Sleeping Beauty (1997, VHS)

I got Sleeping Beauty on DVD 2 years ago when it came out. It s an old fashion Disney movie that I had to add to my collection and after watching it a few times I shelved it before reviewing. It so last week I decided to watch this again so I could go back and review this is what I think.

Sleeping Beauty was released in the late 50 s, way before my time at least. At the time the animation was pretty ground breaking with stylized pictures that took full advantage of the wide screen ratio. It was a hit, and it s a timeless classic.

Story
The King and Queen have given birth to a new Princess named Auroura. They invite all the kingdom there, including the 3 good fairies; Fauna, Flora, and Merrywheather. Fona and Flora give the young princess the gifts of song and grace, but before Merrywheather can give her gift the evil witch Maleficient barges in furious about not being invited. She comes with bearing the young Princess a gift has well, a curse that before her 16th birthday she will prick her finger on a spindle of a spinning wheel and die. Marrywheather still has her gift to give and all though she can t undo Maleficients curse she can change it. She changes it to where if she does prick her finger she won t die but rather sleep. Wanting to protect the Princess more the 3 good fairies decide to take the Princess and go into hiding in the woods. But can they keep her safe from Maleficient for 16 years?

The movie is a great movie for so many reasons. And that is because they tried hard to make it look and feel different from other Disney movies from that time. It s especially good because Sleeping Beauty could have easily turned out to be a rehash of Snow White. We ll start out with the characters. First thing Auroura (or her alias Briar Rose) is not really the main character in the movie. She has a 10 minute song in dance in the middle of the movie and other then that she isn t really out in the front the rest of the movie but rather just something the movie revolves around.

The characters that take the center stages are the 3 good fairies, Maleficient, and to a lesser degree Prince Phillip. The 3 good fairies are all fairly rounded out characters each with a different personality. You have Flora who is the unelected leader of the group, because the other 2 just follow her ideas (all though Merrywheather complains about them though). Fauna who is kind hearted old lady. And finally Merrywheather who is the feistiest and just a wee bit of a rebel, she and Flora clash over a few of there plan but they get along ok has long as there is no mention of there favorite colors.

Maleficient is probably the best of the Disney villains. Only the Queen from Snow White, and possibly Shen Nu from Mulan could probably hold up to her in the threat level. But there not quite has developed nor have has much screen time has Maleficient. She is cunning, sly, and very cold. And while she does have the comic relief lackeys seen in modern day Disney films, the way she deals with them makes her more monstrous rather then funny. There s a good reason why Square Enix decided to make her the main villain for there Kingdom Hearts video game.

Then finally there is Prince Phillip and in a lot of ways Walt Disney used Phillip to accomplish a few ideas that he wanted the Prince to have in Snow White. We see Phillip break out Maleficients prison and fight with a transformed dragon Maleficient at the end of the film.

Finally there is the animation which looks so much like an old European painting from the pre resonance day. There is a lot of detail in the backgrounds that they really catch the eyes with the details in the way the castle is drawn with every brick in place. Or the throne room where the background is filled with dozens of onlookers. While the onlookers are not animated they are drawn in high detail and they catch the eye. The use of widescreen lens means there where more to animate and in the case of backgrounds Disney artists used it to the fullest. If you choose standard on the DVD you re missing a lot of the beautiful works on the background. The characters are also drawn with the same stylized look and they fit into the backgrounds beautifully.

The DVD.
The DVD set contains 2 discs on Disc one is the movie presented in both standard and wide screen formats. Along with a commentary where a Disney film historian narrates most of the movie and plays sound clips of the artists and other film makers comments. There are also a few deleted songs that are played in this commentary. On Disc 2 you have all the games that are just stupid distractions that will bore anybody over the age of 5. But you also have some of the real special features. There are plenty of modern featuretts where a few of the older Disney artiest look back at making the film, and comments from film historians. As well has the usual gallery where we see some of the early artist outlines. There are also a few things that where made in the 50 s to explain how the films was made and hype it. One is a short that is hosted by Walt Disney where he has is 4 top artiest draw the same tree, and each artiest makes a completely different painting. There is a short on Tchovskey and how he wrote the Sleeping Beauty ballet which Disney used for a lot of the sound track. There is also an original story outline written in the early 50 s and later scrapped. This one had Aurora a prison in the royal castle in till her 16th birthday and constantly chased by an indestructible spinning wheel. It was scrapped because it would have made a lousy movie. There is also a segment where the team for the DVD talks about restoring the movie digitally for it s release on DVD. It s a pretty good look on what goes in this digital clean up efforts. There is also a feature on choosing which you lime better the wide screen or standard format, in this they give you a side by side look on the different windows used for the film, and if you don t believe me about missing a lot of the artwork on the standard then this should convince you.

As for the video quality its top notch and does a great job in showing off the artwork in this movie.

Final Recommendation.
Ok so it s two years old and finding a retailer that still has it is going to be hard but there are used DVD stores out there and you might get yourself lucky. This is definitely a Disney DVD collection to own.