YMMV / Beauty and the Beast (Golden 1992)

• Crosses the Line Twice: Nathan suggesting to let the Beast die is horrible. But when he cheerfully says it, it becomes hysterical.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The Old Man.
  • To a lesser degree, Clara's easily the most unironically likable character in the film. Helps that she borders on being the Only Sane Woman.
• Fountain of Memes: Many of Old Man's lines have become memes thanks to Phelous' review:
  • "X! It's/they're completely useless now!"
  • "I'm expected!"
  • And then there are Phelous' self-imposed catchphrases for Old Man, "HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" and "Ooh, a delicious X!"
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Then let him die!"
  • Phelous's review of this movie would be the beginning of the mischief that Old Man would cause in his videos, plus Beauty unconvincingly gasping at every sign of drama.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • Beauty not even bothering to hesitate when she learns her father will be spared by the Beast if she goes in his place, perfectly willing to give up her life for the sake of her family's continued wellbeing and trying her best to face her supposed upcoming death as strongly as possible.
  • Clara dragging in the evil fairy by her ear and humiliating her by showing how miserably her plot to drive Beauty and the Beast apart failed. When Beauty recognizes the evil fairy is the same one who kept telling her the Beast was a heartless murderer, Clara just handwaves it as "eh, my evil sister."
• Narm:
  • This Beast looks quite ridiculous, and hardly scary or threatening.
  • When Beauty asks for some time away from the castle to visit her family, the Beast tells her he will die of loneliness if she doesn’t come back to him. Not of sorrow, or a broken heart at being separated from her, but of loneliness. The line is spoken as though it’s supposed to be serious and impactful, but instead it makes the Beast look extremely pathetic.
  • Beauty's line "But he seems so sweet. He told me."
  • Beauty's constant blank expressions.
  • Beauty gasping with her hands on her cheeks.^ExplanationBeauty learns that her father has made a deal with the Beast that would trade his imprisonment with him for her's. She is supposed to be gasping in horror, but between both her blank expression and her happy-sounding, underwhelmed gasp, it greatly undermines the drama of the moment.
  • "Then let him die!"
  • Clara's remarkably simple defeat of the enchantress (i.e. via ear pushing) and shrugging her off as her "evil sister". It almost seems like the movie is admitting how pointless its own main villain was. Although it's not as much that Clara was the one who defeated her, since she mentions Beauty breaking her sister's curse left her powerless. Clara was just taking advantage of her powerless state to humiliate her.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Don Bluth's abandoned take on the story was also going to have the evil fairy torture Beauty in her dreams, in order to trick her into thinking the Beast was trying to kill her.
  • A lot of people who never read the original story often think the film just got the story mixed up with Cinderella by giving Beauty two evil sisters. In reality, not only are they the villains of the original story, but they've also arguably been part of the story since it was called "Eros and Psyche". They've been part of the story since before the Beast himself!
  • The story having a good and evil fairy, who were arguably combined into the Enchantress in the Disney version, or the prince's curse not being a punishment to teach him a lesson, the latter being Disney's invention.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Nathan and Robert were set up to be somewhat important characters. Warning their father of the thieves in the beginning, helping him around the farm and with family business, offering to fight the Beast together with their father when his life is being threatened, and generally just being nicer siblings to Beauty than Alicia and Pauline. However, they are vastly overshadowed by everything else in this story.
  • Having the enchantress play a much larger role in the story could have had much more interesting possibilities. For instance, the fact that she actively undermines any attempts to break the curse both addresses the Disproportionate Retribution angle the story is often accused of and gives the narrative an excellent foil. Instead, all we get is a generic villain whose endgoal doesn't make any sense and who is offhandedly defeated by her sister with an ear push.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Beauty's father supposedly means well, but it's quite aggravating how unsympathetic he was is in this movie. Trespassing in the Beast's castle and eating all of his food was innocent enough, but then he somehow let it slip that Beauty was the one who was supposed to die in his place, with the unfortunate phrasing that Beauty packing him food made him realize sparing her was the right thing to do, of all times. He also personally brings Beauty to the Beast's castle, caving into her "if you love me, you'll let me do this" demand and begging for her life with a wide smile on his face. Then when he leaves Beauty at Beast's castle, he "leaves quickly and doesn't look back." Beauty told him to, but it still counts.

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