Maleficent
From The Unofficial DisneyWiki
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Maleficent, an evil fairy, is the villain of Sleeping Beauty. She takes offense at not being invited to the christening of Princess Aurora, and attempts revenge on King Stefan and the Queen by cursing Aurora. Like Chernabog, Maleficent is an incarnation of pure evil, responsible for all misfortune in King Stefan's kindom; she appears to be particularly unfond of the three good fairies Flora, Fauna and Merryweather, her polar opposites, who do all in their power to keep Maleficent's overwhelming evil magic at bay. Maleficent is also famous for her role as one of the primary antagonists of the Kingdom Hearts series. With her gothic, elegant design, dramatic and flamboyant animation and unlimited arsenal of magic powers, Maleficent is currently the most popular Disney Villain[1].
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[edit] Sleeping Beauty
[edit] Placing a curse on Aurora
[edit] Exacting Revenge
As Aurora's 16th birthday draws near, Maleficent punishes her Goons, who have stupidly been searching for a baby for 16 years. She then sends Diablo, her Raven, to find the princess. Diablo discovers that Aurora, as 'Briar Rose,' is living with the Three Good Fairies (who are posing as mortals) in a cottage in the woods. When the princess and the fairies return to the castle late that afternoon, Maleficent finds Aurora alone and, as a willo the wisp-like apparition, lures her to a spinning wheel. She pricks her finger and falls to the floor. The fairies arrive in time for Maleficent to scoff at them; she then disappears. She and the Goons go to the cottage, where they wait for Prince Phillip, who had arranged to meet Aurora (whom he only knew to be 'Briar Rose,' a peasant girl). When he arrives, they capture him and take him to the Forbidden Mountain.
[edit] Defeat
[edit] Behind the Scenes
[edit] Design
The style for Sleeping Beauty was based on the art of Eyvind Earle, who claimed to have a 'Pre-Renaissance' style, with strong vertical lines and gothic elegance. Eearle was involved with the design of all the characters, and designed and painted most of the backgrounds in the film[2]. Though early sketches depict a hag-like witch, it was decided that Maleficent's final, elegant design suited Earle's backgrounds. Davis' decision to make Maleficent a powerful sorceress rather than an old crone may also have been influenced by Eleanor Audley's voice, which he recalled suggested a very powerful character[3].
The design for Maleficent's clothes occurred to Davis when he was looking through a book on Medieval art; one of the manuscript images featured a religious figure with long robes, the ends of which resembled flames. Davis incorporated this into Maleficent's final design. He based the sides of her headdress on the wings of a bat, and the top of her headdress on the horns of the devil[3].
[edit] Animation
[edit] Deviations form Source Material
In the Sleeping Beauty ballet the evil fairy was named Carabosse. In some versions of the fairy tale, she only appeared to curse the child at the beginning, and did not appear elsewhere in the story; in these versions, the spinning wheel the princess pricks her finger on is not magical but simply a normal spinning wheel. One version of the story shows the fairy who curses the princess as old and grumpy, but not necessarily evil; this version of the character lived (most of the time sleeping) in a tower at the top of the castle, and, after cursing the princess, goes back to sleep, not appearing afterwards.
[edit] Trivia
- Maleficent was nominated for a place in 'AFI’s 50 Greatest Villains list', along with the Queen, Stromboli, Man, Lady Tremaine, Cruella De Vil and Ursula. The Disney Villains to make the final list were the Queen (10), Man (20), and Cruella De Vil (39).
- Maleficent is one of the ten villains featured in the tongue-in-cheek Disney Villains: The Top Secret Files. Maleficent's section of the book includes the catalogue she chose her costume from, and an invitation to Aurora's christening arriving 17 years late (with a small 'oops!' scrawled in the corner). Maleficent is ranked as the second greatest Disney Villain at the end of the book.
- Even though her face appears to be green it's actually supposed to be white according to a coloring feature on the DVD re-release.
- Since the death of Eleanor Audley, Maleifcent's original voice actress, Susan Blakelee has taken on that role in House of Mouse, the Kingdom Hearts video game franchise and the "Happy Hallowishes" fireworks show held at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom during Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party among others.
[edit] References
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedCountdown - ↑ 2.0 2.1 John Canemaker, "Before the Animation Begins: The Life and Times of Disney inspirational Sketch Artists"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Disney Family Album: Marc Davis
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, "The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation"
- ↑ Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, "The Disney Villain"
