That's Not How I Remember It: Sleeping Beauty

Since my one and only child is starting to become more interested in the things she watches, I've been on a recent Disney kick, thanks to Frozen, and catching up on all the old Disney animations.  All these movies I've probably watched once or twice when I was a wee child, so I clearly don't remember much except some main points like dragons, nose growing, fairy dust here and there, etc.  Now that I'm an adult and can remember most of my day (being a new dad means a lot of my day still drifts away from me), re-watching these old films is like a whole new reawakening into a strange land of WTF.  So now, as an adult I re-review Sleeping Beauty.

When I was a child, the way I remember Sleeping Beauty was; a woman who fell under a powerful spell long ago and she was kept in the tallest tower to rest forever until her Prince Charming arrived.  Prince Charming just so happened to be riding through the forest, happened to hear about Sleeping Beauty, went up to the tower, kissed her, she woke up, then he had to fight a dragon.  That's all I remember.

What really happened is; The King and Queen are having a baby shower and everyone in the kingdom is invited. Maleficent poofs into the castle unannounced, is pissed that she wasn't invited, then casts an evil spell on a baby that when she turns 16, she pricks her finger on a spindle and dies.  All because she wasn't invited??  Pure evil.  Then one of the good little fairy's casts another spell, because apparently she isn't powerful enough to stop Maleficent's spell, that when she pricks her finger, she falls asleep instead.  The king orders all spindles to be destroyed (jeez man who's going to make the clothes now) and the fairies, as a precaution, take the princess away from her mother and father and raise her as their own in a forest cottage also renaming her Rose, as secondary precaution.  WTF?  Who let's some fairy's take their one and only daughter and why the renaming.  They're living deep in a forest, it's not like a whole bunch of people are going to be walking on by asking about their kid.  It's already weird enough 3 old ladies are now raising an infant. Also, the spell doesn't happen until she turns 16, why not take precautions then!?

So fast forward 16 years, Sleeping Beauty is about to turn sweet 16 and Maleficent has been searching for her this whole entire time.  Why has she been searching?  I'm not sure, she cast a spell that is supposed to go off when she turns 16.  I'm not a magician myself but I'm sure that if you cast a spell, the thing still works. Aurora (Rose) goes out into the forest to gather some berries (because that's what you do when you're raised in the backwoods) singing to her hearts content, not knowing of the dangers that await, like other older men.  Much older.  Like a good 10 years or so as when she was just a baby, she was betrothed to Prince Charming, who isn't named Prince Charming after all.  His name is Prince Phillip.  Where the hell Prince Charming came from, I don't know.  So Prince Child Molester, I mean Phillip, finds Aurora in the woods after some naughty little woodland creatures take his clothes so they can pretend to dance with the lonely Aurora (Rose).  He sweeps in and they sing a little famous duet (Once Upon a Dream) and they both fall madly in love with one another, like all old school fairy tales do.

The fairies, meanwhile, have been making a cake, dress, and cleaning the house for a surprise sweet 16 present.  They fail miserably so after they all have been keeping her so well hidden up until this day without using any of their powers they decide, what the heck, hey it's been 16 years why not do some magic.  OR they could just wait a little bit longer until the day after to give her some gifts but hey, that's just me.  The magic attracts some bad guys to which they go and tell Maleficent that Aurora has been hiding in the woods this whole entire time under a false name.  Jeez, you think 3 old women who show up out of nowhere, raising up a baby girl would have been enough to trigger a "that doesn't seem right" cue.

Auroa (Rose) comes back in all giddy, that she met a man and invited him over for dinner and the fairies reveal that she can't marry some guy she just met not because, that's just wrong, but because she's already betrothed to someone else and her name isn't Rose, but Princess Aurora.  She cries and cries, like all 16 year olds do who just realized that they're really a princess the whole time and the fairies bring her back to the castle.  They leave her in her room to cry some more when, lo and behold, Maleficent shows up.  I'm still not sure why she was searching this whole time for her as I'm pretty sure, Princess Aurora would have shown up eventually on her 16th birthday.  Maleficent casts another spell to have her follow her up a secret passageway to prick her finger on a spindle and fall asleep.

The fairies try their best to stop her but it's too late.  They pick up Sleeping Beauty and rest her in a bed.  Now comes the part I really don't remember.  The fairies, cast a spell on everybody in the village and castle, and put them all TO SLEEP!  They do this because, they don't want anyone to know that she fell asleep.  I think it's because they know they failed in the quest to keep Aurora away from Maleficent and don't want their heads chopped off by the King.  At least that's my theory.  

As Prince Phillips father is falling asleep, he tells one of the caries that his son fell madly in love with a girl he met in the woods. The fairies realize that the spell can be broken by "true love's kiss" and hurry back to their cottage to pick up the Prince Phillip, who was the man that Aurora met in the forest.  He shows up at the house but is captured and brought back to Maleficent's castle so he won't be able to fulfill his destiny and wake Sleeping Beauty until he turns 100 years old which Maleficent shows in her magic crystal staff in full detail.  Wow!  What a beeeoch.  I really need to watch the Maleficent movie to see what turned her heart to stone.

The fairies sneak into her castle, break out prince Phillip, give him a magic shield and sword (sweet), they all fight their way out (which was actually a pretty cool breakout) and Maleficent tries to stop him by casting out huge thorns around the castle.  Prince Phillip cuts a path through and that's when Maleficent gets angry turning herself into a giant, green fire breathing Dragon.  They fight for a little bit, and she knocks off his shield and backs him up to a cliff.  One of the fairies casts a target spell on his sword and when he throws it, it stabs Maleficent right in her cold, cold heart and she falls dead.  Or at least that's what it looks like as all that's left is just a cloak with a sword through it.

Prince Phillip, makes his way to the tower, kisses Sleeping Beauty and she wakes up, with huge eyes wide open, very odd looking.  They get married and dance the night away forever living happily ever after.  Of course until she realizes that she really doesn't have much else in common with him and leaves him for actual  Prince Charming (I've added that last part in as I'm sure that's what happened).

So now that you know the full story of Sleeping Beauty, go ahead a watch it for yourself, even though I've pretty much told the entire story here.  It's a classic that's meant to be shared even though it's a little outdated to today's standards.  I'm sure you'll be just as surprised wondering, "I don't remember that", just like me. - Kevshiro