FilmSeries· 2014· Fantasy

Maleficent

by Robert Stromberg

Maleficent: it draws on 2 recorded sources.

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What influenced Maleficent

The works this one is recorded as drawing on.

Sleeping Beauty

Animation · 1959

RemakeHIGH

Maleficent retells Disney's own 1959 film from the antagonist's side, and it is specifically that film rather than the tale: the character does not exist in Perrault, the name is Disney's, and the horned silhouette being reused is Marc Davis's design. The retelling inverts the source at its central points. The curse is given a motive the 1959 film does not supply, the three good fairies become incompetent rather than protective, and the kiss that breaks the spell is not the prince's. It is a reading of the earlier film, which is why it only works if you already know it.

The slighted fairy who curses an infant at her christening is Perrault's invention and has no name in his text. Maleficent takes that figure, gives her the name Disney gave her in 1959, and retells the tale from inside her, keeping the christening, the spindle and the sleep while replacing the motive entirely. It is the clearest case on the map of a villain origin built on a source where the villain has no interior at all.

About the work

Maleficent

This is a series.

A vengeful fairy is driven to curse an infant princess, only to discover that the child could be the one person who can restore peace to their troubled land. Maleficent is a 2014 American fantasy film starring Angelina Jolie as the title character in a live-action retelling of her villainous role in Walt Disney's 1959 animated film Sleeping Beauty, itself an adaptation of the 1697 fairy tale. The film was directed by Robert Stromberg and written by Linda Woolverton. It also stars Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning, Sam Riley, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, and Lesley Manville.