FILM 1632: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 

TRIVIA: Ryan Gosling was offered the role of the Beast, but turned it down to appear in La La Land (2016) instead. Emma Watson was offered the lead role in that film, but turned down that film to star in this one.

Sir Ian McKellen originally turned down the voice of Cogsworth in the original Beauty and the Beast (1991).

According to Ewan McGregor, the hardest part about playing Lumiere was getting the character's French accent right, although his wife of twenty years is in fact French. He said his voice ended up sounding Mexican instead of French, so he had to redo his dialogue after filming had completed.

Alan Menken, who scored Beauty and the Beast (1991), returns to score this live-action adaptation, which includes new recordings of the original songs in addition to new songs written by Menken and Tim Rice.

Ewan McGregor performed Lumiere's dances in motion-capture. However, he was embarrassed at wearing the motion-capture suit, and couldn't dance properly, unless he was completely alone with the filming crew.

During the ballroom scene, Emma Watson had a hard time not looking at her feet, because Dan Stevens was wearing steel toed shoes, and she was afraid he would step on her.

According to Disney, the first teaser trailer was viewed 91.8 million times in its first 24 hours. This marks the first teaser trailer of "Beauty and the Beast" to be the most viewed teaser trailer in history. Beating the previous record by Star Wars: The Force Awakens' (88 million views), followed by Captain America: Civil War (61 million views), each of them Disney films as well.

Bill Condon had actors sing The Lion King (1994)'s "Hakuna Matata" at the auditions to measure their singing voices. This was how he chose the final cast for this film.

Luke Evans (Gaston) had to wear fake teeth during filming due to having canines that are longer than normal, which he said would have made Gaston look like a vampire. Interestingly, he did in fact play a vampire in 2014's Dracula Untold as the title character.

Hidden Mickey: The lock on the stagecoach that Maurice and Belle are imprisoned in

In the 1991 classic the Beast's castle is shown to be quite close to the village, close enough for an angry mob to reach it in a few hours at most, yet nobody in the village know about it or notices the absence of those who live there when they are cursed. The prologue of the 2017 version elaborates on the story of the curse, stating part of the curse involved the world forgetting about the castle and its inhabitants.

During Belle and Beast's waltz, the letters WD can be seen in the coat of arms design on the floor. This is a nod to Walt Disney.

Jean Dujardin was strongly considered, and was the filmmakers' choice, for the role of Lumiere.

Bill Condon was chosen to direct Beauty and the Beast (2017), based solely on his previous work on Dreamgirls (2006).

When Maurice first enters the castle, he takes a second glance at the sconce holding up a lantern, as it resembles a human arm. This is a nod to the Jean Cocteau 1946's French film version of La Belle et la Bête (1946), where the halls of the castle are lit by human arms covered in gold holding up candelabras.

In the first half of the film, the Beast wears raggedy clothes, symbolizing his initially savage persona. After the song "Days in the Sun", the Beast's outfits become more refined and princely. This mirrors him slowly regaining his humanity.

The fictional town of Villeneuve is so named for the original author of "La Belle et la Bête," and Production Designer Sarah Greenwood used the real French village of Conques in Southern France for the inspiration.

BOOK 157: MOBY DICK: HERMAN MELVILLE

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale is a novel by American writer Herman Melville, published in 1851 during the period of the American Renaissance. Sailor Ishmael tells the story of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaler the Pequod, for revenge on Moby Dick, the white whale which on the previous whaling voyage destroyed his ship and severed his leg at the knee. The novel was a commercial failure and out of print at the time of the author's death in 1891, but during the 20th century, its reputation as a Great American Novel was established. William Faulkner confessed he wished he had written it himself, and D. H. Lawrence called it "one of the strangest and most wonderful books in the world", and "the greatest book of the sea ever written".

"Call me Ishmael" is among world literature's most famous opening sentences.

Dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne, "in token of my admiration for his genius", the work was first published as The Whale in London in October 1851, and under its definitive title in New York in November. Hundreds of differences, mostly slight and some important, are seen between the two editions. The London publisher censored or changed sensitive passages and Melville made revisions, as well, including the last-minute change in the title for the New York edition. The whale, however, appears in both editions as "Moby Dick", with no hyphen. About 3,200 copies were sold during the author's life.

The novel has been adapted or represented in art, film, books, cartoons, television, and more than a dozen versions in comic-book format. The first adaptation was the 1926 silent movie The Sea Beast, starring John Barrymore, in which Ahab kills the whale and returns to marry his fiancée. The most famous adaptation was the John Huston 1956 film produced from a screenplay by author Ray Bradbury. The long list of adaptations, as Bryant and Springer put it, demonstrates that "the iconic image of an angry embittered American slaying a mythic beast seemed to capture the popular imagination", showing how "different readers in different periods of popular culture have rewritten Moby-Dick" to make it a "true cultural icon".

Film 915: Beauty and the Beast

Trivia: Sherri Stoner was used as the model for Belle.

Art director Brian McEntee color keyed Belle so that she is the only person in her town who wears blue. This is symbolic of how different she is from everyone else around. Later, she encounters the Beast, another misfit, also wearing blue. It symbolized good in the film whereas red symbolized evil (the color of Gaston's shirt is red).

Chip originally had only one line, but the producers liked Bradley Pierce's voice so much that extra dialogue and business was written and storyboarded for the character.

The original "cute" character of the movie was a music box, which was supposed to be a musical version of Dopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. But when the character Chip's role was expanded, the music box idea was scrapped. However the music box can be seen for a brief moment on a table next to Lumière just before the fight between the enchanted objects and the villagers in the Beast's castle.

Computer technology was considered for the rooftop fight and the forest chase, but the primitive state of the technology only allowed time to use it for the ballroom scene. Even for that scene, they had a fallback strategy: what they called the "Ice Capades" version, with just a spotlight on the two characters against a black background.

In the French release, Cogsworth's name is Big Ben, after the famous clock in London. The landmark's real name is "The Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster", while Big Ben is actually the name of the largest bell in the tower. The clock is seldom referred to by any name other than Big Ben.

The dance between Belle and her Prince in the finale is actually reused animation of the dance between Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip in Sleeping Beauty. The original Sleeping Beauty pair had been drawn over to become the new Beauty and the Beast pair, and this was done because they were running out of time during the production of the movie.

Angela Lansbury, the voice of Mrs. Potts, thought that another character would be better suited to sing the ballad "Beauty and the Beast". The director asked her to make at least one recording to have for a back up if nothing else worked, and that one recording ended up in the film.

The smoke seen during the transformation of the Beast to the Prince is actually real smoke, not animated. It was originally used in The Black Cauldron and was re-used for Beauty and the Beast.

Many of paintings on the walls of the castle are undetailed versions of famous paintings by such artists as Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Goya.

It was lyricist and executive producer Howard Ashman who came up with the idea of turning the enchanted objects into living creatures with unique personalities.

Glen Keane, the supervising animator on the Beast, created his own hybrid beast by combining the mane of a lion, the beard and head structure of a buffalo, the tusks and nose bridge of a wild boar, the heavily muscled brow of a gorilla, the legs and tail of a wolf, and the big and bulky body of a bear. He also has blue eyes, the one physical feature that does not change whether he is a beast or a human.

Robby Benson's voice was altered by the growls of real panthers and lions so that it is virtually unrecognizable. This is why near the end when the Beast transforms into the prince his voice changes. His voice is also not changed on the original motion picture soundtrack.

The majority of the sculptures seen in the castle are different earlier versions of the Beast.

Scheduling conflicts with Star Trek: The Next Generation forced Patrick Stewart to turn down the role of Cogsworth.

When Paige O'Hara was auditioning, a bit of her hair flew in her face and she tucked it back. The animators liked this so they put it in the movie.

Until Disney-Pixar's Up was nominated in 2010, this was the only animated film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Rupert Everett auditioned for the role of Gaston, but was told by the directors he didn't sound arrogant enough. He remembered this when he voiced Prince Charming in Shrek 2.

HIDDEN MICKEY: There's a hidden classic Mickey in the 'Mob Song' when Gaston and Co. are chopping down the tree. The Mickey is located after the tree's chopped down - there are 3 droplets of water that form an upside-down classic Mickey head. Also, a trio of stones by the roots to the left of the cottage at the beginning form an upside-down vision of the symbol.