One of the hot debates my friends and I had recently was during a re-watching of Beauty and the Beast (at my birthday party, in fact!). And that has to do with the timeline of the whole movie. How long has the Beast been a Beast? During the song “Be Our Guest,” Lumiere has a line which states, “for 10 years we’ve been rusting,” which would mean they have been enchanted for 10 years. However, we also know that the Beast has to find love before the last rose petal falls – by his 21st birthday. So what does this mean?
The witch cursed a little kid
If we assume that they have been enchanted 10 years, and the Beast is currently 20 years old, that means that he was 10 when he was cursed. Let’s let that sink in a moment – a witch cursed a 10 year old boy to this terrible fate, all because he wouldn’t let a stranger into his house. Kinda hurts the whole idea of him being a terrible person who needed to learn a very important lesson if he was still a kid.
The Beast doesn’t age while he’s cursed
I like this idea, except that then there can be no concept of a 21st birthday. If he was 20 when he was cursed, but then he doesn’t age, how can his 21st birthday ever be approaching? But if he was a child when he was cursed, why is there a portrait in the castle of the Beast as a human looking like he is his current age? Was someone just really good at predicting his future appearance?
Lumiere likes to exaggerate
It could be as easy as this. Maybe Lumiere just embellished on the truth a little bit to get some pity. He seems like the type that might do that. Perhaps it’s only been 2 or 3 years, but because they’ve been cursed that long it just feels like ten.
Chip was an infant when he was cursed
We see Chip turn back into a boy at the very end of the movie, and he’s definitely a young boy – he doesn’t even look like he could be 10, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that he is. That means that when they were all enchanted he was less than a year old. Only a baby, cursed to grow up as a teacup!
Someone made a mistake
This is perhaps the most likely, and unfortunate, situation. Perhaps someone wasn’t thinking when they wrote the “10 years” line, or they didn’t pay too much attention to the timeline. There is unfortunately two very contradictory elements to the movie: the fact that we are told 10 years have passed, in addition to the fact that there is a portrait of the Beast of a human somewhere in the ages of 18-20. I can’t find any logical explanation to reconcile these things, as much as I would like to.
Do you have any explanations for this?
I have never thought of this!! CRAZY!! Now I’ll be thinking about it all day 🙂
Haha sorry about that! 😉
My friends at the Rotoscopers explained it best: TIME VORTEX!!!
It’s the only logical explanation!
wow. I’m hoping my 5-year-old doesn’t catch that the next time he watches, or he will never leave me alone. Actually, he would probably come up with the answer, so maybe I should ask him 😉 It’s one of his favorite movies.
I’m sure it will be a 5 year old who comes up with the most logical and fitting explanation!
I thought they were all frozen in time, meaning Chip was a little boy when he was cursed, just like he’s a little boy now. And if the Beast doesn’t fall in love before the last petal fell, he’d remain a beast forever. I thought they literally meant forever–that their little castle would be a place out of time. I don’t know about the birthday part…. Weird.
Right? I feel like I can explain parts of it, but then I think of something else that doesn’t quite fit. Some people here suggested that perhaps the servants are frozen in time from aging (because they’re objects) but the Beast still ages since he’s still in a living form. I guess that could work.
They did mess up. Plus the fact if all the characters in Be Our Guest are people then this castle had quite the staff. Also if he is prince where is his kingdom? He has no family? Who is ruling while he is a the beast?
All that said, it doesn’t impact my enjoyment of the film.
^^^Yes!! All of those things!!! Damn Disney…
Oh I totally agree about the enjoyment of the film. It just made me laugh that when we watched this we had to pause it for a good 15 minutes to have this discussion. And that’s an excellent point about him not having a family. If he was a prince you’d think someone would notice when he disappeared!
And now this will drive me crazy for the rest of my life.
Sorry about that! 😉
I’ve always had two theories about this
1) Time magically stopped in the castle (sleeping beauty style) during the enchantment. They know how many years its been but they aren’t aging
2) Prince could have just been painted a bit more mature, artists did that kind of thing… If #2 is right though, frankly the Prince was just really aware of Stranger Danger, which is nothing to punish him for (in fact, that was the whole plot behind Red Riding Hood, GET YOUR STUFF STRAIGHT BROTHERS GRIMM!)
Those are fair points – I had a friend try to argue that they were more open about strangers and that sort of thing, but you make an excellent point that people were clearly aware of the dangers thanks to Little Red Riding Hood!
I think that time and aging has stopped when they are all transformed, and that the 21st birthday that is referred to is the day that his birthday *would have been*. So the rose follows the age of Beast as if he was still human, all though Beast (and all the others) stay the same age while they are transformed 🙂
At least that’s what I started thinking now that I read your post and realised all of this! 🙂
I’m thinking that’s probably what the intention was. But he would have to be very aware of how many days it was until his birthday when he was cursed! And that leaves me wondering exactly how old he was when the curse happened.