True Beauty!

Distinctive animation and Tchaikovsky's music are combined to make Disney's most beautiful animated film of all time, Sleeping Beauty. Made by Disney in 1959, this movie is one of the all time best of Disney's movies.

Based on the Charles Perrault's version of the tale, Sleeping Beauty starts out with the celebration of a new princess born, Aurora. She is going to receive blessings from the three good fairies in the land: Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather, although someone comes along to ruin the plan. Maleficent, an evil woman, pronounces a curse upon Aurora that when she's sixteen she will prick her finger on a spinning wheel and die. Merryweather is able to use her last blessing to change the curse to something better. Instead Aurora will fall into a deep sleep by which she can only be awoken by loves first kiss.

Disney animators strove to give this film a unique look. They combined the music of Tchaikovsky's ballet and affective narrative make for a wonderful experience. Maleficent is probably Disney's best creation of evil. Maleficent is voice by the great actress Eleanor Audley, who some of you may know as Mrs. Billings on The Dick Van Dyke Show.

The colors in this movie are very solid and free of noise or bleeding. The contrast is excellent, and the picture is razor sharp. The audio is excellent as well. Tone quality is perfect, and the bass is strong.

This movie is one of mine and my family's all time favorites. It is great for kids of any age. I used to watch this all the time when I was little. Out of all the Disney movies this one was by far the best because Aurora was so beautiful. Not only was Aurora beautiful but also had a beautiful voice, voiced by (Mary Costa). Even when I was little I couldn't resist the magnificent voice of Aurora and also prince Phillip, voiced by Bill Shirley. I loved the part when they were both in the forest singing together and dancing. That was always my favorite part to watch.

When Walt Disney was creating this movie, he expected nothing less than perfection. Disney even demanded endless redraw after redraw to get the movements of Aurora and prince Phillip perfect. He insisted that the human characters on screen in sleeping beauty should move as realistically as possible. Because of this, sleeping beauty used several live-action short films shot specifically as references for Disney's artists during the animation process.

One of the earliest written versions of sleeping beauty was, "Sleeping Beauty in the Woods", which was written by Charles Perrault (1628-1703), and was first published in "Stories or Tales From Times Past". Perrault's publication has been attributed with popularizing the new genre of the fairy tale.

Disney's film adaptation of Perrault's tale isn't as graphic or disturbing. It does retain some of the dark themes, but resembles more of "Brier Rose" variation of the story by the Brothers Grimme in the nineteenth century. Disney's version also ends on the wedding ceremony of the princess and prince. Also, in the film, instead of seven fairies, there are only three.

The Disney folks were trying quietly to restore Sleeping Beauty to its original splendor and they wanted to be certain that the job was done and done right before it released last on dvd.

This film is a timeless classic of what a Disney movie is all about. Sleeping Beauty is considered Disney's crowning achievement. It is one of the best made Disney films in its production. Everyone will enjoy this movie! It's great for a date night or even a family night. Personally it's one of my all time favorites and it's definitely a classic!