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".
Belle (Beauty and the Beast)
30 years-old at the time of her audition, O'Hara consequently imbued Belle's voice with a mature, "womanly quality" despite the character's young age. Woolverton appreciated the fact that O'Hara sounded more mature than traditional Disney heroines. Additionally, O'Hara identified with her character because they were both ostracized by their peers throughout their childhood because of their unconventional interests, explaining, "I was odd growing up myself. I mean, I was into musical theater and Gershwin and Rodgers and Hammerstein while people were going to Led Zeppelin concerts. So I understood that ... I wasn't the norm either. I was very focused on my career, on my performing all through my childhood and my teens ... I had a one-track mind, and I think that Belle was like that a lot." O'Hara also shares Belle's interest in reading. Wise was pleased with the quality of O'Hara's voice, which reminded him of Garland. O'Hara initially found it challenging to control her speaking volume due to having been trained to project as a stage actress. O'Hara told "The Guardian "that to solve this she "softened and used the microphone." As per the filmmakers' encouragement, the actress would occasionally ad-lib her own dialogue, none was included in the final film because it sounded "too modern". The animators would videotape O'Hara daily while she recorded to incorporate her "quirky" mannerisms, expressions and gestures into the character, among them her hair constantly falling into her eyes. O'Hara and American actor Robby Benson, who provides the voice of the Beast, asked Disney to allow the co-stars to record together as opposed to the traditional method of being isolated in a recording booth, to which the studio agreed despite its costliness. O'Hara credited the filmmaker's decision with developing both the film and Belle and the Beast's relationship. O'Hara and Benson became the first Disney voice actors to record together. In total, the recording process took over two years to complete. O'Hara had already been friends with co-star Richard White, who voices Gaston, for 15 years. Despite her successful stage career, O'Hara was virtually unknown to Hollywood audiences when she was cast in "Beauty and the Beast"; she was one of the last obscure actresses to be cast in a feature-length Disney animated film before the studio began casting better known talent in subsequent animated projects.