'Beauty and the Beast' 2017 - Limited Edition Magazines: Which Is Best? Here's Your Content Breakdown

While many magazine are doing features and lovely huge photo spreads on the new movie (such as Empire Magazine's spread, shown at the bottom of this post), there are a number of magazines out in a limited edition run at present, all of which bring insight to the film, its changes and updates to the new version of the story, as well as the original Disney one. But are they really different? Is it worth spending around* $15 each, to get them all? It depends on what you're looking for. (*actual prices vary but all are over $10 and at least one is over $15 with tax included.)

Here's the breakdown:

• Disney's Beauty and the Beast Official Collector's Edition - featuring lots of little tidbits about the story differences, so it's worth reading those brief inserted text boxes, as well as some nice detail close-ups you won't see elsewhere (eg Maurice's music boxes and their significance). There's also quite a bit on the costume art and the inspirations behind the details, (again, the text inserts hold some great info) along with huge full color movie shots and scenes.

• Entertainment Weekly's The Ultimate Guide to Beauty and the Beast (Collector's Edition) - this is the interview heavy edition with cast and creators but also has a lot on the original animated movie's 'making of' as well as the stage musical, Disney history, Disney princesses and a couple of nice pages showing concept art of the sets for the new movie

• Life Magazine's Beauty & the Beast: The Story of a Fairy Tale (Time Inc Special) - this magazine is broken into six chapters, and goes into great detail on the history of the fairy tale, including the real life Petrus Gonsalves in 1550 (which some believe may have been an inspiration at some point on the tale's journey), tracking the tale from The Golden Ass, to Cupid & Psyche, touching on A Midsummer Night's Dream, Bluebeard, The Frog King, The Ram, Madame d'Aulnoy's influence including The Ram, Leprince de Beaumont, the Grimm's Snow White & Rose Red and The Singing, Springing Lark, through to modern adaptations. It also looks at Cocteau's influential film in historical context and all this in good detail with classic illustrations from a huge range of tales along with old photos, well before it even begins to discuss both Disney versions (the classic animated film and the soon-to-be-released live-action remake. It finishes on the never-ending appeal of fairy tales and quotes The Golden Key (always published as the last tale in any decent Grimm's collection).

You may have already guessed but if fairy tale fans were only able to buy one, the one we'd highly recommend is Life Magazine's surprisingly in depth, yet easy to read, volume. Although the cover isn't, perhaps, as appealing, if you're looking for a tie-in with the film, the fairy tale content is worth the price. As far as we can tell, the writers for this are J.I. Baker (Editor and Writer), Amy Lennard Goehner (Writer-Reporter) and Kostya Kennedy (Editorial Director, also credited in the Introduction).

Empire Magazine's Beauty and the Beast 2017 feature spread in the February issue
(which features a lot of other movies as well)

Note: the D23 Magazine has a lovely cover and does indeed spotlight the movie, but it is not exclusively about the film.