The Errors


Flawless as Beauty and the Beast is, the creators still made a few blunders... see what went wrong in Beauty and the Beast:

Beauty and the Beast:The Errors

(Site maintained by... someone else, I'll have to find out who! :) But I DO have permission to link. I wrote to him, and he wrote back, so... I'm babbling, so I'll shut up.)



I don't know about you, but I've noticed a few boo-boos on my own...

When the Beast is talking to Lumiere and Mrs. Potts before Belle is to dine with him, we can see that the door is ajar, tilted into the room. When the Beast burst out of the room, he pushes the door outward. Those big, heavy doors don't exactly look like the swinging type.



Debbie Jackson contributed this one:

In the scene where Gaston throws Belle's book in the mud, Belle wipes it off on her apron. In the next scene, there's no mud on her apron.



Thank you to Caitlin, BBCM #24 for contributing these two. The latter one I had never though of.

When Gaston first starts talking to Belle he asks how she can read her book even though there are no pictures, but before that when Belle is singing by the fountain, a sheep eats a page from the book and it has a picture of a prince on it!


When Belle shows them the Beast in her mirror, Gaston takes it and declares that the Beast would attack them all. He's been there for twenty-one years, and he's never done that before, so why should he do it now, just because they now know about him?



Joel writes:

On your BatB Errors page, Caitlin states that Gaston's declaration about the Beast attacking the villagers is illogical. It's possible to argue that this is not actually a flaw at all. Gaston is simply acting in character- he only considers physical appearance and when he sees a monstrous appearance, he thinks that it is a monster. He's applying a rather simplistic form of logic- looks like a monster, is a monster, looks frightening and threatening, must be frightening and threatening, thus must kill it. He also sets out to accomplish a secondary goal by doing this- eliminating a potential rival for Belle's affections. Gaston only has these goals in his mind; he's not really the person who would sit down and think, "Wait a second. Why hasn't the Beast attacked us before?" Gaston is a person of action, rather than thinking.

Gaston is a detestable character, but one thing for which I do admire him is the way he stirs up the villagers in a frenzy. By playing on their fears, he turns normal, peaceful people into bloodthirsty killers. In the film M.I.B., Tommy Lee Jones' character sums this up perfectly: "A person is intelligent; people are stupid." The villagers act as a collective entity- individual thought and reasoning cease and only a 'mob' mentality exists, one which blindly follows suggestions made by some sort of leader figure. Think about when you last went to a music concert, a football game or perhaps a political speech, where you become part of a crowd.

Personally, I think Gaston would have made a great politician- good looks, popular, deceitful, greedy, can persuade the masses. :)


And Erika says:

I have a comment about one of the BatB errors you have listed: the one where Gaston declares that the Beast would attack them all. I don't think he actually believed that-- I think he just said it to rile the townspeople and to get support. You know, to fill their heads with garbage! I don't think it was an error, just another nasty glimpse into his despicable character.



(Okay, this is Charlotte speaking now :)) These are good arguments, but I don't think Caitlin was truly saying that this was an "error", just something to think about. You know, "Gee, I wonder why not one villager stopped to think about the fact that the Beast's been there for ten years and hasn't attacked us once." Sorry 'bout that. :)



Diane Coddington writes:

Belle is starving, which is why she sneaks into the kitchen after the Beast forbids it. Still, she seems to barely eat anything (except a taste of the "gray stuff") during the whole "Be our Guest" bit. I guess the animation amazes her, too.



TIMON says:

Phillip and Maurice get "lost" in the woods....Then Phillip runs off and Maurice gets chased by wolves to the castle..Now, even though Phillip was "lost", he finds his way back to Belle without a problem and is able to take her back to - not the spot where he left Maurice, but to the castle.....



And this one, from Susan:

How about the fact that after the Beast is wounded he collapses onto the ground, but then he's seen on Belle's horse travelling back to the castle...and again when Belle reaches out her hand to him as Gaston is stabbing him...Apparently little Belle has a Nautilus set tucked away at home somewhere to be able to heft the weight of the Beast on these two occasions.


Maintainer's Note: This has actually been brought up before, and there have been little articles written on different theories as to how tall but (unrealistically)thin Belle managed to haul a 5-600 pound Beast around. You can find one such speculation here.

Kelsey contributed this one:

When Belle goes into the West wing, she climbs a flight of steps and stops in front of a big door. inside, she sees a lot of broken objects and the enchanted rose. When Gaston looks for the Beast to kill him, he just goes down a hallway, opening door after door, and when he opens any door, he sees the Beast, with the rose, and a clean room!!!



Any I missed? Let me know!


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