Sleeping Beauty

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Sleeping Beauty
This film has been preserved in the National Film Registry in 2019.
🎵I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream🎵
Genre: Animation Musical Fantasy Directed by: Clyde Geronimi (supervising director) Eric Larson Wolfgang Reitherman Les Clark (sequence directors) Produced by: Walt Disney Based on: Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault Starring: Mary Costa Bill Shirley Eleanor Audley Verna Felton Barbara Luddy Barbara Jo Allen Taylor Holmes Bill Thompson Photography: Color Distributed by: Buena Vista Distribution Release date: January 29, 1959 Runtime: 75 minutes Country: United States Language: English Budget: $6 million Box office: $51.6 million

Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney based on The Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault. The 16th Disney animated feature film, it was released to theaters on January 29, 1959, by Buena Vista Distribution. This was the last Disney adaptation of a fairy tale for some years because of its initial mixed critical reception and under-performance at the box office; the studio did not return to the genre until 30 years later, after Walt Disney died in 1966, with the release of The Little Mermaid (1989).

Why Aurora Walked With Us Once Upon A Dream

1. Stunning, beautiful and very smooth animation with colorful effects.
2. Beautiful art style that incorporates influences from medieval art (particularly the millefleurs style of 15th-century tapestries) which fits the film's 14th century medieval setting very nicely,
3. Well-done character and story-development for the most part, despite it’s share of hiccups.
4. It has plenty of likable characters that are well-developed and/or interesting.
   • Despite her limited screen time and kind of feeling like a weak protagonist with a lack of character/personality, and not having a proactive role, Princess Aurora is quite a likable protagonist and she has some good potential.
   • Thanks to the Disney animators having finally mastered animating human characters (including realistic human males) by this film, Prince Phillip is given extended screen time to have, not only his developed personality and interesting character, but also a larger and more proactive role as Aurora's love interest in this film, unlike Snow White and Cinderella's respective princes.
   • The fairies are likable and entertaining comic-reliefs. Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy, and Barbara Jo Allen were perfectly meant for their roles as Flora, Merryweather, and Fauna.
   • Maleficent is a really entertaining antagonist and her dragon form is pure nightmare fuel. Eleanor Audley was spectacularly amazing as both the voice and model for Maleficent.
   • King Stefan (despite his bland voice performance by Taylor Holmes and having an inconsistent personality) and King Hubert (despite his white hair) are hilarious and decent comic reliefs.
     • Speaking of which, Hans Conried (who actually happens to be the model reference for the character (what a surprise!)) and Bill Thompson would have been easily reunited together and would also have stolen this movie with their spectacular voice and model performances as the two kings, considering their performances as Captain Hook/Mr. Darling and Mr. Smee has been one of the best highlights in their previous Disney film they worked on, Peter Pan.
   • Despite his limited screen time and being a silent character, Sir Minstrel is a hilarious character in the “Skumps” sequence.
5. Very loyal to the source material with some of it’s own creative adjustments.
6. Most of the songs are memorable, such as Once Upon A Dream.
   • Out of all the deleted songs, the Picture song (although not perfectly done) is interesting and the dialogue version of the deleted song is also pretty amazing because it has actually has King Stefan being voiced by Hans Conried.
     • If Taylor Holmes turned down the speaking part of King Stefan to possibly do the singing voice, Conried would have been much better and spectacular as Stefan because not only he could have easily been reunited with Bill Thompson as King Hubert (as stated above), but it would also not have possibly prolong the film’s lengthy production schedule or give out several unanswered questions (see below in the “Cursed” Qualities section).
7. The idea of making a witch curse the newborn princess when she’s 16 years old is pretty original.
8. With the exception of Taylor Holmes (although he wasn't terrible), the rest of the voice cast were great, including Mary Costa as Aurora, Bill Shirley as Prince Phillip, Verna Felton/Barbara Jo Allen/Barbara Luddy as the Good Fairies, and Eleanor Audley as Maleficent, Hans Conried as King Stefan (in the deleted song, “It Happens I Have a Picture” and as the model for the character) and Bill Thompson as King Hubert, respectively.
9. It's not afraid to show blood in a Disney movie for the very first time, which is notable during Maleficent's infamous death scene at the end.
10. Excellent score adaptation from Tchaikovsky’s ballet of the same name by George Bruns.
11. The French pre-revolutionary anthem played when Phillip and Aurora reunite their family is majestic as beauty, which may imply that this film took place in 14th Century France during the Middle Ages.
12. The scene where Merryweather and Flora argue about the color of Aurora’s gown (pink or blue) in the cleaning scene and ending is hilarious and creative.
13. This was the first film that Don Bluth has ever worked on after being hired by Disney in 1955 and stayed with Disney until 1979, when he left to produce his own animated films for other studios like Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Universal and 20th Century Fox, including The Secret of NIMH (1982), An American Tail (1987), The Land Before Time (1988), All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989) and most famously, Anastasia (1997), the last of which was acquired by Disney as part of their acquisition of 20th Century Fox in 2019, now making Anastasia an official Disney Princess alongside Aurora.
14. The ending is heartwarming, despite being rushed.

Cursed Qualities

1. There are some characters, while likable, that could have had some improvement to expand their characterizations.
   • Even though Aurora is the main character of the film that is called Sleeping Beauty (aka Aurora) and while she's quite likable, she hardly gets a lot of screen time to develop her role as a character.
     • And to be fair, she sorta feels like a weak protagonist and hardly has much character, probably because the film seems to be more focused on the Good Fairies, Maleficent, Prince Phillip, and possibly the two kings (except Queen Leah, Sir Minstrel, Lord Duke, the Goons, and the Forest Animals); therefore she lacked any personality, character development, or a proactive role as a character, compared to the rest of Disney Princesses created before and after her, such as Cinderella from her own movie, who is smart and very likable and have good character development and personality.
       • If the Skumps sequence were to be set in the beginning (like "It Happens I Have A Picture" placed that sequence in the beginning), it could have possibly had the opportunity for Aurora to develop her screen time for her role as a character.
   • While giving a much larger role as a proactive hero with an interesting character, Phillip is pretty much silent in the last act, although Aurora and Leah both have this excuse since they, along with Stefan, Hubert, and the other kingdom residents, are asleep for most of that time until after the climax ends with Maleficent’s own death.
   • While she’s the first Disney Mother in a Disney Princess film to be alive, Queen Leah (while not unlikable in the slightest) literally has no purpose and hardly has any character because does not appear too much in the film, considering we see more of King Stefan and King Hubert than her.
     • And to be fair, like Aurora, or maybe even more so than her, Leah is kind of a wasted potential as a side character and has very little character; therefore, she also lacked any personality, character development, and a proactive role as a character.
       • Verna Felton, while still a great actress with many roles like Flora in this film, allegedly gave a bland performance as Leah by making her sound too old without any personality.
   • Even though he’s likable for the most part, King Stefan comes across as an inconsistent character when being written (he’s supposed to be a caring, suave and soft spoken ruler, yet he tends to act rude, pompous, wrathful and stubborn, similar to King Hubert, and it can go to the point of making Stefan somewhat unlikeable and holding his character a bit inconsistently)
   • While an interesting comic relief, King Hubert has white hair/facial hair when Phillip was a kid, which doesn’t make any sense, considering he’s clearly Phillip’s father.
2. While most of the voice cast were great, Taylor Holmes (while not terrible) gave an incredibly bland performance in the final cut as King Stefan and sounded almost unenthusiastic and somewhat depressed in some scenes as Stefan, though Holmes was also decent and better as the singing voice for Stefan.
   • However, this technically made Stefan an inconsistent character, as he sometimes prone to act rude, temperamental, pompous and stubborn like Hubert, even though he’s supposed to be a caring and devoted ruler.
3. It spawned several films of this franchise, which many of them are arguably not as good as this film as they all got mixed results.
   • It’s 2014 remake, Maleficent (while okay) just waters-down what makes Maleficent so villainous and blatantly butchered several characters, like making King Stefan an angry tyrant with no redeeming qualities and the Good Fairies as the female version of the Three Stooges.
   • The “Keys to the Kingdom” segment from Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams (while okay) is arguably considered very weak and forgettable as it almost butchered the charm the original film had and blatantly downgraded the animation.
4. Some scenes can be too scary and intense for younger viewers, such as Aurora pricking her finger and Maleficent’s transformation as a dragon, while being a cool scene.
5. Slight troubled production: This film may not be as problematic as some of their other productions, but it still suffered from several conflicts of egos behind the scenes, mostly stemming from lead background designer Eyvind Earle inserting himself into more and more aspects of production with Walt Disney's encouragement, in an attempt to produce a more stylized and modern-looking Disney animated feature.
   • Not to mention, Hans Conried's own replacement by Taylor Holmes for the vocal part of King Stefan in the final cut only did more to consequently set off countless unanswered questions, sadly destroying his chance to reunite with Bill Thompson, and worst of all, blatantly destroying the whole truth regarding Lord Duke’s voice.
   • Consequently, this caused the film to take almost a whole decade of production and resulted the budget to balloon massively.
   • Despite being second only to Ben-Hur at the 1959 box office and receiving decent reviews, it became the worst financial failure of any of the studio's animated canon until 26 years later in 1985 with The Black Cauldron nearly a quarter-century later, resulting in the animation department being heavily downsized and almost caused Disney to go bankrupt until The Great Mouse Detective thankfully help saved the studio, as a result of it’s critical and financial success in 1986.
   • It wasn't until after Walt's death that the film was Vindicated by History and Disney would resume making fairy tale films with The Little Mermaid, which kicked off its Renaissance period.

Reception

Sleeping Beauty used to have mixed reviews, but in the recent years, the movie was well-received. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film received a 90% approval rating with an average rating of 8.2/10 based on 40 reviews. Its consensus states that "This Disney dreamscape contains moments of grandeur, with its lush colors, magical air, one of the most menacing villains in the Disney canon.".

Trivia

• It was the first Disney animated feature-length film to used the 2.55:1 aspect ratio, though it was shown in theaters in the 2.20:1 aspect ratio. Though earlier home video releases of the film present the film in either the cropped pan-and-scan version on VHS releases or in the cases of the 1997 laserdisc and 2003 Special Edition DVD, in its 2.20:1 aspect ratio, the film is presented in its full 2.55:1 aspect ratio for the very first time on the 2008 Platinum Edition DVD/Blu-Ray release.
• Hans Conried, the voice of Captain Hook in Peter Pan, originally recorded some dialogues as Stefan, but his voice as Stefan was not used in the finished film as he was replaced by Taylor Holmes for the voice role, which probably makes it unclear who voiced Lord Duke.
• The demo songs from the Legacy Soundtrack Collection were cut from the film before it made its debut in theaters.
• Last Disney animated film to be a box office bomb until The Black Cauldron.

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