”Sleeping Beauty “

“ Throughout the course of this Blog I will be reviewing the history of Hollywood past, present and maybe even the future.”  

Mr. Bee August of 2014

That was what I said to introduce you to my blog, about my blog, on my blog (that sentence sounded kind of redundant)... and here we are one year later, and still alive and breathing (well to be fair, a couple of people are dead). It has been one year ago today that I started up my blog!

Since we started with a Don Bluth movie, that being The Land Before Time, I have spent the entire year on the series and fell like I'm going “nuts” (if I haven’t already). I would like to point out a differences between this movie and the last Don Bluth movie we looked at (other than the story line): 1. The Land Before Time was a movie Don Bluth made by himself. Sleeping Beauty. on the other hand, was a movie made by Disney. 2. The Land Before Time was a movie Don Bluth directed; Sleeping Beauty was a movie he had very little involvement with. He was a background artist (which means he just did the backgrounds. In live action films he would have been considered a scenic designer). Before we get into the actual review of this movie, I would like to point out something-- this movie is the first movie Don Bluth made (or the first professional movie he ever made). And before we get into this, if anybody is wondering what I think of the recent blockbuster hit, Maleficent: it was bad. As for the recent Disney Channel movie Descendants, it was what you would expect from a Disney Channel movie.

Background

The production of this movie started around 1949 with the entire storyboard completed in 1952. Walt was not happy with the end result of the storyboard as he thought it was too similar to past Disney movies such as Snow White and Cinderella. Walt Disney hired Eyvind Earle to design the entire movie (and he has been declared a Disney Legend and the ceremony is taking place today). Sleeping Beauty was a major gamble for Walt Disney and this gamble did not pay off. It was a dismal success at the box office, but unfortunately, Walt Disney never lived to see Sleeping Beauty make back its profit. However, when it was re-released after his death, it did become a success and a Disney classic.

Plot

This movie is about a princess under a spell cast by a wicked fairy, known as Maleficent (sound familiar?) and to protect her, she was raised by fairies for 16 years. She fell in love with a prince, the fairies take her back to the kingdom and then (spoiler alert) she pricks her finger on the needle of a spinning wheel and falls into a deep sleep and then (spoiler alert) she gets woken up the kiss of her prince.

Opinion

Let's start with the animation-- the animation is wonderful! The story is about average for a princess movie, but this is what you expect when you make a movie out of Sleeping Beauty. The characters-- the two kings are hysterical and the three good fairies are funny as well. I have always laughed when Flora and Merriweather do the pink a blue fight and when Flora makes the cake the wrong way. The princess and the prince are not that good of characters; their in love with being in love and pretty average for a prince and princess.

Maleficent is the best Disney villain of all times. She mean business. The mistress of all evil. And I never forget the big elephant in the room now-- can you see where Don Bluth might have influenced-- well not necessarily... but you can see where Don Bluth was influenced by the movie because if you look at the style of animation you can see an element of Don Bluth movies later on. All in all it is quite a good movie- if they developed the prince and princess a bit more, it would be have been a much better movie. As for my rating, just to let you know Maleficent has a gun to my head right now, so I guess I will give it 5 stars so I don't have to end my blog immediately.

Well thank you to everyone that has read my blog this year. I will be forever grateful!

Goodnight and Bee Happy!™

By Mr. Bee  
       
                                                                        

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