10 Best Fan Theories For 2017's Biggest Movies

Bar a few changes, Disney’s live-action Beauty and the Beast is a pretty faithful adaptation of its 1991 animation. One major change even helps explain a glaring plot hole left by the 1991 version – namely that the villagers seem to have no recollection of having a huge castle practically on their doorstep – by explaining that while the Enchantress was cursing the Beast she also erased the memory of the castle and its inhabitants from the villagers’ minds.

Other changes also throw up an inconsistency in the live-action remake, however. At the end of the new film, the enchanted objects are turned back into humans at the age they were when the curse was first placed and we learn that some are related to certain villagers. Curiously though, like the now unenchanted objects the villager relatives don’t seem to have aged either.

If the goings-on in Villeneuve were happening in real-time surely the villagers would be older than Mrs Potts, Chips and Cogsworth? Thankfully, Reddit user Hainted has an explanation. When the Enchantress erased the villagers’ memories, she also placed them under a time loop curse that saw them essentially repeat themselves until the Beast’s curse was lifted.

The Groundhog Day-esque theory explains why Belle sings about Villeneuve being so monotonous – it’s not just the slow pace of a ‘poor, provincial town’ but the fact the village is stuck in a time loop. It also clears up why the villagers see Belle and her dad as weird. As they moved to Villeneuve after the curse was placed, they’re unaffected and age at a normal pace which bewilders the residents of Villeneuve. Plot inconsistencies solved!