Add all of that the fact that Sleeping Beauty, in its initial theatrical release, was considered a financial flop, while Snow White and Cinderella were major successes. It was actually the fledgling ticket sales of Sleeping Beauty that ultimately caused Disney to pull back on the princess movie quota for the remainder of his life. A few decades later, the studio did, however, reverse its stance and here we are ten or so princesses deep.
An interesting piece of trivia is that Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland was originally supposed to belong to Snow White, but in order to promote the upcoming film was ultimately named for Sleeping Beauty (the park opened in 1955, a little more than three years in advance of the film's opening). I guess that's one point against the red-headed stepchild theory.
Bonus fact: after the above photo was taken of JT and me, the photographer asked us to kiss, which led to maybe the most awkward conversation I have ever had with a stranger.
But I'm here to talk about the movie. As far as Disney cartoons go, this one has a pretty simplistic feel to it in that the basic plot line of Aurora eventually falling prey to Maleficent's curse and being rescued is really the only plot. True, most Disney cartoons could be summarized as quickly, but this movie seems to fly by with little in the way of conflict or twists. In the end, it lacks a certain theatricality.
By that measure, the characters don't feel terribly deep. Maleficent is a great villain and probably one of the better known and better liked of the lot, but when I really think about it, she doesn't have a lot of drive behind her evil. She hates the kingdom and the fairies, because she's left out, but it doesn't feel like nearly enough. I imagine that if Disney were to have made this film in the last decade or so, Maleficent would have been given a more concrete background.
Aurora, with approximately 17 minutes onscreen (!!!) not counting her moments as a baby, suffers a somewhat similar fate in the development department. She does have a full on interaction with her future prince, though, which is some serious progress considering that Snow White only squealed and blushed in front of Charming before they rode off into the sunset together. I suppose Cinderella did have more than a moment with her Charming, but this Phillip/Aurora interaction seems significant. If we fast forward, it's worth noting that Aurora shares more conversation with Phillip than Ariel does with Eric. And while we're on the topic of Aurora and Phillip, did anyone else notice that young Phillip is basically Aurora?
Weird, right? I guess they did marry off a lot of relatives back in those days...
Phillip, as it turns out, might have the most development out of all the characters. We get to see him meet Aurora, fall in love, defy his father's wish for him to enter into a prearranged marriage (ironic), fight to save Aurora, and finally end up with his true love. His story has obstacles and that he gets to fight against, while Aurora only learns of her prearranged marriage moments before falling into a coma. It is a bit strange that of all the characters the audience gets to know Phillip the best, who isn't even the film's titular character.
The animation is also a bit on the strange side and one of the things that came to my mind first while I was watching. It has a simplicity that makes it look at times low budget, which is funny, because it was the most expensive Disney movie made up to that point. I did learn after my viewing that the look of the film was intentional as Disney wanted Sleeping Beauty to resemble a moving illustration. He didn't want it to have the realism he and his animators had tried to achieve with previous efforts. The idea was that Sleeping Beauty ought to reflect the art from the time period that inspired the tale. This logic was later reused with Hercules, in which the film's animation was to reflect that of Greek statues and paintings. From a personal standpoint, I'm not a huge fan of the execution in either of the two cases.
In sum, Sleeping Beauty isn't the best of Disney's efforts, but it's a solid enough film to entertain one for 75 minutes.
Next week: One Hundred and One Dalmatians.
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