, but not before sending him her gift, the storybook. Belle and Chip take Axe with them to go look for a Christmas tree, but none on the grounds are very promising. The Beast finds his gift, but Lumiere will not allow him to open it as it is not yet Christmas. He explains that everyone understands how the Beast feels about the holiday, but giving a gift to another is a way of saying "I care about you". The Beast gets in the mood, and demands Forte to compose a song as a present, who agrees unhappily. When he leaves, Forte puts his plans in motion, and plays beautiful music, attracting Belle to his room. Forte quickly manipulates the situation, telling her that the tree has always been the Beast's favorite part of Christmas, and that she would find a much better tree lies in the Black Forest, the woods outside the castle.

Getting the tree would break Belle's promise never to leave the castle, but she wants to make the Beast happy, so she agrees to go, taking Chip and Axe. Forte orders Fife "to make sure they don't come back". The Beast is still waiting for Belle to show up, but Forte claims that she abandoned him, trying to persuade him to forget her, but he races out anyway. In his anger, the Beast destroys the decorations in the dining room where Angelique was on his way out, leaving Angelique hopeless. Meanwhile, Belle and the others look for a tree, but Fife accidentally startles Philippe on the ice, creating a chain reaction that leads to Belle nearly drowning and being rescued by the Beast.

Belle is locked in the dungeon for breaking her promise, but Angelique visits with the other baubles and admits that she was wrong to believe that Christmas could never come. They all agree that they do not need decorations or gifts to celebrate Christmas; they have each other, which is the best gift they could ever ask for. Meanwhile, prompted by Forte, the Beast threatens to destroy the rose, but one of the flower petals falls on the present Belle gave to him earlier. The Beast then remembers the gift Belle gave him, opens it, and reads it. Remembering there is hope to break the spell, he ignores Forte, asks her for forgiveness, releases her from the dungeon, and plans to have the best Christmas.

Enraged at the failure of his plans, Forte plans to bring the whole castle down with the rationale that they cannot fall in love if they are dead. This horrifies Fife, who finds it far too extreme, and then he learns that his promised solo is blank. The Beast manages to get into the room, but Forte's powerful music confounds him as he has no idea what to strike at. With Fife's advice, he unplugs Forte by ripping out the keyboard below him and hurls it with his strength. With the keyboard destroyed, Forte begins to panic and accidentally breaks the support mounts that held him up, causing him to fall over. The Beast laments the death of his old confidant. Soon after, the castle is repaired, Fife receives a royal pardon, and Christmas is celebrated.

Back in the present, Mrs. Potts concludes that it was Belle who saved Christmas. Belle and the Prince enter the court to greet their guests, presenting Chip with a storybook as a present. As Fife, now the new court composer, leads the orchestra, the Prince and Belle share a moment on the balcony, where he gives her a rose as a gift.

## Production

In the wake of the success of *The Return of Jafar* and *The Land Before Time II: The Great Valley Adventure* (both 1994), The Walt Disney Company opened the Walt Disney Animation Canada studios in January 1996 to produce direct-to-video and potential theatrical films, as well as utilize the talent pool of Canadian animators. With 200 animators hired, Disney Animation Canada had two separate animation facilities in Toronto and Vancouver which were supervised by Joan Fischer, a former Canadian public television executive. Their first project was *Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas*, which went into pre-production later that spring. Additional animation work was done by Walt Disney Television Animation Australia, Wang Film Productions Co., Ltd. located in Xindian District, Taipei, Taiwan, and Character Builders. It was Disney's first direct-to-video animated film to use digital ink and paint.

Initially, the film was going to be a direct sequel to the original film with the main villain slated to be Gaston's younger brother, Avenant. Avenant's goal was to avenge Gaston's death by ruining the lives of Belle and the prince and threatening to kill them, reportedly using sorcery to transform the prince back into a Beast and frame Belle for it. After he was cut out of the story and the plot had changed, the film has reused one of director Don Bluth's scrapped ideas for the original film: Forte, the court composer who was transformed into a pipe organ and did not want the Beast to become human again. Unlike the other characters, Forte was animated entirely by computers.

Incidentally, the scrapped antagonist's name "Avenant" was taken from the French 1946 live action black and white film *Beauty and the Beast* (*La Belle et la Bête*), being the name of the antagonist of that version. The film is one of the first and most popular adaptations of the story, and have been the most influential on future adaptations, including the original Disney film, whose antagonist, Gaston, in fact, was himself inspired by Avenant.