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A Prince, living in a shining castle, is visited
one winter's night by an old beggar woman, who comes to his castle and offers him a single rose, in return for shelter from
the bitter cold. Repulsed by her haggard appearance, the Prince turns the old woman away. The old woman's ugliness melts away
to reveal a beautiful enchantress. Though the Prince is apologetic when he sees her beauty, the Enchantress can see that there
is no love in his heart. She warns the Prince that appearances can be deceiving, and that beauty is found within. Then, with
a flash, she turns the selfish, unfeeling Prince into a hideous Beast, and places a spell on the castle and all who live there.
Ashamed of his monstrous form, the Beast conceals himself in his bewitched castle with his faithful staff: Lumiere, the love
struck candelabra, Cogsworth, the pompous clock, the kindly teapot Mrs. Potts and an inquisitive teacup named Chip. The Beast's
only window to the outside world is a magic mirror. To break the spell, the Beast must learn to love another and earn their
love in return, before the last petal falls from the Enchanted Rose. If not, he will be doomed to remain a Beast for all time.
Belle is a beautiful and intelligent young woman
who lives with her eccentric inventor father, Maurice, in a small provincial town. Belle longs for a life of adventure like
those that she reads of in her books, but she seems destined to be the oddball of her quiet village instead. It seems the
only hope she has of ever fitting in is to marry the ill-mannered, pompous Gaston, who has decided that Belle is the prettiest
girl in the village and is therefore fit to be his wife. But Belle just wants someone who understands her dreams and rebuffs
Gaston's crude advances.
Later, lost in the woods on the way to the city,
Maurice stumbles across the Beast's spellbound castle. The Beast, angered by Maurice's prying, imprisons him. Upon finding
her father in the Beast's clutches, Belle offers herself to the Beast in return for the release of her father. The Beast accepts
Belle's offer to exchange places, and soon Belle learns of the other enchanted inhabitants of the castle. Lumiere, Cogsworth,
and Mrs. Potts decide that Belle is at last the one they've been waiting for - the one who can break the spell, and they conspire
to have the two fall in love.
Eventually, the Beast does fall in love with
Belle, but is afraid to tell her. He offers instead his Magic Mirror so that she may see a glimpse of her father. What she
sees instead, is that Gaston, in an act of revenge, has convinced the villagers that her father is crazy and should be sent
away to the "Maison de Lune" asylum. The Beast grants Belle her freedom so that she can help Maurice. Then, in trying to save
her father, Belle unknowingly betrays the Beast to Gaston, who leads a frenzied mob to destroy him. At the castle, the Enchanted
Objects repel the mob, but Gaston manages to stab the Beast in the back. Gaston is thrown to his death.
The Beast, dying from his wounds, tells the weeping
Belle that he is happy that he got to see her one last time. Belle tells him that she loves him. The last petal on the Enchanted
Rose falls. A magical transformation changes the Beast into the Prince once again. The spell has been broken! All the servants
are also now human again, and Beauty with her Beast, who is now a handsome Prince, live happily ever after.
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