Die Schöne und das Biest: Eine 30. Feier

I'm thinking they just tried to do too much here. They tried to combine storyboards, animated version footage and live actors to tell the story again, but it was too much of a mish-mash to make sense. Including the small live audience who applauded at the strangest times. Disappointing too that the couple never danced together nor kissed! Not very romantic. Josh Groban had gushed about the amazing costume/contraption they built for him but it didn't come off well with him peeking out from underneath. And as much as I admire H. E. R.'s talent I thought having her come down the stairs playing her electric guitar was just weird.

I've seen a lot of crybabies in these reviews. If you feel the need to complain about the race of the people portraying the characters, you have problems. They were all talented. This wasn't meant to be a live action movie, they did that years ago. This was to show the work that went into it 30yrs ago, along with remembering the scenes in the original movie, and then watching them act out the most poignant scenes and songs of the film. What is so hard to understand about that? Too many people calling it confusing, there was nothing confusing. It was entertaining, reminiscent, and everyone who was apart of it did a great job. Stop reading into everything like it needs to be Oscar worthy before it receives praise. Not to mention if you have kids, they will enjoy it, it was wholesome, fun entertainment.

Can we be done with the vocal fry singing already? H. E. R. was just not right for the role. Or simply can't sing without adding the silly little frills.

Josh Groban and Joshua Henry were the highlights of the show musically. Henry was stellar in the recent Into the Woods production and continues to wow.

However, overall it was a rather disjointed mess. The back and forth between animated and live action was distracting and we didn't get nearly enough of some characters like Martin Short and David Alan Grier.

But the part that made it laugh out loud bad was the guitar solo. Whichever creative head made that decision probably shouldn't be put in charge of anything.

The parts that were live production were the best I've seen in a long while. The performances were amazing. This is why it was annoying when they would cut to the animated feature. I have mad love for the original but the back and forth just doesn't work for me. Either do a full live production or do the behind the scenes stuff and show the original movie. I feel the talent they had was wasted in the few brief performances they were given no matter how phenomenal those performances were (and they were fantastic!) Ps Rita Moreno was great with the behind the scenes into. I learned things I never knew and enjoyed that immensely!

Would you rather watch the original Disney animated classic or would you rather watch portions of it, interrupted by commercials, live action sequences that are more about new choreography than the musical performances, interspersed with brief pieces about the creation and development of the orignal, perhaps accented with pop-up ads and scrolls on the bottom of the screen?

Some of the new performers are great talents. If only their talents were showcased better...and they were not lip synching!

In recent years we have been spoiled by some incredible live re-creations of musical classics that make this production suffer in comparison.