How Does a Moment Last Forever marks the first collaboration between Menken and Rice in over two decades; the last time they worked together had been in the "Beauty and the Beast" musical. Menken believes that the songs he and Rice had written for the musical would not have translated well to the screen due to the structural differences between the two formats. One of at least nine significant changes made to the film specifically for the remake, "How Does a Moment Last Forever" was conceived to explain Belle's backstory. Her quest to find out her mother's fate serves, in the plot, as a foundation for
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? about how many could perch at the same time on the head of a pin"". Dorothy L. Sayers argued that the question was "simply a debating exercise" and that the answer "usually adjudged correct" was stated as, "Angels are pure intelligences, not material, but limited, so that they have location in space, but not extension." Sayers compares the question to that of how many people's thoughts can be concentrated upon a particular pin at the same time. She concludes that infinitely many angels can be located on the head of a pin, since they do not occupy any space there: