Episode 197 - Beastly: LIVE!

[JulyDiaz 2797]

Live from New York! It’s Paul, June, and Jason discussing the 2011 romantic fantasy drama Beastly. They dive deep into June’s sincere love for the movie, the main crux of the movie being kidnapping, the Beast stalking Vanessa Hudgens, the alternate ending, and Jason’s idea for what a real Beast would look like. 

 

 

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[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

Oh god this fucking movie, for some reason I thought they'd already released this episode. The concept of a dad telling some random dude that he can have his daughter to repay a debt has not aged particularly well. 

That said, my favorite part of some of reviews of this movie are from the reviewer saying how much more attractive they find the main character after he goes through his transformation. At that point they're saying alot more about themselves than they are about the movie. 

[gigi-tastic 2322]

In the original fairy tale Beauty is the youngest daughter of a once wealthy merchant. At the beginning of the story his fleet of ships are lost on a storm and the family loses everything.  usually they end up moving from the city to the country because of their new found poverty. One day the family receives word that one of the ships survived with some of the cargo in tact. The father leaves on a trip to go recover the cargo and asks his daughters what they would like him to bring back as a gift for them. I forgot what the first two ask for but Beauty being the best of his daughters asks for only a rose because it's relatively worthless and won't cost him anything (or so she thinks). On his way back to his family the merchant is caught in a freak storm and takes refuge in the Breast's castle. There are no talking enchanted servants just sort of invisible ones? He finds  a warm fire and a dinner set out for him and everything is fine until he gets ready to leave and sees an amazingly perfect rose which he picks for Beauty. This is what causes the Beast to fly into a rage and to demand the merchant must pay for taking his most prized possession because dude's really into his flowers. They come to an agreement that the merchant can go home to his family but either Beauty (the person who the rose is for) or the merchant has to return and live with the Beast.  (Which is one way to get a roommate) In the end Beauty decides to go after forcing her father to tell her what is wrong. There's no deadline to get her to love her . Every night he asks her to marry him and every night she politely refuses. They actually are really civil in the tales I've read. He gives her clothes and jewelry.  She still feels homesick though so he gives her a magic ring and mirror which will get her home and back to the castle. She's only supposed to stay for a week but her sisters make her stay for like a week and a day i think? And of course she feels awful and rushes back to find the Beast dying which makes her cry on him and profess her love which saves him like the movie. In several of the older ones her sisters purposefully try to keep her home and drive a wedge between them out of jealousy because women are each other's worst enemies am I right?  (Sorry this is so long I love fairy tales/folklore/mythology! I'm a giant nerd)

[Wil Dride 121]

By coincidence, Jenny Nicolson just did a video on this movie: 

 

[grudlian. 4725]

I think one of the reasons Beauty And The Beast stories work so well is we never see the beast before his transformation. We just hear, from the beast himself, that he was cursed by a witch. Since we only ever see the better version of him, we assume the witch was evil. But not here. The witch was in the right and he was straight up awful. He deserved his curse. While the movie doesn't work for a lot of reasons, it's broken from the very beginning due to changing the story structure.

Also, I understand why June missed Vanessa Hudgens dad murdering his drug dealer's brother. I had to rewind that scene three times since we only hear a gun shot off screen. 

[RyanSz 3140]

Haven't listened to the episode yet so if this is covered in it, apologies.

 

Apparently the book this was based on tries to go the Vampire Academy route of being tongue-in-cheek with covering the original stories it's based upon, by having the main character in a chatroom where he talks with others who have been transformed into creatures, making playful reference to the various references to all of the versions of Beauty and the Beast. Also, I have to assume that Neil Patrick Harris is making the same type of film choices as Samuel L. Jackson, who has admitted that he chooses a role based on wanting to do a movie like he liked to watch as a kid or likes to watch now, but in NPH's case, it's books he enjoyed reading to himself or his kids and hears that they're making an adaptation. Looking over his filmography there's Starship Troopers, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Beastly, Gone Girl, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and various DC animated films. And was there ever a reason as to why he was made to look like Matt Murdock with the Kingpin's walking stick?

[WatchOutForSnakes 807]

1 hour ago, grudlian. said:

 

Also, I understand why June missed Vanessa Hudgens dad murdering his drug dealer's brother. I had to rewind that scene three times since we only hear a gun shot off screen. 

I missed it too, but didn't care enough to rewind. I looked away and when I came back there was some negotiating about whether or not "Hunter" would get to keep the girl to "protect" her. And that never comes back into play once she's holed up with "Hunter." Protect her from whom? What? And she just stays. And, apparently after their trip everything will be fine? 

Oh, this movie was bad. Really bad. Really, really bad. 

[taylor anne photo 11311]

3 hours ago, gigitastic said:

In the original fairy tale Beauty is the youngest daughter of a once wealthy merchant. At the beginning of the story his fleet of ships are lost on a storm and the family loses everything.  usually they end up moving from the city to the country because of their new found poverty. One day the family receives word that one of the ships survived with some of the cargo in tact. The father leaves on a trip to go recover the cargo and asks his daughters what they would like him to bring back as a gift for them. I forgot what the first two ask for but Beauty being the best of his daughters asks for only a rose because it's relatively worthless and won't cost him anything (or so she thinks). On his way back to his family the merchant is caught in a freak storm and takes refuge in the Breast's castle. There are no talking enchanted servants just sort of invisible ones? He finds  a warm fire and a dinner set out for him and everything is fine until he gets ready to leave and sees an amazingly perfect rose which he picks for Beauty. This is what causes the Beast to fly into a rage and to demand the merchant must pay for taking his most prized possession because dude's really into his flowers. They come to an agreement that the merchant can go home to his family but either Beauty (the person who the rose is for) or the merchant has to return and live with the Beast.  (Which is one way to get a roommate) In the end Beauty decides to go after forcing her father to tell her what is wrong. There's no deadline to get her to love her . Every night he asks her to marry him and every night she politely refuses. They actually are really civil in the tales I've read. He gives her clothes and jewelry.  She still feels homesick though so he gives her a magic ring and mirror which will get her home and back to the castle. She's only supposed to stay for a week but her sisters make her stay for like a week and a day i think? And of course she feels awful and rushes back to find the Beast dying which makes her cry on him and profess her love which saves him like the movie. In several of the older ones her sisters purposefully try to keep her home and drive a wedge between them out of jealousy because women are each other's worst enemies am I right?  (Sorry this is so long I love fairy tales/folklore/mythology! I'm a giant nerd)

They put a lot more of this into the live adaptation from last year and I had no idea it came from the original story! It was actually the parts I liked best because it fit nicely with live actors, and really brought character development for both Belle and the Beast, and then all the parts where they tried to mimic the 92 cartoon I was like no thanks they did it better back then pls stop trying.

[Cam Bert 8145]

Am I alone in thinking that NPH was trying to backdoor his way into an audition for Daredevil? This movie would have been film shortly after the early success of the first few MCU movies and with new heroes popping up he saw this as a chance to play a character he liked. His character wears red sunglasses and is a snappy dresser just like Matt Murdock. He also seemingly good at darts, golf, and other activities that would be hard for a blind person unless they had some sort of radar sense. Also he uses a white cane which is topped with a large diamond just like the one used by Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin aka Daredevil's arch-nemesis. Given the target demographic for this movie wouldn't be interested in Daredevil I can only assume these were NPH's suggestions which paints him as a very Matt Murdock like figure.

[ChunkStyle 1160]

I realize that Peter Krause is an anchor and not a reporter but if he lacks the journalistic instincts to investigate anything at all about how his son came to be cursed and the existence of real magic in the world then I am afraid the people of New York are being poorly served by their local news.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

I'm gonna have to agree with June that The Beast from 1992 did have more attractive qualities than when he became human. My friend and I make a joke all the time how ugly that cartoon human version is and then once upon a time we found this mini comic on Deviant Art and I have it permanently saved lol.

[grudlian. 4725]

6 minutes ago, taylorannephoto said:

I'm gonna have to agree with June that The Beast from 1992 did have more attractive qualities than when he became human. My friend and I make a joke all the time how ugly that cartoon human version is and then once upon a time we found this mini comic on Deviant Art and I have it permanently saved lol.

This seems to be a common theme. The Jean Cocteau version from the 1940s had a similar criticism. I would to say they discussed it in the commentary track for it. I wonder how much of this is the human in every Beauty And The Beast situation never living up to every single audience member's ideal form of beauty.

[Cameron H. 23786]

1 hour ago, grudlian. said:

This seems to be a common theme. The Jean Cocteau version from the 1940s had a similar criticism. I would to say they discussed it in the commentary track for it. I wonder how much of this is the human in every Beauty And The Beast situation never living up to every single audience member's ideal form of beauty.

I don’t think it’s so much that they don’t live up to an “ideal form of beauty” so much as - if the version is done well - the audience is able to look past the Beast’s looks themselves. We fall in love with the Beast for who he is, not what he looks like, so when he transforms into a human, it’s like he’s an imposter. 

[taylor anne photo 11311]

4 minutes ago, CameronH said:

I don’t think it’s so much that they don’t live up to an “ideal form of beauty” so much as - if the version is done well - the audience is able to look past the Beast’s looks themselves. We fall in love with the Beast for who he is, not what he looks like, so when he transforms into a human, it’s like he’s an imposter. 

But also that human version was ugly

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

This movie is terrible, but I will say that Vanessa Hudgens is doing yeoman's work to try to make her scenes work at all. Terrible dialogue, terrible character, but she's the only person consistently bringing any warmth and humanity to the screen.

[grudlian. 4725]

5 minutes ago, taylorannephoto said:

But also that human version was ugly

can anyone live up to the majesty Gaston?

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

 

4 minutes ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

This movie is terrible, but I will say that Vanessa Hudgens is doing yeoman's work to try to make her scenes work at all. Terrible dialogue, terrible character, but she's the only person consistently bringing any warmth and humanity to the screen.

Yea.  The show bombed, but there was a brief DC Universe comic book comedy on TV called Powerless.  Vanessa Hudgens was on it and I thought she was terrific there, a very likable lead actress for a TV show.  I'm not familiar with the High School Musicals or whatever but from that show I've thought she was cool.  

[Wil Dride 121]

This was made two years after the Beauty and the Beast with Estella Warren which was, uh, not 100% successful. There really have been a crazy number of adaptations of this story.

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

i think the inherent problem is that the film thinks it is being all "looks don't matter in love," which is fine and sort of noble, but instead it actually comes off as "horrible people aren't so bad really," which is shitty

[Al1 0]

The question of “how did this get made?” May, after so many episodes become less pertinent. It can be explained away by  over ambitious passion projects or poor industry descisions. But this film is rotten to the core. This film cannot of been about making money. My hope is it’s   a drastic conceptual art piece meant to insult the very notion that money can be spent wisely.  It’s messages,  Arabic eyebrows and execution; especially pointing to  the dialogue  are an insult to us all. Truely this movie above all others I’ve watched through the podcast needs an answer to how did this get made? I need to understand how a movie can  be made that’s so drastic, as to make me feel like a fundamental sickness has embedded itself our society. How I met your mother guy was ok though.

[grudlian. 4725]

28 minutes ago, AlmostAGhost said:

i think the inherent problem is that the film thinks it is being all "looks don't matter in love," which is fine and sort of noble, but instead it actually comes off as "horrible people aren't so bad really," which is shitty

Oh man, there's a song shortly after he's cursed where it keeps singing "I'm only half here" I think it was supposed to put us in the mind of Hunter but it only made me hate him more.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

I found this to have a "Clark Kent effect" for me where I couldn't comprehend how she never fucking recognized him. He honestly didn't look that different to me. Remove his hair and give him some face tats and studs and guess what he still looks like the same man. Vanessa was just a straight dumb dumb in my mind.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

41 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

Oh man, there's a song shortly after he's cursed where it keeps singing "I'm only half here" I think it was supposed to put us in the mind of Hunter but it only made me hate him more.

This movie had maybe the most literal song choices I've ever heard.

[Omaxem 232]

I dunno if its just me, but i feel that the Second Opinions are starting to move away from " LOL crazy ", and into " Oh... Oh no " or " Drugs are bad " territory. Some of the latest ones have been... unsettling 

[Bingo Boy 27]

Had a blast going to this show in Brooklyn, my first HDTGM live experience.

Wouldn't it make way more sense to have Vanessa Hudgens' character HATE the beastly guy in the beginning when he was a handsome jerk, only to fall in love with him while he's Mr. Beastly?  That way there is some progression for both characters by the end. Instead she's just in love with him the whole time, even when he was an asshole. 

The big dramatic reveal ending from her perspective: Oh, this random beastly guy I've fallen in love with is actually the guy i was already in love with in the first place? Cool.