Disney, one of the largest multimedia entertainment conglomerates on the planet, is probably most well-known for its large collection of intellectual property (IP) including iconic characters like Mickey Mouse and Elsa from Frozen to songs like “Let it Go” and “Hakuna Matata,” that collection is insanely large and prominent and Disney is famous for doing everything they can to protect those IP from the grubby little hands of the PUBLIC DOMAIN. In a year where their beloved Mickey Mouse entered the public domain (kind of), I decided to do some research on other times Disney lost their IP rights and dredged up an ancient and oft-overlooked story of the time some intern in charge of filing the copyright and trademark got fired. This is the story of “Beauty and the Beast” at Nara Dreamland.
If you’re interested in the story of how this bizarre attraction came to be, I recommend checking out the video I posted yesterday. I’ll link it right here in the post so you can find it easily: https://youtu.be/zcQDmvXRCc8 This video goes into how Disney lost the rights to Beauty and the Beast (west of the Pacific) and the development hell the attraction went through. In this post, I want to tell you all about the ride.
The story of Beauty and the Beast, I’d argue, is one of the most famous fairy tales ever in history. A beautiful girl falls in love with a monstrous beast and breaks a curse, and for anyone reading it, I find it to be incredibly simple and easy to understand. Well, at least I would until I dredged up this topic and learned that some execs at the Japanese theme park Nara Dreamland designed an attraction based on the Disney film and yet somehow messed it up so blatantly that I’m not surprised Disney didn’t win their copyright suit. Even if the courts gave them the win, this ride is so not based on that movie it’s almost hilarious. I’m going to include a ride-through with some pictures I scored from someone who rode the ride below, then I’ll jump in and comment on it.
Scene One: Once Upon a Time
As guests depart the loading area aboard their enchanted vehicles they enter into the truly enchanted world of Beauty of the Beast. In a stunning display of glasswork tinted mirrors surround guests down a hallway giving the illusion that they have entered the story through the castle's stain glass. In this hall of mirrors, swinging doors are painted blacklight reactive paint to mimic various stained glass moments that set up the story that is about to unfold. The swinging doors depict the following story elements:
And finally the Beast in his transformed body featuring his famed lion's mane around his whole face. Breaking the endless loop of the film's opening piano notes is the sound of glass shattering as guests pass the last swinging door, signaling the entrance of the next scene.
Scene Two: The Dungeon
The enchanted carriages careen and turn into the next scene, narrowly crashing into a dungeon wall with chains just hanging from the ceiling. Overall the room is rather dark with the intention that eyes are drawn to the scene unfolding with the Beauty and the Beast. In the oddly well lit section of the dungeon Beauty and Beast are arguing over Maurice's release from the castle. Beauty will yell out either "Take me!" or "I'll stay!" with the Beast simply roaring in response. Behind Beauty is the dungeon door holding her father, in fact guests will be able to spot him through the bars in the door. Yes, his bony hands are holding onto the door while his all bone no skin demeanor is only natural for those in a dungeon.
Scene Three: Be Our Guest
Leaving the dark and scary dungeon behind the kitchen doors swing open as the enchanted carriages usher guests into the dining room. Swinging colored spotlights coat the room in wandering technicolor spotlights as a mirror ball spins in the center of the room because it's a party! A giant six-foot tall Lumiere stands in the center of the room singing "Be Our Guest" in loop as he slowly blinks his eyes and moves his "arms" side to side. The enchanted carriages careen and swerve around and throughout the dining room allowing for guests to catch glimpses at other oversized versions of their favorite Be Our Guest stars. This includes Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts, Chip, Sir Tray the Singing Silver Tray, and finally the spinning duo of Spooniete and Foritz the dancing spoon and fork!
Scene Four: The Hall of Friends
The party doesn't end in the dining room, no more friends are awaiting guests in the Servant Hallway of the castle! To the tune of an instrumental Be Our Guest, characters will utilize their iconic South of France and North of France regional accents (don't know what that sounds like, check out Official Linguists Here). Each character will be illuminated by a blacklight spotlight while the rest of the hall is darkened - some may even say that it is like the characters are popping out at them. Madame Wardrobe is the first to greet guests with a dainty North of France "Bonjour" and she is then followed by Chef Bouche who bellows out a hearty South of France "HONHONHON". Guests then pass by Dame Combination Shower and Bathtub, here eyes and mouth are on the shower head and she winks at guests very slowly as she spits out bubbles. Finally there's Beauty's best friend in the whole castle - Gladys who shouts out a quick and cute North of France "Bonsoir".
Scene Five: Something There
Beautiful snowfall murals cover the walls of this scene which feature various snowcapped barren trees, hanging from the trees are the Royal Birdseed Feeders full of birdseed and birds perched all around their edges and branches. The Royal Birdseed Feeders are singing a few bars of Something There as the Beast stands absolutely covered in birds and the Beauty is seen looking at a bird in her hand while two birds are roosting in her hair and crown.
Scene Six: Transformation
A swinging door opens up into a large hall of warping mirrors with colorful lights glowing yellow and purple throughout the scene. Guests are able to hear the iconic musical notes from the "Transformation" theme as they travel through this crystal like chamber as they are warped into their true self's through this hall of mirrors. Before the enchanted carriages exit the crystal chamber, Beauty is heard saying "I love you" officially breaking the curse!
Scene Seven: Finale
The mirrors part into a large rotunda, here guests will find Beauty and the transformed Beast spinning on a roundtable. Between each column is all of the enchanted objects : Lumiere, Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts, Spooniete, Foritz and of course Gladys - all in their cursed forms as they have yet to find their own Beauty and remain beastly. Exiting out of the ball room a large open storybook reads "They Lived Happily Ever After" with a painting of Belle and the Beast waving at guests.
So yeah, absolutely nuts! If you’re peeping those pictures, you may recognize that princess. Yeah, it’s not actually Belle from the Disney version, not by a long shot. It seems whatever 60+ year old park exec approved this ride got his Disney Beauties mixed up because that’s absolutely Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty wearing Belle’s ball gown. And yes, she is wearing the ball gown throughout the entire attraction, even before the ballroom segment, because why wouldn’t she be. That’s not the only strange character change either. While the Beast remains mostly in-tact throughout the ride (despite the rather strange Cowardly Lion-type mane he was given), when he becomes a human, do we see Prince Adam from the film? Hardly. Instead, the man we see before us is none other than the dastardly and arrogant Gaston. I guess according to these execs, the movie wasn’t about inner beauty but rather about how arrogant and misogynistic you can be? Gaston was the real beast in the end anyway, so I guess here it’s more literal.
Who was everyone’s favorite character in the movie by the way? Was it Lumiere? He’s here, as is Mrs. Potts, Cogsworth, oh, and like I mentioned, everyone’s favorite character Gladys the female equivalent of Lumiere. With everything I and so many others know about Nara Dreamland, it almost shouldn’t come as a surprise that the ride is packed chock-full of little freaks and weirdos of their own creation. Tokyo Disney did it with Duffy’s friends and Nara Dreamland did it with Gladys the candelabra.
A few other notes I wanted to mention, yes, that is the Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs playing the part of the Enchantress who curses Ada.. er… Gaston and yes, the Lumiere Animatronic did stand a towering six feet tall.
But what can we learn from this? I didn’t want to write up an entire blog post about this crazy ride just to tell you, there has to be a lesson here somewhere. Maybe the lesson is to make sure you pay your employees so they don’t mess up the copyright laws? That’s about as good a takeaway as I can get at least.
In the end, we no longer have this failed attraction around as it, like the rest of Dreamland, was demolished and torn down to make way for newer things, but to you and I in this weird little side of the internet, I think it’s important to remember the weirder things. Sure, this sacrifice made way for the amazing looking ride at Tokyo Disneyland, but was it really worth it? Do we really want to sacrifice the truly bizarre, creative, and original for the same retelling of a familiar story with better effects? Yes. Yes we do.
That’s all for today. Thank you to all my little fledglings who read this and watch my YouTube channel. I’ll see you in the next post.
