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".
Beauty and the Beast (Disney song)
"Beauty and the Beast" was written by lyricist Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken in 1990. Intending for the song to be "the height of simplicity", the songwriters drew much of its influence from Broadway music. Due to Ashman's failing health, some of "Beauty and the Beast"'s pre-production was relocated to a hotel in Fishkill, New York near Ashman's residence to accommodate the ailing lyricist. Out of all the songs he has written for "Beauty and the Beast", Menken devoted the most time to the title song. The track was first recorded by British-American actress Angela Lansbury, who voices the character Mrs. Potts, an enchanted teapot. The songwriters first introduced "Beauty and the Beast" to Lansbury as a demo recording, which was accompanied by a note asking her if she might possibly be interested in singing it. Although a seasoned film and stage performer who had previously done her own singing for Disney in the musical film "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" (1971), Lansbury, who was more accustomed to performing uptempo songs, was hesitant to record the ballad because of its unfamiliar rock style. Although she liked the song, Lansbury also worried that her aging singing voice was no longer strong enough to record "Beauty and the Beast", and was especially concerned about having to sustain its longer notes. Lansbury suggested that the songwriters ask someone else to sing "Beauty and the Beast", but they insisted that she simply "sing the song the way [she] envisioned it."