On March 17, 2017, the long-awaited Disney animation, “Beauty and the Beast” will be released as a live action movie. For many students that have grown up watching this movie, having the film come out soon is exciting. The production has acquired new actors and actresses for the roles and a few of the main characters are portrayed as the following: Emma Watson as Belle, Dan Stevens as the Beast and Luke Evans as Gaston. The production has also already released various clips of the movie along with the soundtrack with the songs sung by famous pop artists such as Ariana Grande and John Legend.

Disney had redone another classic movie recently. Cinderella, made in 2015, was one of the first live action Disney remakes. Candice Reed, junior, was pleased with the past films and looks forward to the new ones.

“I really enjoyed the past live action film of Cinderella because it gave the story a new realistic feel so I’m excited to see what Disney will do with Beauty and the Beast,” Reed said.

Compared to to the original film produced in 1991, Disney has changed its direction and is making the movie more contemporary, according to junior Ella Gwartney.

“I think making it modern and CGI will make the elements seem darker and more for the Gen-Z generation like us, rather than little kids. The soundtrack is also much more modern, with choices such as Ariana Grande and John Legend. They have excellent voices but they just have more pop genre voices rather than the typical Disney type voices,” Gwartney said.

Conversely, Faith Ette, junior, does not favor the artists chosen to sing the songs.

“Ariana Grande would definitely not have been in my top 10 of choices for singing the theme song, A Tale as Old as Time. Of course she has a beautiful voice but there’s no fullness and strength to it like Celine Dion, the original singer for the first film. This is one of those soundtracks that cannot be replaced and that’s the one thing I’m not really excited about,” said Ette.

Although she has some disagreements with the music selection, Ette approves of the cast.

“For this Beauty and the Beast movie, I’m really excited just because it’s the same film I’ve always loved, but with a new feel. I’m mostly excited about the cast because they are casting such phenomenal actors such as Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Josh Gad, and especially Luke Evans. Since Emma Watson also starred in the Harry Potter films as Hermione Granger, I hope there will be Harry Potter sneaks and details in the movie,” Ette said.

Gwartney does like the cast but wishes there was a greater variety of actors and actresses.

“I thought the casting was pretty decent. The diversity is terrible because there is only one black woman as a principle role and that’s it, but I’m super excited to hear Ian McKellen play Cogsworth, and the CGI clock, feather duster, candelabra and teapots are so cute,” said Gwartney.

A lot of movies, especially Disney movies, convey and underlying message to the audience about what is important or what they should do. Ella Gwartney thinks the theme portrayed is to not judge something or someone by its cover and that girls can do a lot more than what’s expected of them.

“Both the original movie and the live action one have a clear message to not judge someone or something based on how they look. Belle falls in love with Beast even though he doesn’t look like a typical man and had some personality flaws. She can see past that and it encourages other people to do the same. The live action movie is even better because instead of making her dad the inventor, Belle is the inventor. This is inspiring to young girls and nice for older women to see a character who is more developed and stronger willed,” Gwartney said.