Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Beauty and the Beast (1991)

This is topic Beauty and the Beast (1991) in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Geoff Jones (Member # 3668) on 01-15-2012, 02:53 PM:

Saw the re-issue of Beauty and the Beast (+ short "Tangled Ever After") at AMC Westminster Promenade with my 4 year old daughter. (10:15am - 2D - digital projection - Auditorium 21.)

This was the original theatrical cut and did not include the extra song ("Human Again") that was added to the 2002 Imax re-release.

Image - The film was slightly out of focus, especially away from the center of the screen. I politely asked 2 employees afterwards to fix it. It wasn't terrible, but it didn't look as good as it does at home via BluRay.

Sound - The surround mix was more active than I remembered, in a good way.

Crowd - I had to politely shush a woman sitting nearby who thought it was appropriate to sing along with Belle. She pretended that I was shushing her daughter (who was actually behaving) but managed to keep quiet for the rest of the movie. There were probably 20 or 30 in the audience.

Movie - I've seen it more times than I'd care to admit and expected to be bored, but it really held up and was fun. The larger screen and the communal experience made it more engrossing.

Shorts - We accidentally walked into The Muppets beforehand and caught "Toy Story Toon - Small Fry," which was pretty disappointing. I thought "Hawaiian Vacation" was much better.

However, and I saved the best for last here, "Tangled Ever After" was fantastic. I laughed out loud several times and marveled at the way they encorporated so many wonderful details from Tangled.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 01-15-2012, 03:16 PM:

2D ? ... True, the short was real good..

..bet the employees don't even know how to focus a Digital unit...or not even allowed to.

Posted by Geoff Jones (Member # 3668) on 01-15-2012, 03:41 PM:

Yes, 2D. All of the recent and upcoming 3D re-releases seem to include some 2D showings, thankfully. I'm hoping to take my 8 year old to see Titanic, but I'm not sure she's mature enough.

I don't like 3D. I don't like wearing dark glasses to watch a movie. I don't like paying extra for it. And when I've tried taking my kids to 3D movies, they have taken the glasses off.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 01-17-2012, 04:21 PM:

I saw this today on Rave's Xtreme screen at Fairfax Corner 14 - and I was impressed. I thought the 3D was far superior to 'Lion Kings' conversion - a lot of depth. The sound was also grand - the two extra surround speakers in the 7.1 set up really gave the music an extra dimensionality that complimented the 3D imagery.

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 01-17-2012, 10:39 PM:

quote: Geoff Jones
Yes, 2D. All of the recent and upcoming 3D re-releases seem to include some 2D showings, thankfully. I'm hoping to take my 8 year old to see Titanic, but I'm not sure she's mature enough.

I don't like 3D. I don't like wearing dark glasses to watch a movie. I don't like paying extra for it. And when I've tried taking my kids to 3D movies, they have taken the glasses off.

I can't wait to see Titanic again, not really all that thrilled about the 3D process (but I do want to see it in IMAX so I will have to settle), but they will be showing it in 2D. According to the producer, there is a 4K master, James Cameron says that it will look better than any showing from the original release....I can't wait, I wonder if he's right.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-17-2012, 10:49 PM:

I think James Cameron forgot how incredible the 70mm prints looked. I am pretty sure Bobby Henderson saw it at Northpark in Dallas and can attest.

Posted by Sean Weitzel (Member # 244) on 01-17-2012, 11:17 PM:

I never understood how Cameron managed to get such a good contrast relatively low grain image blown up from a super 35 negative.

Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 01-20-2012, 06:08 PM:

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is a masterpiece of hand-drawn animation. It is the perfect combination of great music & lyrics, good storytelling and a great vocal cast chosen to match their characters.

I have some problems with this version. 3-D does nothing for this movie. The characters were originaly drawn flat, and that makes it hard to create a 3-D image. So, it looks like much of the 3-D effect was assigning part of an image to a plane, similar to what was done years ago with 3-D comic books. This works reasonably well for group scenes, but it fails badly on faces. As a character moves, parts of faces are moving to different planes and the effect is somewhat jerky. An example of this is the 3 girls singing in the opening number. Their movements forward and back look very strange. There are many other examples of this throughout the movie, such as Lumiere's candle..it looks to be square instead of round.

I also did not like the sound re-mix. In the theatre I attended (Marcus Crosswoods, Columbus, OH), most of the orchestral parts were in the surround channels. This was distracting and pulled attention from the screen action at times. It sounded as if it were mixed for a home system rather than a theatrical environment.

But, this is a truly great movie, and I'm glad we saw it today.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-20-2012, 11:04 PM:

quote: Brad Miller
I think James Cameron forgot how incredible the 70mm prints looked.

I saw it in 70mm at the Colorado Center 9 or whatever it is called and the only thing better I noticed about it was the color consistency between reels. I remember the CGI looking very soft. It was pretty dark from what I remember. I recall Bevan from Christie was overseeing it for some reason, maybe to make sure that particular projector functioned because I think it was something rather funky. I don't think he was there at the same time I was, though.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 01-21-2012, 02:03 AM:

Had you seen it at Northpark, you would've left with a much different impression of the print quality. If you recall, the Northpark was John Pytlak's last stop after traveling all over with the instruction to personally screen every print of Titanic in 70mm and report back to Kodak on how well the prints held up. This was about 5 months into the run.

John was ecstatic that we were "using PTR rollers" (an assumption on his part) and said none of the other prints looked nearly that good. Well, we weren't using PTRs, but since FilmGuard hadn't been released to the public yet, we lied to him and said something along the lines of "we don't use PTRs, we just keep the projector and booth really clean". Regardless he said he had never seen a presentation so absolutely and perfectly flawless, that the print looked as if it had never been ran before.

Well duh! [Razz]

He found out the truth a few years later.

Getting back on track, I am not familiar enough with the original sound mix of Beauty and the Beast to comment on its remix, but at least it wasn't a horrible insult to the original mix like the Lion King abomination.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 01-21-2012, 05:06 AM:

I wish we had Film-Guard when we ran Beauty and the Beast the first time. We had that sucker for almost a year. It still looked good when it left, but probably would have looked brand new if we had Film-Guard to use on it.

Posted by John Lasher (Member # 968) on 01-24-2012, 12:01 AM:

quote: Sean Weitzel
I never understood how Cameron managed to get such a good contrast relatively low grain image blown up from a super 35 negative.

A Perfectionists Guide to Super 35 (ASC Article about use of Super 35 on Titanic)

I'm not going to quote the whole thing here. Key points:

They carefully selected the best lab for the job.
"make a beefy, beefy camera negative" - JC
"In the case of Titanic which cost $190 million and runs 20 reels the negative cost about $9 million per 1,000' roll. If you take into account what it would take to replace the roll, it has no price. [...] In response to this, I actually have the lab sign an agreement before we start the answer-printing process stating that they will not make any print without checking with me first. This dramatically cuts down on the number of times that the negative is handled and runs on the machine; therefore, we have fewer scratches, less dirt and a lower potential for damage." - JC
"Other than watchdogging the process all the way through, the only other special thing I do is to make a very meaty negative," [Cinematographer Russell] Carpenter reiterates. "But I'm also working with a director who is very involved in this process, and Jim is not one to say, 'That's good enough.'"