16 – Sleeping Beauty
I don't get it. How did Disney do it? How did they take something like this and do what they
did to it? How could 1959's Sleeping
Beauty just end up so bad? This
was only four years after the awesome Lady and the Tramp.
They had 9 years to improve on the similar but great Cinderella.
I didn't expect too much out of this movie, but wow was it not up to
par with what they've done.
The
story begins just like Snow White and
Cinderella before it,
with a storybook opening up and some narration. The beginning of the
movie basically sets up the story. They talk about the world and the
princess being born. They show you the celebration they have for the
princess and introduce the three fairies, Flora, Fauna and
Merryweather. They bestow the gifts of beauty and song to the young
princess Aurora but before Merryweather is able to give her blessing,
Maleficent, the evil fairy, appears. She makes a really great
entrance too. You can tell everyone is scared of her. She is then
told that she is unwanted there and curses Aurora to prick her finger
on a spinning wheel before the end of her sixteenth birthday that
will cause her to die. After Maleficent leaves, Merryweather uses her
gift to reduce the curse so she only falls into a coma. They then get
the idea to take Aurora away and hide from Maleficent until she is
sixteen.
Maleficent
herself is a really great villain. She would be pretty scary for
kids, I'd imagine. Every time she's on screen you can see how
everyone and everything is scared of her and how menacing and creepy
she is. She always surrounds herself with dark creatures in dark
places. The only complaint I'd have is that she doesn't seem to have
as solid a reason for being so evil as some of the other villains in
past movies. The evil queen in Snow White
wanted to be the most beautiful. Captain Hook wanted to kill Peter
Pan for taking his hand and giving it to a crocodile. Maleficent
doesn't seem to have a clear reason. I don't think not being invited
to a party is enough for her to want to kill Aurora.
The
fairies who volunteer to protect Aurora are a different story. They
get by far the most screen time in the whole movie. Despite that, I
don't really get a good sense of who they are. We see that they have
different personalities and bicker but I don't know why they want to
protect Aurora so much. They're mostly used for humor or to advance
the plot. They really should have given them some actual personality
by giving them reasons for wanting to help so much. Later, it would
make sense since they've spent so much time raising Aurora, but they
don't give any reason in the beginning.
After
the fairies take Aurora there's a time jump to sixteen years later.
The fairies have somehow spent sixteen years without using magic that
would tip Maleficent off to their location. It's kind of unbelievable
to me that they could considering they have a huge problem making a
dress and baking a cake for Aurora's birthday. In any case, I'll let
that slide considering that it's really just meant to be funny. This
leads to the fairies deciding to use magic to finish making the dress
and cake. This was so stupid to me. They're so close to being home
free from Maleficent's prophecy and they go and do that. What happens
next is even worse. Flora and Merryweather get into an argument about
what color the dress should be and start shooting magic at each
other. This, of course, gets noticed by Maleficent's Raven who
informs Maleficent. While all of this is going on, Aurora is finally
shown grown up and she barely gets any characterization. She meets
the prince, they fall in love and agree to meet at the cottage later
that night. I'd expand on that but that is literally all that really
happens.
Aurora
is just a really boring princess. She gets so little screen time that
she does not feel like the main character. All we know about her is
that she wants to meet a guy. When she finally does she immediately
gets way too attached for two people that just met. This is different
than Cinderella, though. With Cinderella, I didn't mind that she fell
for the prince so quickly. We knew that she had a hard life we were
able to spend time getting to know and like her. We want Cinderella
to win so it doesn't matter that she just met the prince. Aurora has
no personality though. We don't get to like her. If anything, you
might dislike her for spending all of her screen time wishing she
could meet someone.
As for
the person she meets, Prince Phillip, he barely gets any more
personality than her. He shows a tiny bit of one when he decides to
go into the woods looking for the beautiful singing voice he hears.
He really is just a cookie cutter handsome prince with no unique
qualities. It's a bit nice that he would pick a peasant girl over a
princess but it really isn't enough to like him or be interested in
him.
Once
Aurora gets home, the fairies tell her who she is. This is around
when I went from being disappointed in the movie to downright
annoyed. Aurora is immediately heartbroken that she can't meet the
guy she met in the woods at the cottage later that night because
they're leaving for the castle that day. You know, a perfectly
natural reaction for being told that you're a princess and the three
old ladies that have been taking care of you all your life are
actually fairies. At this point, I'm just in disbelief that they
could make Aurora such a terrible character.
After
this Prince Phillip tells his father that he met a peasant girl he's
going to marry. This, of course, gets the king quite worried. Finally
we're getting some real conflict out of this story. Or at least we
would if it wasn't so poorly done. Any tension this situation would
have is completely gone. We know that the Prince and Aurora are the
ones who are supposed to get married. We know that the King is
worrying for no reason. There was an actual fear in Cinderella
that
she might not end up with the prince. Her evil step family kept her
locked in a room to avoid giving her a chance to try on the glass
slipper. That scene was tense because there's the possibility that
she misses her chance. Sleeping
Beauty just
uses this to fill in some time.
We,
thankfully, get another scene with Maleficent where she leads Aurora
to a spinning wheel and pricks her finger. This scene is actually
really well done. Maleficent is definitely creepy and it's tense
while Aurora gets slowly closer and closer to the spinning wheel all
while the three fairies are frantically flying up to find her. Of
course, after this we get another stupid scene from the fairies. They
decide to put the whole kingdom to sleep, I guess to avoid there
being a riot that the newly returned princess is in a coma.
The
fairies then figure out that Aurora is the peasant girl that the
Prince fell in love with. All I have to say to this is, who cares??
They know they need someone to kiss Aurora. They shouldn't care who
does it. They should be thinking that there's a guy that Aurora fell
in love with back at the cottage that same night. It doesn't matter
that it's the Prince at all. Maleficent doesn't miss a beat and goes
to find him at the cottage and locks him away. The fairies finally
get to the cottage and realize that he was captured and go out to
save him.
When
they do rescue him they give him the absolutely ridiculous “Shield
of Virtue” and “Sword of Truth.” I'd like to mention that these
random weapons were never mentioned once before. They then give him
the ominous warning that he will have many more trials and he'll have
to face them alone. Except he won't because the fairies will protect
anything the enemies throw at him with their magic. I really don't
get the sense that Prince Phillip would stand any chance if he didn't
have the fairies fighting his fight for him. After getting through
all his “trials” way too easily, he finally fights Maleficent
herself in dragon form. This scene is actually pretty cool. The
fairies can't really help and Maleficent actually seems dangerous to
them. He finally throws the magic sword at Maleficent and defeats
her. Happy ending. But do you really care?
So
what the hell happened? There really is no excuse for Disney to make
such a thoughtless piece of garbage after they did Cinderella
a thousand times better. Maybe it was the source material? Maybe
Sleeping Beauty
just isn't as interesting as Cinderella?
That could be the case but I don't buy it. Disney are no stranger to
deviating from source material. They could have easily made Aurora
and the Prince more likeable characters. After reading some reactions
to the movie in it's time, it's clear I'm not alone in my opinion of
it.
This
movie nearly killed Disney's animation department. Luckily, the next
one (hundred and one) saved it.
16
down. 37 to go.
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