Beauty and the Beast (1991 film)
The video game series "Kingdom Hearts" features a world based on the film, named "Beast's Castle", along with several of the film's characters. In the first game, the world has been destroyed and Belle kidnapped by the Heartless, led by Maleficent, but the Beast travels to Maleficent's stronghold and works with Sora to defeat Maleficent and rescue Belle and the other captured princesses. In "Kingdom Hearts II", the world has since been restored following Ansem's defeat, but Beast and Belle are having difficulties due to the enigmatic Xaldin of Organization XIII attempting to bring out the Beast's darker side in order to turn him into a Heartless and a Nobody, but the Beast eventually comes to his senses and works with Sora once again to defeat Xaldin once and for all. In the game's ending credits, the Beast turns back into the Prince. In "", the world is featured as a playable level but the story is not essential to the main plot. In "Kingdom Hearts χ", the world is featured again, this time as a hallucination that follows the plot of the movie more closely. The characters featured in the series are Beast, Belle, Lumiere, Gaston, Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts, Chip, Maurice, and the Wardrobe. After Gaston is defeated, the Beast transforms back into the Prince. Gaston does not appear in "Kingdom Hearts II", the world's primary antagonist being Xaldin, an original character created for the series, but who shares several traits with Forte, the main antagonist of "Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas".
Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)
White's casting ultimately influenced Gaston's design; the animators adjusted the character's appearance after hearing White's operatic singing voice for the first time, making Gaston similarly operatic in his movements, gestures and mannerisms. According to White, Gaston's early designs initially looked "much more Brutish" before the animators ultimately decided to go in a "more beautiful" direction, basing the character "on a grotesque version" of the Prince Charming character. Describing the design process as highly collaborative between actor and animator, White would record his lines while the animators drew his character, alternating back and forth for several months. This process allowed the animators to incorporate White's acting performance into Gaston. Because White continued to perform on Broadway while working on "Beauty and the Beast", Disney would accommodate his stage career by hiring a studio to work wherever he was located. White recalled, "The experience is kind of like an actor's sandbox. You're in a room by yourself and are invited to be as creative as you can be. Anything you could imagine … they could draw!" In his book "Tradigital Animate CC: 12 Principles of Animation in Adobe Animate", author Stephen Brooks observed that Deja's challenge "was to let [audiences] know that Gaston is not as courageous as everyone says he is ... but also keep him a real and credible threat" since he is a villain nonetheless.