Top Five Disney Princes

Today, I’m staying home for all the sanitation workers out there.

Is it sexist that I’m compiling a Top Five of princes before I get to princesses? I’d say no – I’m starting with the princes because it’s easier for me to just pick five. I’m not sure when I’ll get around to doing a similar post for the Disney princesses, but I know I’m going to be debating long and hard to winnow down my list to my absolute favorites.

Phillip (Sleeping Beauty) – Going old-school for the first name on this list. If I were basing this on my initial memories of this movie, I wouldn’t have included Phillip, but rewatching the film in recent years made me remember how cool he is. After a couple mostly-blank-slates in Snow White and Cinderella, Phillip is fun and energetic and dashing. It’s easy to see why he and Aurora get so caught up in one another (“love at first sight” tropes notwithstanding,) and I still get a kick out of his declaration, “Now, father, you’re living in the past. This is the 14^th century!”

Best Musical Bit: Gotta go with the classic, “Once Upon a Dream.” I like the ending, with Aurora and Phillip singing together. “If I know you, / I know what you’ll do. / You’ll love me at once / The way I did once / Upon a dream.” Lovely.

The Beast (Beauty and the Beast) – More so in the live-action version, even though I did always enjoy him in the original. The Beast is someone who’s had a long time to feel sorry for himself, punished for his past cruelty but reflecting on how hard it is for him rather than recognizing that he needs to change his ways. It’s not until Belle comes along, someone who doesn’t capitulate to his growling and his tantrums, that he starts to uncover the man he could be.

Best Musical Bit: Again, we’re talking live action, because “Evermore” is worth the damn price of admission. “Wasting in my lonely tower, / Waiting by an open door, / I’ll fool myself she’ll walk right in. / And as the long, long nights begin, / I’ll think of all that might have been / Waiting here forevermore.” Oh, the angst! The way it’s shot, with the Beast clamboring about the castle, is so windswept and dramatic, and the emotion in his voice is really affecting.

Aladdin (Aladdin) –Aladdin is the first Disney movie I have really clear memories of seeing in the theater, and Aladdin will probably always be my favorite. A scrappy and resourceful thief with a good heart, Aladdin brims with potential that he doesn’t fully trust he has. I love watching him come into his own and realize he doesn’t have to be someone he’s not to get the sort of life that he wants. (Also, Mena Massoud was totally the best part of the live-action movie.)

Best Musical Bit: I’m gonna go with the reprise of “One Jump Ahead,” short but very sweet. “If only they’d look closer, / Would they see a poor boy? / No siree. / They’d find out / There’s so much more to me…” You really feel that yearning, and it comes through even more for borrowing the melody of the previous song, which displays such cockiness and charm.

Li Shang (Mulan) – Gotta love Shang. Not technically a prince, but Mulan isn’t a princess either – both get honorary status just ‘cause they’re that cool. A dedicated captain with daddy issues, Shang is brave and principled, and his experiences with Mulan help expand his notions beyond doing what is expected/ordering into doing what is right. Sad we won't see him in the live-action movie.

Best Musical Bit: Obviously “I’ll Make a Man Out of You,” come on now. I especially love those vocals at the start of the last verse. “Time is racing toward us till the Huns arrive. / Heed my every order and you might survive.” A kickass song set to an awesome montage. It’s just *chef’s kiss*!

Kristoff (Frozen) – I get such a kick out curmudgeonly Kristoff being slightly stunned at Anna’s sunshiny naivete. He can be a bit of a grouch, but he has a good heart, and for all that he’s irritated by Anna early on, he still keeps helping her. And when the chips are really down, he’s all in. I don’t think Frozen 2 serves him quite as well, but he delights me as a character in both the movie and the musical.

Best Musical Bit: I do love me some Jonathan Groff, but the first Frozen completely drops the ball on Kristoff singing, and while Groff sings the heck out of “Lost in the Woods” in Frozen 2, it’s a little too cheesy for my tastes. So I’m going Broadway version, with “What Do You Know About Love?” Kristoff’s parts in bold: “Some people know their hearts / The minute true love starts.” – “Some people read a lot of books.” – “Some people simply know / When true love says, ‘Hello!’” – “Some folks are taken in by curly locks and princely looks!” Great contrast between the low softness of the first line and the rising intensity of the second, and it’s a nice demonstration of his cynicism where instant-love is concerned.

Beauty and the Beast (1991, G)

I hadn’t seen this movie for years – years and years – and in addition to the recent live-action movie, my ears had gotten well used to the Broadway cast recording, which I’ve owned for quite a while.  As such, it was quite something to go back and watch the original film:  to see what I’d remembered and what I’d forgotten, and to recall why I loved it so much in the first place.

“Most peculiar mademoiselle” Belle trades places with her father as the prisoner of a gruff, sharp-tempered prince under a curse that turned him into a beast.  Unbeknownst to Belle, the curse can only be broken by true love, and the Beast’s servants (transformed by the curse into household objects) believe that Belle is their last hope for the spell finally being broken.  After their fraught beginning, Belle and the Beast gradually start understanding one another better, both realizing there may be more to the other than they had previously thought.

First things first:  as I said, I’ve had years of listening to the Broadway cast recording, and I was more recently exposed to the songs of the new movie (although there, more than anything, I’ve listened to new song “Evermore.”)  As such, I was more than a little blown away by the voices in this film.  Angela Lansbury’s Mrs. Potts singing the title song, of course, left an indelible mark on my childhood memory that never went away, but I’d forgotten how beautiful Paige O’Hara’s singing is as Belle.  She’s an absolute stunner in the role, and Jerry Orbach and Richard White, as Lumiere and Gaston respectively, both sound great as well.  If I’m a little iffier on Robby Benson’s brief singing as the Beast, it’s only because his singing voice sounds so unlike his character voice, to the point where I checked IMDb to see if someone else sang the part for him.  It’s given me more empathy for people who couldn’t stand the new movie – I still maintain that it has value, largely for how it expands on Belle and the Beast’s individual charactizations and the romance between them, but I’m sure it was easier for me to accept it for what it is because my memories, particularly of O’Hara’s singing, had gotten so fuzzy over time.

What can I say?  This is a classic, and when I was a kid, I loved the heck out of it.  I wasn’t quite four when it came out, so I can’t speak to my earliest memories of it, but I was always pro-Belle and only got more so throughout my childhood.  The book-reading heroine was always going to score big with me, and looking at her now, I also appreciate her determination, curiosity, and refusal to suffer fools (and chauvinists.)  Strangely, this time around, the Beast reminded me a lot of D’Argo from Farscape, what with the equal parts raging hothead and loveable dork.  I definitely prefer the richer characterization from the new film, but he works for what he is, and the animation does a bang-up job with him:  he makes the absolute best faces.  All the servants/enchanted objects are charming (with Lumiere staying on top as my favorite,) Gaston remains a terrific villain to hate – “Gaston” is such an awesome number – and the animation is both lovely and magical.  Utterly winning all around.

Warnings

Scary moments, some violence, and a little drinking.

Favorite Characters: The Beast (Beauty and the Beast)

Nothing against Belle, because I still love her – definitely one of my top-tier Disney princesses, and you may find her featured on the blog as well one of these days.  I wanted to write about the Beast, though, because the new live-action movie really opened him up for me as a character.  I always enjoyed the Beast well enough in the original, but as far as love interests go, he didn’t make the sort of lasting impression on me that, say, Shang from Mulan did (granted, Shang has an awesome song.)  But after the live-action movie?  So much love for the Beast, and not just because he now has an awesome song of his own.  (Note:  the Internet tells me that, technically, the Beast’s name is Adam, but since they never use it in the film, I’m gonna stick with “the Beast.”)

What I immediately love about this portrayal of the Beast is how clearly he’s still that vain, petulant prince under the fur and the fangs.  The enchantress may have transformed him to teach him a lesson, but until the events of the film, the Beast has almost obstinately refused to learn it.  Instead, he’s retreated into his misery and anger, rattling around the castle with only the servants for company for years.  When he does encounter other people, he takes his situation out on them, first imprisoning Maurice and then having Belle take his place.  He plays the “big scary monster” card a lot early on, inviting people’s fear before they have a chance to express revulsion or disgust at him. 

He’s really a piece of work, and I like that.  While he is of course redeemable, and we see the changes in him occurring gradually throughout the movie, he has a long way to go.  Much of it is, again, tied up in his own feelings of despair/anger/loneliness/fear/take your pick – he’s desperate to prove he has some semblance of control in his life, and so he throws his weight around and tries to control others – but the film doesn’t take that for an excuse, and it (and Belle) insists on better from him if he’s going to make it.

We see his princely personality coming through in less-threatening qualities, too.  As he valiantly tries to keep up decorum or make his matted mane presentable, you feel every inch of the self-consciousness of an arrogant man miserably trying to make due with the appearance of a “hideous beast.”  He can be inconsiderate more general ways (not thinking twice about ragging on Belle for her love of Romeo and Juliet,) as well as stubborn (trying to argue his way out of it when Belle later finds him reading a romance of his own.)

But as time goes by, the Beast learns to change in both the big and small ways.  He starts to realize that his pain isn’t a license to lash out at others, and he doesn’t act like a monster as a defense mechanism.  He sees that he can’t just rage when he doesn’t get his way, and he learns, perhaps begrudgingly, to laugh at himself, which keeps him of feeling so ashamed of what he is. He begins to understand that truly connecting with someone means considering their needs as well as his own and making concessions when necessary – when it counts, he’s prepared to make big sacrifices, risking his own salvation for the sake of another.

And yeah, because it bears repeating:  “Evermore,” people.  I love it so much.

Beauty and the Beast (2017, PG)

For my money, the most important thing to do with the new live-action Beauty and the Beast is to acknowledge that it’s not the original and then move on.  Even without getting into the merits of the singing between the two casts (and the original remains the champ, I’m not disputing that,) it’s always hard to hear a new rendition of songs you’ve heard countless times.  Heck, it took several listens for me to get used to the cast recording version of Hamilton’s opening number having listened to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s solo of it at the White House copious times over the last seven years.  How much more indelible is the original soundtrack for Beauty and the Beast?  No matter what, if you keep the new film in the context of the original, it’s going to come up short, but if you take a step back and allow it to be its own thing, you might like it quite a bit.

As in the original story, “most peculiar mademoiselle” Belle trades places with her father as the prisoner of a gruff, entitled prince under a curse that turned him into a beast.  Unbeknownst to Belle, the curse can only be broken by true love, and the Beast’s servants (transformed by the curse into household objects) believe that Belle is their last hope for the spell finally being broken.  After their fraught beginning, Belle and the Beast gradually start understanding one another better, both realizing there may be more to the other than they had previously thought.

While, again, it’s hard to fiddle with such iconic songs and scenes, I think the new cast acquits itself pretty well.  Emma Watson’s Belle has a less powerful voice, more contemplative, but she brings a nice air to her numbers.  And though she’s not one of the stronger links for me musically, her acting is superb.  Her Belle is sharply observant, independent, forceful, and gently compassionate.  The other half of the equation, Dan Stevens (Jane Austen alum and formerly of Downton Abbey,) makes an excellent Beast.  The CGI might be iffy, but his performance isn’t.  I really enjoy his prideful, snappish Beast who is still slightly immature and uses his monstrosity to hide his pain and loneliness.  Stevens is also my singing MVP, at least for the actors that I’d not heard sing before (he’s obviously not gonna compete with Audra McDonald.)  His solo “Evermore,” one of several new numbers Alan Menken composed for the film, is the standout of the whole film for me – just gorgeous.  For both characters, I think the tweaks to the story make them even richer and more engaging.  The screenplay also helps build a bit more slowly to the romance, showing how Belle and the Beast are forming a friendship that could turn to love.

Luke Evans as Gaston brings the buffoonery, swagger, and genuine menace in equal turn, I like the minor arc given to Josh Gad (a.k.a. Olaf the snowman) as his toady LeFou, and Kevin Kline is sweetly earnest as Belle’s father.  As for the servants, Ewan McGregor’s exuberant Lumiere, Sir Ian McKellen’s stuffy Cogsworth, and Emma Thompson’s motherly Mrs. Potts are the most noteworthy, but the aforementioned Audra McDonald is also featured, along with Stanley Tucci and Gugu Mbatha-Raw.  Everyone’s singing here is quite respectable.  I think the staging can get a bit too busy on some numbers – the titular “Beauty and the Beast” is lovely, but I feel like there’s too much going on onscreen.  However, when the film finds the right balance between musical and movie, as in “Gaston,” “Be Our Guest,” and “The Mob Song,” it can be pretty great.

Warnings

Some scary scenes and Disney violence.