You Win Some, You Snooze Some

Judging by the title of this entry, all you lovely little fanatics can probably guess who this post is about.  If you guessed Sleeping Beauty, you’d be absolutely right!  I’ve always been a fan of the beautiful sleeping princess who waits for her prince to battle an evil dragon, break her sleeping spell with true-love’s kiss and ride off into the sunset with her…or, at least, the Disney version of that story.  Unfortunately, I was a little let down with the original story written by the Grimm Brothers.  Why, you ask? Let’s prick our fingers on that spindle and find out.

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In the original story of Little Brier-Rose, nothing truly eventful happens, except that a scorned wise woman curses the princess to prick her finger on a spindle and die, but the good wise woman eases the curse from death to a hundred-year sleep.  Years later, our ever-faithful prince decides to brave the thorn bushes surrounding the castle, which conveniently part for him, and he strides with ease to awake the princess from her deep slumber and they live happily ever after. Just like that. For what served as Sleeping Beauty’s inspiration, it’s enough to make anyone drowsy.

Disney’s adaptation was more action-packed and provided detail on the relationship between Prince Phillip and Princess Aurora, Sleeping Beauty’s version of the prince and Brier-Rose.  They even share a catchy song and dance together, and what hopeless romantic doesn’t get a kick out of that?  Maleficent curses Aurora as a baby to die on her sixteenth birthday and the blue fairy, Merryweather, weakens the curse so that it knocks her out instead of flat-out killing her. As planned, Aurora turns sixteen and pricks her finger on a spindle, falling into a deep slumber.  An unknown amount of time later, Phillip gets word of his princess’s curse and charges in on his trusty steed to rescue her.  Maleficent interjects in the form of a dragon and Phillip commences an epic battle against her, fighting through thorns and avoiding hellish green fire to finally plunge his sword into her heart, defeating the evil sorceress and awaking his love with a kiss to live out their happily ever after. 

Isn’t that much better?  Disney proves that, if you have a boring story, just add dragons!

Fairytale – one.  Adaptation – two.

Watch the new trailer for Disney's 2014 Maleficent.

 

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Claire Marshall.

Claire is short, though she likes to cheat and wear heels.  She was born in Toronto and, yes, she likes the Leafs. She is a caffeine addict and likes super heroes and anime. In her spare time, she enjoys writing fiction, reading, playing video games, and watching her favourite shows and movies. She is a social media addict with a wicked sense of humour and follows celebrity gossip like the bible.

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