"I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream ..."
Hello everyone!
We're finally back after taking that slightly unplanned break last week, and let me tell you, I picked a classic for tonight's choice.
I mean, I thought it was going to be a classic to begin with before I started watching (or re-watching ... I actually can't remember if I've ever seen this one before), but then I sat down and watched and ... I have thoughts LOL.
I'll be explaining them down below as I move through the plot, I promise.
But without further ado, let's jump straight into it, shall we?
Time and tide - and in this case, fairies - wait for no man or woman.
Although they might make a mess of a lot of things in Sleeping Beauty.
Sleeping Beauty is one of Walt Disney's original animated classics, and tells the story of the beautiful princess, cursed on her birthday, who wakens with true love's kiss after her prince defeats the dragon and rescues her.
But there's just a tiny bit more to it than that, which made me laugh and facepalm at the same time.
The movie opens with our narrator explaining that the king and queen of this kingdom had been longing for a child since basically forever, to which we can infer they had Aurora later in life; anyway, by the time she's born, they're so stoked they announce a holiday throughout the kingdom, so anyone who wants to come meet the babe can do so.
Naturally, when Maleficent appears, she's like NOBODY INVITED ME, SO HERE'S A CURSE FOR THEE!
Miss ma'am. Chill.
The national holiday announcement kind of nulls the need for individual invitations, you're such a drama queen. This IS the 14th century after all!
So she curses poor Aurora, who hasn't really done anything but exist, and you're there thinking why the hell one invite (that isn't even needed) should result in a freaking death curse.
The good fairies, two of which have already gifted Aurora with stuff (beauty and a singing voice from the heavens), mitigate the curse by turning it into a sleeping one, rather than a death one. Then they come up with the scheme to hide Aurora from Maleficent until her 16th birthday, when the curse is supposed to happen, while her dad goes and destroys every spindle in the kingdom so she wouldn't run into one.
I got problems with this too. LOL.
If the 16th birthday is the issue, why would you have to hide BEFORE that? And also, how come nobody figured out to just bring the kid back AFTER the day, not ON THE DAY?
Fairies. I have zero clue how they raised that poor baby without using their magic, which they temporarily retired for the duration. It's a wonder nobody starved, honestly.
Of course things go to pot on the 16th birthday when they bring those wands back out to concoct stuff for their little "Briar Rose", before they'll return her to her birth parents, but the clashing colours of their magic alert Maleficent's raven, so now she knows where Aurora is.
Aurora, meanwhile, is longing for human interaction, like any proper 16-year-old, which is when she runs into none other than Phillip, her intended.
See, her dad and his dad agreed to betroth them upon her birth to finally unite their kingdoms, but the kids have zero clue about this because nobody talked about this stuff in the 14th century, so they meet on their own, totally fall in love at first song, and agree to meet again that night.
Then of course, the fairies take Aurora back to the castle that night, after telling her of her true parentage and whatnot, and the poor girl is sobbing like any teenager would when being parted from her one true love.
To top everything off, Maleficent makes her move, since it's still the day of the birthday, and Aurora does in fact prick her finger on the spindle she conjures, and falls asleep.
The fairies, remorseful, put the entire castle to sleep so that no one has to have their heart broken that their princess met her fate, then learn that HEY, that dude she's been going on about? IT'S THE PRINCE!
Who gets himself trussed up like a Christmas turkey when Maleficent's goons catch him at the cottage, because she's got a plan: keep him contained, and alive, for 100 years, until he's withered and old, then release him to go wake Aurora with true love's kiss. What, exactly, her experiment is here is hard to tell: absence makes the heart grow fonder? Testing his love and loyalty? Or his honour?
Either way, thankfully Phillip doesn't have to deal with that, since the good fairies come to rescue him, arming him with the Shield of Virtue and Sword of Truth, and then he faces off against Maleficent's magic, and finally herself in dragon form.
Successful (with plenty of fairy help!), Phillip then races up to the tower where his beloved sleeps, and wakes her with his kiss.
The kingdoms rejoice when their future rulers descend the steps side-by-side, throw a huge party, and everybody lives happily ever after to the end of their days.
This one might be filled with absurdities, but it IS also a nice watch regardless, with a lot of true depictions in an otherwise fairy tale, because I've never met a teenager who didn't go all dramatic over the whole love thing. The fact Aurora's just told she's a princess who'll rule an entire kingdom isn't even on her radar compared to the fact she's losing the boy she just met and fell for.
It's classically cliché, but also pretty on the nose with how teenagers usually react so dramatically to everything.
The fairies bungle up more than they fix, but do eventually figure their shit out, which is adorable, and in the end this is an easygoing hour and change of family fun, just enjoying the pretty visuals that used to come out of the classic Walt Disney Animation studios.
Definitely watchable!
xx
*images and video not mine
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