DVDizzy Forum

Lets now discuss the villainess from Sleeping Beauty ''the Mistress of all EVIL!''

She was kinda boring imo. Her motive, her personality, etc. Still was better than Snow White's Queen though.

Slightly psychotic.

Let's see...She was angry because she wasn't invited to the party, so she cursed a BABY. The most innocent person in the world. It wasn't HER fault that Maleficent wasn't invited? But she is cursed to die anyways? Mal is a cold hearted bitch.

She is one of my favorite villains.

Love her. I love her evil. And her dragon-ness makes my day!!!!!!!!!

Maleficent is my favorite cinematic villain that has ever existed! And yes, that did just leave the mouth of a Star Wars fan.

Sure her motives weren't that great, but that just makes her more evil! I mean, lets look at some of the other villain's motives:

Queen - Mad because there is one person more pretty than she is.
Cruella - Wants a coat but can't use one specific person's puppies for it.
Tremaine - basically, see "Queen"

There are others, but those are three other much loved villainesses with pretty shallow motives.

But, Maleficent still has the best design and preformance that has possibly ever been put to animation. The design of her costume and headress is very satisfyingly gothic.

She is also quite possibly the most powerful villain, as all the powers of hell seem quite limitless

I think the main reason she was mad for not being invited was that she has such a high opinon of herself, so when she sees that even common people were invited before her it bruised her large ego. I think her personality was done in a way where it was not complex but at the same time she had a different side to her, a very seldom seen nice side. Her nice side was seen when she interacts with her raven Diablo (at least IMO) the way she treats him is vastly different from the way she treats her other minions (but I guess thats because the raven is smarter?). I think that if Flora had never put that spell on Phillips sword, Maleficent would have def. kicked his butt

Yes, she does have an affection for her raven. Like Ursula does for her eels. She is similar to Maleficent in that way, among others. Ursula also has a soft side. When Ariel caused her to kill her precious poopsies, she went off the deep end. If her eels hadn't had been killed, she probably wouldn't have made herself Godzilla-size. If I remember correctly, Maleficent was bitching about her raven being "stoned".

Though I don't consider her the best, and despite my criticism of her, I do have a bit of a soft spot for her. I've always loved fantasy and mythology (particularly Tolkien's books) and Sleeping Beauty is really the only animated film that's come close enough to such scale and majesty.

She's certainly not terribly well written; the Queen and Cruella may have had unusual objectives but we always knew what they wanted and what their motives were, and why they were after such goals. She's definitely not as scary as the Coachman, the Queen, Chernabog and (at least for me) Cruella. But her design, animation and voice are pretty good, and they do come close to defining what could be classed as a well-developed character.

I still think Cruella is Marc Davis' best character, and Lady Tremaine is probably Eleanor Audley's better performance, but they do quite sterling work here as well. Marc Davis said that he based a lot of Maleficent's mannerisms on Audley's live-action performance, while I imagine that dancer Jane Fowler was responsible for those sweeping body movements. The costume meant that she sort of morphs between shadows and flames, and the helmet (though it made me want her no say 'Ni!' in my last viewing) really gives this 'shadow' a distinct silhouette. Diablo (the Raven) was a good way to have her play off another character rather than talk to herself, serving a similar purpose to the Quen's raven.

she is one fabulous biotch . i think her motive for cursing Aurora was this, she was mad that she wasn't invited to the party so she cursed the one thing that made them happy, baby Aurora, so that is her motive everyone.
but in Kingdom Hearts it's sort of a mixer since you can't tell if they did her right or made her an idiot. like in the first game she was the leader of the villains and kept warning them about not steeping to far in darkness so their hearts won't be consumed by the heartless but not taking her own advice made her an idiot. then it was found out she was just a pawn which made it stupid. then in Chain of Memories for the Hollow Bastion level she wanted the most beautiful heart to replenish her powers and decided Belle's was the most Beautiful but couldn't get it because she was being heartless to Beast but then she decided Beast had the most beautiful heart tried to take his but Belle got in the way and she got Belle's heart instead. that woman can't make up her mind can she . but then in Kingdom Hearts II they just ruined her by having her hang with the most stupidest villain Pete. then they gave no real answer to how she came back. then she tried to reform her band of villains but only got Pete in the end. then she brought Oogie Boogie back but he turned on her and went on with his own buisness angering her. she can't even have one good day here . then the heartless went and turned on her and sided with the Organization who she felt was getting in her way of capturing Kingdom Hearts so she sided with the good guys and then disappered for no reason.
they could've done better in the sequel than that. if they ever make a sequel to SB done give out a stupid reason for her return and don't make her an idiot Disney.

I'm kind of in the middle with Maleficent. I think she's a far cry from being Disney's "best" villain, but she does have her moments. The scene where she mesmerizes and pricks Aurora's finger on the spindle is extremely powerful. I think the only thing I have against her is my disdain for the movie as a whole. The individual characters are entertaining, but nothing really great happens onscreen til the finale (besides the beautiful animation).

As far as the "princess" films go, she's probably my least favorite villainess (with Tremaine and Ursula at the top).

Marc Davis was the primary force behind Maleficient, and once commented that she was mostly a dramatic speech maker. She certainly makes a number of speeches in the feature (pronounces doom on Aurora, criticizes her Goons, gloats (twice) over Phillip, etc.
Marc was also one of the primary forces behind Aurora; his initial designs for her were more youthful and downright cute.

Marc was more fond of Cruella DeVille ("cruel devil"), who he considered some of his best animation (though he regretted he had not animated her clothing more loosely).

Marc Davis ties with Milt Kahl as my favourite of the Nine Old Men. Maleficent shows what can be achieved when the animation is carefully controlled, and she's still probably the most dramatic Disney character. On the other hand, characters like Cruella, Stromboli and Medusa show what the animator is capable of with a bit more creative freedom, in my opinion.

This is not directly related, but those who read this thread may be interested in this:

http://www.calendars.com/xq/asp/TID.{A1 ... roduct.htm

As far as I'm aware, there hasn't been one before.

Oh cool! I'm really excited for that calendar! Too bad there isn't a picture to go along with it.

Slightly Off=Topic.

One thing I've noticed was the music that plays during Maleficents gloating to Phillip in the dungeon is also used in 101 Dalmatians. Well that or music that sounds really similar, I can't remember what part of the movie though, I'll have to rewatch it unless someone knows what part I'm talking about.

As Dalmations had a fairly restrained budget compared to Sleeping Beauty- about $3 Mil .vs. over $6 mil. . Dalmations also had the first widespread use of Xerox cel inking in a feature film (Disney Xerox was first in a short, I think, called Goliath II, and definitely in Sleeping Beauty (watch the horses inside the castle during the first "Princess Aurora" celebration song - their odd sideways zoom-in is Xerox in action)).

A side note about Maleficient; She cropped up in HOUSE OF MOUSE several times (and as the Dragon in HOM's first episode). And a good chunk of her personality lives on inside Lady Tremaine in Cinderella III.

Siren wrote:If I remember correctly, Maleficent was bitching about her raven being "stoned".

She treated him like he was her child, and like any mother, of course she would be upset at him smoking weed!

MagicMirror wrote:Marc Davis said that he based a lot of Maleficent's mannerisms on Audley's live-action performance, while I imagine that dancer Jane Fowler was responsible for those sweeping body movements.

Who's this Jane Fowler? Did they call her in to do movement for them, or they referenced her from video footage? What? How do you know?

Oh, and of course, my thoughts. Well, after paying more attention to Lady Tremaine, and then Maleficent, it's amazing how you can still tell it's Audley's voice but she's doing a distinct character! Verna Felton's Flora is not quite as seperate from the Fairy Godmother as Maleficent is from the stepmother. But her voice is so unique. She can sound nice when addressing the King and Queen, powerful when she commands the royal court to listen to her curse, then some kind of demon voice coming from the depths of hell when she speaks the curse.

But her design is what attracts me to her, of course. The unique horned headress, the fire-fringed sleeves, and now that I think about, the black flames that trail on the floor are much like Ursula's tentacles. Inspiration?

Her magic effects are really what get me. Spiraling purple mist. Black bats and unholy creatures. Green fire.

Disney Duster wrote:

Siren wrote:If I remember correctly, Maleficent was bitching about her raven being "stoned".

She treated him like he was her child, and like any mother, of course she would be upset at him smoking weed!

maybe Diablo is her son transformed from a misdirected spell or her husband like Magica De Spell's raven is her husband since she changed him into a raven. that would be a funny twist.

maybe Diablo is her son transformed from a misdirected spell or her husband like Magica De Spell's raven is her husband since she changed him into a raven. that would be a funny twist.

I thought that was her brother, not her husband.

The unique horned headress, the fire-fringed sleeves, and now that I think about, the black flames that trail on the floor are much like Ursula's tentacles. Inspiration?

Eh...doubt it. Jafar's design, on the other hand, had to've been inspired by her.

It's weird, though, how all the really threatening villains end up transforming into some giant monster at the end. That probably really helps with the girls though, 'cause it's hard to visually support stabbing a woman through the chest. Unless they're frighteningly ugly already, of course (we don't like ugly people). The deleted ending for TLM, for example, was very disturbing. To me, at least.

i didn't remember which family member it was for Magica so i put husband but it could have been her brother.

In few words, the most memorable villian of all Disney movies.

Some vilians and stepmothers had trierd to go Maleficent's ways but none had been soo evil.

Maybe she isn't as big as Chernabog, or crazy as Madam Ming, weird as Jafar or old as Yzma(...mmm...maybe she is, but she got to have a better plastic surgeon...) but is definitely the only villian I would never like to disagree