A couple days ago, I was scrolling through Facebook and I saw that the Beauty & The Beast trailer dropped. I’m not a huge fan of Disney live-action remakes, but this movie is different. Beauty & the Beast is one of my favorite princess stories of my childhood and I wanted to briefly give my first thoughts.

Belle’s beautiful yellow dress is identical to the animated version. Belle is easily my favorite Disney princess. As a young reader, I would have loved to work at a library and shelve books all day. I admired Belle’s quest for constant knowledge and I thought Belle was sweet to everyone she interacted with.  The yellow dress is classic to the story and Emma Watson looks stunning.

Gaston is an interesting villain because his appearance isn’t intimidating, unlike Ursula or Jafar. His character disturbs me because of his beliefs which are shown when he makes snide remarks about Belle’s love of reading. Gaston sees women as his property and belonging only in the kitchen. He also thinks very low of Belle’s father who is seen as “eccentric” and “different”. I didn’t know this much about Gaston when I was young and watching the film, but now that I’m older, I can analyze how Gaston is portrayed as villainous. There are many people in the world today that think like him and that saddens me. Gaston is a scary dude and Luke Evans looks exactly like him.

Besides Belle and Gaston, I think the rest of the characters were really well cast. Rounding out the cast includes Emma Thompson, Ewan McGregor, Josh Gad, and Ian McKellen just to name a few. Everyone starring in this movie is really talented and I’m a huge fan of Emma Thompson.

Even if Beauty & the Beast isn’t your favorite Disney movie, I feel that it’s important to watch the trailer. Also, I heard a rumor that Belle is supposed to be an inventor so it’s going to be more modern than the original story. If that doesn’t intrigue you, I don’t know what will. Emma Watson is probably my favorite actress of all time, so I will watch anything with her in it, including this beautiful retelling of a childhood story.