Continuity mistake: When Chip rides Maurices woodcutter towards the cellar, between shots the barn door goes from open to closed. (01:11:55)
Continuity mistake: When the household items fight the mob, six beermugs fling tomatoes at a man. It cuts and there are suddenly just five beermugs. (01:12:15)
Continuity mistake: When Gaston's mob comes and the dresser jumps on someone, she starts to jump down stomach first, but the next shot of her, she's feet first. (01:12:25)
Continuity mistake: When Le Fou and two other men chase the dog-like footrest, Le Fou has a pitchfork and the men have an axe and a sword. However when they bust through the kitchen doors, the sword has turned to a club. (01:13:10)
Continuity mistake: When Le Fou is chasing the dog-like footrest he is missing one shoe, which the dog has, but when Le Fou and the gang burst through the kitchen door, he has the shoe back. Then when the knives scare them away, it's missing again. (01:13:10)
Continuity mistake: Near the end, as the objects arrive and are watching as Belle helps Beast lie down, the rose stem is shaped as a question mark. A few seconds later, viewed from the same direction, when the last petal falls the rose stem is now shaped as a reversed question mark. (01:14:40)
Continuity mistake: Gaston wears a quiver in the scenes where he is after the Beast, and the brown quiver strap runs across his body over his red shirt. After Gaston stabs the Beast with his knife, the brown strap and quiver is still on. However it then cuts, and as he starts to fall, the brown strap of the quiver has gone. Then in the next shot the strap is back on, over his red shirt. (01:16:15)
Factual error: After Gaston stabs the Beast in the fight sequence, there is no blood shown on the knife. [This is a longstanding Disney animation tradition. The House of Mouse seems to believe that onscreen violence is less traumatic if all evidence of it disappears quickly. Thus, you rarely see blood and when it IS seen it's usually minor, even if the wound isn't minor.] (01:16:15)
Continuity mistake: After the Beast is stabbed, and is on the floor dying, Belle is at his side comforting him. In one shot her hand is stroking the left side of his face. It cuts and suddenly her hand is on the right side of his face. Then a few shots later, she puts her left hand on the right side of his face, but when the shot changes her hand is back to her side. (01:16:40)
Deliberate mistake: At the end of the film, Gaston shoots the Beast with an arrow and pushes the Beast out the window. When the Beast lands on the edge of the castle rooftop, the arrow has disappeared. Even if part of the arrow has broken off, a piece of it would still be in his back. [This, like many other incidents in the film, is a longtime Disney animated tradition. The company seems to believe that violence is less unpleasant if all evidence of it disappears quickly. This is why so many cuts seem to disappear or become less serious. The arrow vanishing is just another example.] (01:16:55)
Continuity mistake: When the Beast briefly dies at the end of the film, before being turned human, Belle cries and lays down on his chest, with her head resting on his red cape and her hand clutching it. However when it cuts to a closeup, Belle's head is suddenly resting further down, on his white shirt, and she is clutching the shirt now too instead of the cape. (01:17:35)
Continuity mistake: At the very end, when all the objects change back into humans, the position of the roses on the walls in the background changes between shots. (01:23:25)
Continuity mistake: At the end of the song "Belle", there's an overhead shot in which you can tell that there is no mud on the street in front of Belle. Then a few seconds later, there is a big puddle of mud, and Gaston throws her book into it.
Continuity mistake: When Gaston has his feet on the table, the amount of mud on the book and tablecloth changes between shots.
Continuity mistake: When Gaston proposes marriage to Belle, there is a thick pink cushion on his chair. But when Gaston sits on it and puts his feet on the table, the cushion is much thinner, and it is now red.
Continuity mistake: The amount of snow on the stairs of Belle's house constantly changes in the scene where the villagers try to take away her father.
Continuity mistake: The eagle in the bar constantly changes size throughout the "Gaston" song.
Audio problem: During the fight scene at the end, Gaston says, "It's over, Beast. Belle is mine." But, originally, Gaston said "time to die" instead of "Belle is mine." (They wanted to involve Belle more in this scene, and decided to simply overdub the line). Unfortunately, you can tell what's been done, for Gaston's lips still say "time to die."
Factual error: There's a scene where Belle's father is riding away in the snow on his horse - the tracks left behind by the horse are exactly backwards. The round part of a horseshoe is at the front, not the back. (This was a deliberate 'in joke' done by the animators.)
Continuity mistake: The doors to the fireplace are ovalish with triangular tops when Cogsworth says "No tea, no tea." When the Beast bursts in, they are rectangular.
Answer: In the prologue, it states that the Beast must find true love by his 21st birthday, and that he had been cursed for ten years, so since his relationship with Belle takes place as the deadline approaches, he must have been 10 when he was cursed.