Disney’s Sleeping Beauty is a tale that every little girl hopes is true, at least to an extent, in her own life. A girl is born beautiful to a loving family, and the whole world adores her. It’s the rest of the world, the evil forces, that wish to her harm and she is put into situations she can’t control. But lo and behold, there’s always the handsome prince riding in on his white horse to save her, whisk her away and give her a “happily ever after”. And that evil? Well that evil is vanquished, serves it right for being so evil and all. But what if…just what if, that evil wasn’t as bad as you think? Maybe there’s good intentions behind that evil. That seems to be the story behind Disney’s latest live action film, Maleficent, starring Angelina Jolie.
Maleficent is one of Disney’s greatest villains. She is depicted as pure evil, through and through. She turns into a giant black dragon that breathes green fire for goodness sake! She is certainly one of the most powerful of all the villains, and definitely the most feared.
However, the new film from Disney takes their tried and true recipe for fairy tales and turns it on their ears…however mouse shaped they may be…by making the villain the focal point of the story. The villain as the focal point? How can this be any good? We know how it ends from the original story, and we know that’s bad…right?
Here’s the official synopsis of the film.
“A beautiful, pure-hearted young woman, Maleficent has an idyllic life growing up in a peaceable forest kingdom, until one day when an invading army threatens the harmony of the land. Maleficent rises to be the land’s fiercest protector, but she ultimately suffers a ruthless betrayal — an act that begins to turn her pure heart to stone. Bent on revenge, Maleficent faces an epic battle with the invading king’s successor and, as a result, places a curse upon his newborn infant Aurora. As the child grows, Maleficent realizes that Aurora holds the key to peace in the kingdom — and perhaps to Maleficent’s true happiness as well.”
So the darkest villain in the technicolored animated Disney world is actually it’s greatest protector? She’s not trying to harm the princess, but protect her?
This is the latest trend that was started way back when George Lucas revealed that Darth Vader was actually a misunderstood mama’s boy who fell in love and was tricked to become the greatest evil that the universe has ever known. The theme continued (rather brilliantly) when pirates got a new coat of paint courtesy of Captain Jack Sparrow, and weren’t entirely the pillaging, raping, really bad eggs that we thought they were either.
You’ve seen the first trailer for the film in which we get a glimpse at what will be the sheer amazement of Angelina Jolie as Maleficent, but the second trailer paints a little more of a picture and gives you an idea that maybe this evil thing isn’t as evil as you once thought.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4V28t8bTAU
Personally, I love it. I’m always the type that roots for the bad guy anyway, knowing that good must be prevail, but only hoping that there’s a twist in a predictable story. Could this be an ever growing trend that the evil we know in the world, isn’t the evil we think it is, but merely a side effect of true evil that we think is good? Too much? In other words, the real villain of Sleeping Beauty isn’t Maleficent at all, but the kingdom from which Prince Phillip comes from? Maybe The Evil Queen in Snow White isn’t so evil, and is only doing what she can to protect herself from the spirit that is the “Slave in the magic mirror”? Maybe the Wicked Stepmother is only trying to protect Cinderella from the fame that she seeks because she’s afraid of the ruin that her life will be? They’re not bad! HONESTLY! They’re just misunderstood!
Either way, we’ll find out when Maleficent hits theaters on May 30th, 2014.
Stay tuned for more evil goodness, and be sure to follow along with us on Twitter @BehindThrills for the latest updates!
