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SithVamp Reviews: B+B: The Enchanted Christmas

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Welcome back to the SithVamp Christmas Extravaganza! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Beauty and the Beast is my favorite Disney movie. And then, I found out that there was a Beauty and the Beast Christmas movie, called The Enchanted Christmas. I've just seen fragments of this Christmas special, but recently I tracked it down and watched the whole thing. Was it worth it? Let's find out as we dive into Beauty and the Beast: The Encahnted Christmas.

Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas came out in 1997. The movie opens in the Beast’s Castle at a Christmas Party, where everyone has turned back to human already. Wow, this movie was shorter than I imagined…

Nah, just kidding: this is just the beginning: so the movie opens at a Christmas Party in the Beast’s Castle, where first we see Lumiere and Cogsworth argue over who saved last year’s Christmas, until Mrs. Potts sits down with Chip and tells the story of what really happened. Then we cut to a flashback and the story begins:

The story takes place when the Beast and his Servants were still cursed and Belle was still the Beast’s prisoner. Lumiere sees the Beast and then he and the others run to get their Master and Belle together. On the way, they bump into Belle, who tells them that it’s December 24th, Christmas Eve. Then, since they want her to be together with him, Lumiere and the others tell Belle to go outside and ice skate, because the Beast is outside too. Belle goes outside, meets the Beast, and after seeing how he slips on the ice, she teaches him how to ice-skate.

Then we cut to the main villain of the movie: a pipe organ named Maestro Forte, voiced by Tim Curry. Forte is playing a composition to himself, and his sidekick, an oboe named Fife, voiced by Paul Reubens, enjoys it. Forte overhears Belle and the Beast from outside and Fife sees them through the window. Like the other servants, Fife too hopes that Belle would help break the curse. However Forte doesn’t want to become human again, because ever since the Castle has been put under the curse, the Beast relies on him the most. And since he’s so used to this, Forte doesn’t want Belle to interfere. Forte cuts a deal with Fife: if he manages to stop Belle and the Beast from falling in love with each other, he’ll give him a solo. Since he would do anything for a solo, Fife agrees.

We then see Belle and the Beast again, who are still skating. This is when Fife arrives. He tries to stop Belle and the Beast, but in the end he just makes them trip in the snow. Belle makes a snow angel, but when Beast sees his body print, it puts him in a bad mood and he storms off. This makes Belle disappointed. The Beast goes to Forte, who plays him a song to soothe his nerves and help him forget.

Meanwhile, Belle is dumbfounded that even at Christmas the Beast is in a bad mood, but Chip doesn’t know what Christmas is. Belle says that on Christmas everyone gets a present and she even has a present for the Beast: she’ll write him a storybook, and this leads to a song: Belle sings about fairytales in the book and how she hopes that the stories will bring her and the Beast together. All the while, Belle finishes writing the book.

When the song ends, Belle and Chip decide to throw a Christmas Party and they go to tell the others about it. However, Cogsworth is against it, because the Beast banned Christmas in the castle. But when Belle, Lumiere and Mrs. Potts start telling him about all the food they will be having, Cogsworth changes his mind.

Then Belle and the gang go to the attic, because that’s where the Beast put all the Christmas decorations, and Fife secretly follows them. Up in the attic, they find the decorations and here’s where we meet Angelique, the head decorator of the Castle, and also Lumiere’s girlfriend. Belle and Lumiere tell Angelique about their plans for Christmas, but she refuses to help, because she’s worried that she’d be disappointed again. But then Belle starts singing a song again: “As Long as There’s Christmas”, which is about not losing hope. While the song is going on, Belle and the servants start decorating the castle. They even make a makeshift Christmas Tree, which sadly collapses by the end of the song.

But what they don’t know is that Fife was spying on them and that’s how the Beast finds out: first Fife told Forte about Belle’s plans and Forte told the Beast too. Then we cut to ANOTHER flashback (yeah, flashback within a flashback, just roll with it), and here’s where we see why the Beast hates Christmas: he was turned into a beast by the Sorceress on Christmas Day.

Then we cut to the boiler room. Here, Belle meets an Axe, voiced by Jeff Bennett, and the less I say about his accent the better… and at first I thought he was voiced by Jason Alexander. Anyway, Belle comes down to the boiler room, because she’s looking for a Yule Log. This is when the Beast shows up, and sees Belle’s Yule Log, and, of course, is pissed off, because he doesn’t want Christmas in his castle. Beast tells Belle that she has no idea what he’s going through, but Belle knows he feels like a prisoner and says that she won’t give up.

The next morning Belle wakes up and tells Chip that the Beast forbade Christmas after all. But then she looks out the window and gets an idea: she decides to get a Tree, but first she secretly puts the storybook she wrote for Beast next to the Magic Rose. Then Belle and Chip go outside with the Axe to get a Tree, and while they’re looking at the trees, we get a little reference to a Charlie Brown Christmas with a small tree.

Meanwhile inside, Beast sees the present and Lumiere tells him it’s from Belle, but he also says that he (Beast) can’t open it until Christmas. Lumiere says that Belle made the present for Beast, because she cares about him. Beast then gets an idea: he goes to Forte to write a song for Belle and make it happy, which disgusts Forte, because he hates happiness.

Then suddenly Belle hears Forte’s music and Fife even whistles. This catches the attention of Sultan the dog, who runs inside and Belle and Chip run after him. Sultan chases Fife and this leads Belle to the music room. Here is where she meets Fife and Forte. Forte introduces himself to Belle and suggests that she should get a really big Christmas Tree, therefore she must go out to the forest and chop one down. Belle is reluctant to go, because she promised Beast to stay in the Castle, but Forte persuades her to go. When Belle leaves, Forte tells Fife to follow Belle while she’s gone and make sure she won’t come back.

Beast then then tells Cogsworth to find Belle, because he has a song for her. Cogsworth starts looking for Belle, but he can’t find her. Lumiere and the others haven’t seen her either. They come to the conclusion that Belle is gone missing, so Lumiere and Cogsworth go to look for her. And then, as Forte plays Deck the Halls (and he’s not really happy about it), Mrs. Potts tells Beast that Belle is missing. Beast then looks into the Magic Mirror and sees Belle out in the forest.

This upsets Beast and he wants to go look for Belle, but then Forte tells him… oh sorry, I mean SINGS to him that Belle would only break his heart and he’s better off alone: Forte basically tells the Beast not to fall in love. This sends Beast into a rampage again and he wrecks the decorated dining room, much to Angelique’s disappointment.

Meanwhile Belle and Chip are riding a sleigh in the forest and Fife is going with them, and Lumiere and Cogsworth are still searching. Bella and Chip see the tree, but they have to go across the frozen lake to reach it. They cut down the tree, but when they try to take it back to the Castle, Fife loosens the bolt on the sleigh. And when Belle asks him what he’s doing out in the cold, Fife accidentally scares Belle’s horse Philippe, who stomps on the ice, causing it to break.

Then the tree falls into the water, but so does Chip! This makes Belle worried, so she dives into the water to save Chip. Lumiere, Cogsworth, Fife and the Axe save Chip and Belle, but the latter gets dragged underwater by the rope the tree has been tied to. Luckily, the Beast comes to the rescue: he dives into the water and saves Belle, but he’s not very happy. Fife blames himself for everything that happened.

Back at the castle, Beast is furious at Belle for breaking her promise and he locks her in the castle dungeon. However, when he goes back to Forte, he feels sad. But then Lumiere, Cogsworth, Fife and the others come to visit Belle and she tells them that she’s sorry for letting them down. But then Angelique sings a reprise of “As Long as There’s Christmas” and this makes Belle and the others regain hope.

Meanwhile, Beast is still with Forte, and is still depressed. Forte tells Beast to destroy the Magic Rose so his misery may end, but then Beast sees the present Belle left for him. He opens the present and sees that it’s a storybook and this makes his heart lighter. And after he reads a story, Beast realizes that he’s been too hard on Belle, so he goes to apologize to her, despite Forte telling him not to.

Back at the dungeons, Chip, Lumiere and Cogsworth sing a song to Belle that they can still celebrate Christmas without all the stuff they need, until Beast shows up. He apologizes to Belle and she accepts it.

But Forte is displeased with Beast and Belle getting together, so he puts his master plan that will keep them from falling in love into action: he decides to literally bring down the house, meaning that he starts playing so loud it would destroy the castle and kill both Belle AND Beast in the process!

Forte’s music is so loud that it indeed shakes the castle and breaks down its walls. Fife knows that it’s Forte, so he runs back to the music room to confront him. Fife calls Forte a “Big old Windbag” and he even discovers that Forte tricked him: the sheet music of Fife’s solo is just a bunch of blank pages!

Fed up with his behavior, Beast runs to the music room to confront Forte. But even he is no match for Forte’s music: the evil Organ tries to blow him and Belle away with his magic music notes. Then Fife reveals to the Beast that the source of Forte’s strength is his keyboard. So Beast takes the keyboard and smashes it. Then Forte loses his powers, collapses and dies.

Then Belle and the Beast enter the ballroom (with Belle wearing her yellow ball gown again), where Lumiere, Cogsworth, Angelique and the others have prepared a Christmas Tree, and then the story ends and we cut back to present time. Mrs. Potts tells the others that it was Belle, who really saved Christmas in the castle. And the movie ends with the new Court Composer: Fife starting the music and Beast/Prince giving Belle a rose as a Christmas present.

And that’s Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas. What do I think of it? Well, it’s not as good as the first movie, but I think it’s a good film to watch at Christmastime.

Good things:
- I always thought that Beauty and the Beast and Christmas are two things that could go very well together
- Forte. This guy is just awesome! Tim Curry does a great job voicing him and despite him being in mediocre CGI, he still looks creepy. He reminds me of both the Phantom of the Opera AND Beast Wars Megatron…
- Some of the songs are enjoyable too. I especially like “As Long as There’s Christmas” and Forte’s song “Don’t Fall in Love”.

Bad things:
- I felt that the movie was a little too short
- I kind of think they went a little overboard with the Axe…

Favorite character:
- Belle
- Cogsworth
- Fife
- Beast
- Forte
- Angelique
- Lumiere

Least favorite character:
- No one. Not even Forte.

So overall, despite having some minor flaws, I found Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas pretty good. I’m giving it 8 out of 10. See you next time on the SithVamp Christmas Extravaganza! Ho-ho-ho!
My review on Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas
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