The Ultimate Fairytale is now The Ultimate DVD
By Alexander Alexiou
The Story
In the 14 century, in a land far far away, a princess was born to the Good king Stephen and his fair queen. Many years they had longed for a child, and when she was finally born a huge party was thrown in her honor. The party was graced with the presence of three good fairies each baring a gift for the little princess. The first fairy blessed her with beauty, the second with song and grace, but before the third fairy could bestow her gift, the evil and malevolent fairy Maleficent appeared, distraught over not being invited to the child’s christening, the evil fairy cursed the young princess to DIE, by pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel, before the sun set on her 16th Birthday. The third Good Fairy cushioned the blow of the curse, by prophesizing that not in death would she fall, but into a deep deep sleep, that could only be broken by loves first kiss.
Still the King and Queen feared, and so the fairies, disguised as peasant maids, took the baby deep into the neighboring forest and raised her in secret under the name Briar Rose.
16 years had passed and it was now the young princess’ 16th Birthday, and the day found her well, and Beautiful and Graceful as ever the fairies could have imagined. As this would be the last day they would know the girl, as tonight they were returning her to her parents, they decided to throw her a party, in celebration of her sweet 16, and so they sent her off to pick berries as they prepared, hoping to surprise her. As she left they gave her the usual warning, of speaking to no strangers.
The young fair maiden walked through the wood singing out her dreams and hopes, attracting all who were in ear shot, including a young prince, disguised in peasant clothing. He gazed upon the young girl as the danced with the forest animals, singing of the prince she met and fell inlove with once upon a dream. The Prince soon joined her, taking her by surprise, he was after all a stranger, but she soon forgot that as they got lost in each other’s eyes and danced through the forest, together. Soon the young girl was brought back to reality and ran home, calling to the young man, to meet her that evening at the woodcutter’s cottage that she called home. When she returned home, she told the fairies of the young man she had just met and they told her of her true identity and that she could never see the boy again, for she was already betrothed to Prince Phillip. She was broken hearted.
A spy of the evil Maleficent had over heard the fairies confirming the identity of the princess Aurora and went off to inform her. When the fairies had taken Aurora back to the castle, she locked herself alone in her room as she wept for the love she would never see again, unaware that it was Prince Phillip, who had informed his father that he was inlove with a peasant girl, and had headed off to the cottage as Aurora had come to the castle. Now that she was alone Maleficent seized her opportunity and before the good fairies could stop it, Aurora had pricked her finger and fallen into the prophesized enchanted sleep, which could now only be lifted by Phillip’s kiss, and so they fairies realizing who the mysterious boy was went back to the cottage to get him, but by time they arrived Maleficent had him in the dungeon of her castle on the forbidden Mountain...
The Movie
Sleeping Beauty truly is the Ultimate Fairytale. Sleeping Beauty has it all, a dreaded curse, an enchanted kiss, magical fairies, mistaken identities, a lovely and fair princess, an evil villianness, the mistress of all evil to be exact, and a handsome adventurous prince. Plus an awesome Dragon fight!
Walt Disney was ready to turn Sleeping Beauty into an animated feature after Snow White, but felt that the technology was not present at the time to do the story as he imagined it, and so 20 years went by before Sleeping Beauty would make it’s debut in the awe inspiring Cinescope format, showing off the stylized animation of Eyvind Earle, to the beautiful score adapted from that of the famous score of Tchaikovsky ballet of the matching name.
Sleeping Beauty is without a doubt, Walt Disney’s most beautiful film. It is brimming with pre-Renaissance style drawings, bright, beautiful colors, and magic! The entire picture flows smoothly, as does the beautiful score adapted from the Sleeping Beauty Ballet score by Peter Tchaikovsky. And the waltz filled title song Once Upon a Dream, that is sung throughout the picture, is one of Disney’s most beautiful, and does give off that dreamy feeling as you listen to it.
So much detail was put into the animated movements of the characters, such as the look of surprise on Brair Rose’s face when she finds herself dancing with Phillip, to the dreamy look in her eyes as she is starting to fall inlove with him. Each emotion and reaction of each character is perfectly illustrated, the look on young prince Phillip’s face as he looks upon his bride to be at the beginning, the startled surprise of Maleficent as she finds that she wasn’t wanted at the chrisining, and how it flows smoothly into her gentle apologetic laugh, and then ferocity and she bestows her gift upon the child. The way each character moves was also impressive, the detail put into Aurora’s bouncy hair, or the fluttering of Maleficent’s robes, to the snake like attacks of the Dragon, as it snaps at Prince Phillip.
In addition to great animation and music an animated movie needs a good story and this is something else that Sleeping Beauty has. An interesting plot that completely broke away from the Snow White/Cinderella mold, Sleeping Beauty is a bit more adult, in the fact that love gets a little complicated as each the hero and heroine believe they are inlove with a peasant when in fact they are inlove with their royal betrothed. In this story the prince does not merely stumble across the sleeping princess and wake her with a kiss, he must fight for her, and make it through many perilous tasks, including a climatic fight with the incarnate dragon of Maleficent. In the end it is as all fairytales a happily ever after, with the prince and princess dancing in the clouds. Awwweeeeeee…
Also important are the characters. Each of the characters in Sleeping Beauty were likable, from the tipsy minstrel, to the three kind hearted good fairies, to the leading leading couple. This is something that is not always present in other Disney films. Maleficent, is one of the most wicked villains in all of Disney history, and yet she is a favorite among most all Disney fans. Aurora is so sweet and charming that the audience can’t help but fall inlove with her and cheer for her to have the happy ending that she deserves. The same is true for Prince Phillip, who was the first Prince in Disney History to have a real personality. The good fairies act a subtle comic relief as well as to help move the story along. We feel for each of them as they feel the pains of knowing they will have to say good bye to the girl they have raised for 16 years, and equally feel the pain of King Stephan and the Queen as they give up their daughter to the fairies, the child they had longed for, for so long. Even the forest animals have a charm about them ,as they steal the prince’s clothing in order to become the scare crow prince of sleeping beauty’s dreams.
Walt once said that Sleeping Beauty was his most inspiration film, and one of his personal favorites. With all it has to offer, beautiful story, music and animation, Sleeping Beauty truly is Disney at it’s best.
The DVD
Disc 1:
Disc one includes both the Widescreen and Fullscreen presentations.
The picture is absolutely stunning. It is more beautiful than it has ever been, do to a frame by frame restoration that is discussed on disc two.
This reviewer has only watched the widescreen presentation, which gives you the option of an audio commentary.
The Commentary is made up from a bunch of interviews with different people related directly and indirectly with the film, including Mary Costa, the voice of Aurora/Briar Rose; Eyvind Earle the stylist of the film; Marc Davis, the supervising Animator of the leading lady and the mistress of all evil, Maleficent; and the directors of Pocahontas, who were inspired as young children by Sleeping Beauty. The Commentary pretty much just goes over info that can already be found elsewhere on the disc, it is never the less interesting to go through. Also on the commentary, are original song ideas for the movie, including a song sung by the fairies as they make a cake and dress for Briar Rose, and the original song sung while the fairies put the castle to sleep. The movie is much better, in the opinion of this reviewer, for not having these versions.
The Fullscreen format, should you chose this version, gives you the option of watching the movie in French or Spanish, while only an English track is available for the Cinescope version.
Disc 2:
Disc two is where all of the bonus materials are. They are divided into 2 main categories: Games, Music and Fun and History and Behind the Scenes.
Games, Music and Fun
The first thing in this category is Disney’s Art Project. Review coming soon
Then you have the option of playing the Rescue Aurora Adventure Game. This is a fairy simple game of listening to the question being asked and giving the right answer, which is usually a pun on what the fairy asked. For Example the first Question is “We will start with a clue, not a where or a what but a Who. The options to chose from are an owl, a squirrel, and a rabbit.This is entertaining if you are really bored, but if you are the average older Disney viewer you probably would appreciate this as much as say your sibling or child, or niece or nephew.
Next is the Princess Personality Game. This is an interesting game if you’ve always wanted to know which princess you relate most to. I happened to be most like Ariel. The questions are a bit dumb sometimes, and it is obvious who you will be by answering some, though as a whole when it came time for me to find out who I was, I was surprised. One of the draw backs of this game is listening to the awful imitation voice of Merry Weather, which is some old southern women who sounds like she is of sub-par intelligence. (I hear Jodi Benson did a good job as Lady in the sequel Lady and the Tramp II, I don’t see why she couldn’t also have done Merry Weather too, as they are the same voice!)
Once you are done with the first page, which consists of the above three activities, you flip over the page to find three more features:
First is the Sing-Along of Once Upon a Dream, which is Fullscreen and Unrestored so if you want to see just how much of a dramatic difference the cinescope and restoration had on the movie watch this, in addition to the widescreen version of the film on Disc one. Also incase you don’t know the song by heart by now, it includes the words on the bottom of the screen.
Next is the music video Once Upon a (Another) Dream. Many have not appreciated this particular feature as I have. I find the song to be a nice more modern spin on an already great song. Though it is more of a pop song than a waltz inspired classical piece, it still has that dreamy feeling that makes you want to dance, just not in the same way as the original. The music video also feature 4 young girls, not too young, running around in little dresses, looking like forest Nymphs. The nice thing about this song, I think is that it is original, it is not just a resigning of the old song, but rather a different song with different lyrics. The movie clips playing through it are nice. This is definitely an improvement to past music videos done by Disney, including “I’m still here” which was a great song, but a sub-par video, IMHO.
Lastly, for this section is the Ink and Paint Game, which was an utter disappointment for this reviewer, one again you must listen to that awful faux Merry Weather voice as she tells you what to paint and what color. I think this is terrible as it stunts the imaginations of young children, as well as the adults who play it, by telling them, when they chose the color Merry Weather doesn’t consider the right one, that they are wrong! Well you what I know what color it was in the movie, but I wanted to make it my own color!
History and Behind the Scenes
First in the History/Behind Scenes section is The Making of Sleeping Beauty, a short but informative featurette. Nicely done.
Next is a section called story which includes:
-The History behind Sleeping Beauty. These are just a series of pages of text describing different incarnations of the story…
-The 1951 Outline. This is very interesting. Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel, narrorrates the original plot of Sleeping Beauty from 1951, which is completely different from what premiered in theatres in 1959… (Just to be clear, these are pages of text being read aloud)
-Storyboard Sequences. If you are really into the animated process you will like these as the are pictures drawing of the scene before it is animated and colored and all, these are the drawings animators do, and clip onto a board when they are planning how to animate a scene. Andre Deja, an animator at Disney, gives introductions to the these sequences, which are those of Prince Phillip’s capture, and The fairies putting the castle to sleep.
The next section is title production
Here you will find several informative and interesting featurettes including:
-Music. Where you will see an interview with May Costa talking about the music.
-The Design, This is a featurette describing, you guessed it, the design of the film. The design is discussed so many times through out the DVD that you really don’t have to watch this to know about it, but it is interesting none the less.
-Creating the Backgrounds. Interview with Eyvind Earle where he talks about how he went about designing and painting the many gorgeous backgrounds of the film.
-Live Action Reference. In this sub-section you will find brief live action references, used to help animators when drawing the different scenes. There are two, that are each a few seconds long. The first is of Briar Rose dancing and the second is of Prince Phillip fighting the dragon. Bill Shirley, the voice of Prince Phillip is the man in the reference. Also there are plenty of snap shots, of different live action scenes, but unfortunately so much was lost that they really only have the photos and not all of the taped ones, but the photos are also great and greatly appreciated. There is even a color one, of the magical kiss scene.
-The Restoration. This is the featurette I referred to in the disc one review. This is another short but very informative piece, and it is highly suggested that this is viewed in addition to the making of.
-Widescreen to Pan-and-scan comparison. If you are still debating whether or not to watch the widescreen version as opposed to the fullscreen one, the short little feature shows a comparison between the two.
Next are one of my favorite features, the Sleeping Beauty Galleries!!! Here again are many sub categories:
-Layouts and Backgrounds
-The Sleeping Beauty Storybook Gallery. Here you open the book and can see the pictures and dialogue of the book which is referred to through out the story. Very neat.
-Posters Gallery
-Disneyland Walkthrough Gallery
-Concept Art Gallery
-Character Design Gallery
-Storyboards Gallery
Each Gallery gives you insight into how the movie developed, how animators ideas progress through the production progress, the impact Sleeping Beauty had on the world, what merchandise was available at the time. It is truly amazing. On select photos/stills there is a brief fact, some are facts for adults, while others are fun facts for children.
Once you have been amazed by the galleries, continue your Sleeping Beauty Journey, onto the publicity section which has 3 vintage Sleeping Beauty trailers.
-The Original Teaser Trailer
-The Original Theatrical Trailer from 1959
-The Reissue Trailer from 1995 ( the best one in my opinion.)
These trailers are a fun and interesting piece of nostalgia.
Next is the Sleeping Beauty Scrapbook. This is another section divided into a few subsections, more galleries. They are grouped in the following sections:
-Behind the Scenes. One interesting thing about this gallery is that you get to see a picture of Bill Shirley and Mary Costa standing next to each other, from the time of production.
-Publicity
-Merchandise
-Theme Parks
When you are done, you move onto the next and final page which has 3 featurettes, 2 of which appeared on the Disneyland TV show in 1959 and The Grand Canyon which appeared before Sleeping Beauty in theatres and won an Oscar for best short subject.
-Four Artists Paint One Tree. This is an interesting featurette. It originally premiered in 1959 on the Disneyland TV show, in anticipation of the release of Sleeping Beauty. The feature shows four of the sleeping beauty artists and how they each interpret and paint the exact same tree, four completely different ways. It is not too long, but long enough for each of the artists to explain to you how he has interpreted the tree and what his methods of painting are.
-The Peter Tchaikovsky Story. This is also an interesting mini feature that tells the story of Peter’s life. It is acted out by actors and utilizes the Sleeping Beauty score to set the moods of the story as it progresses.
-The Grand Canyon. I found this 30 minute or so segment, to be utterly boring. It droned on and on and neither the music nor “captivating” scenes seemed all that inspiring to me. Though I could see if you have a mind for that kind of thing or you’re a real history buff, you’d probably enjoy it, I’m sure glad though I do not have to sit through it everytime I watch Sleeping Beauty!