How the New Beauty and the Beast Movie Changed the Story

Updated on 3/20/2017 at 2:00 PM

Warning: Spoilers follow!

You have to anticipate that with a tale as old as time, some details may change between iterations. Though they're both Disney films, the new Beauty and the Beast movie has proven to be quite different than the animated version from 1992. Entertainment Weekly revealed the first look at the 2017 film in November, providing the first insight into what's different about the story. Now that we've seen the film, here are the biggest changes we noticed!

Belle is an inventor. "In the animated movie, it's her father who is the inventor, and we actually co-opted that for Belle," star Emma Watson told EW. "I was like, 'Well, there was never very much information or detail at the beginning of the story as to why Belle didn't fit in, other than she liked books. Also what is she doing with her time?' So, we created a backstory for her, which was that she had invented a kind of washing machine, so that, instead of doing laundry, she could sit and use that time to read instead. So, yeah, we made Belle an inventor."
Belle's father is a music-box maker. "Kevin Kline as Maurice, is making all these music boxes that have to tell the story of Belle not traveling," Katie Spencer, the set director, said. "She's overprotected in a way, by her father, because she's lost her mother. So, we've made all these music boxes that represent different countries of the world, so she can see what she's missing."
Belle and the Beast get backstories. While Belle doesn't get much of a biography in the animated film, Watson's Belle is much more fleshed out. As we learn throughout the movie, she was born in Paris but had to flee with her father because the plague was sweeping the city. (RIP, Belle's mom.) Meanwhile, there's much more of an emphasis on the Beast's background; he also loses his mother as a child, but his father is far less caring than Maurice.
The Enchantress plays a bigger part. The original film does feature an enchantress cursing the prince for not giving her shelter, but the woman is much more present in the new film, appearing several times.
The staff is more affected by the curse. This time around, not only have the staff been turned into household objects, they're slowly losing their humanity more and more each day. Even before the final rose petal hits the floor, they hardly have an human characteristics left.
LeFou is gay. Yes, LeFou is obsessed with Gaston in the original, but director Bill Condon confirmed that LeFou is definitely gay in the new film. He went on to say there is an "exclusively gay moment," but we were pretty underwhelmed by it.