
Maurice, it turns out, has never revealed to Belle what happened to her mom, and is fearful of ever revealing the truth lest she try to.run away, perhaps. In this movie, from the beginning, it's evident that we will learn the truth behind a Very Important Backstory: what happened to Belle's mother. In the animated film, Belle's mother isn't mentioned there's the inventor Maurice, his bookish daughter Belle, and that's it. We don't need to know, for example, that the villagers don't remember the castle or its denizens because the same enchantress who cursed the Prince to be a Beast also had the power to make them forget that Prince or his castle ever existed.īut of all the not-necessary-to-solve mysteries that get clarified in the live-action film, the most baffling and useless is that of Belle's mother. The animated classic has stood the test of time in part because not providing the answers to those questions allows for some mystery.

Answering these questions is an obvious change, but that doesn't automatically mean it's an improvement.
