Sleeping Beauty (Special Edition)

Sleeping Beauty (Special Edition) Disney's 1959 animated effort was the studio's most ambitious to date, a widescreen spectacle boasting a gorgeous waltz-filled score adapting Tchaikovsky. In the 14th century, the malevolent Maleficent (not dissimilar to the wicked Queen in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) taunts a king that his infant Aurora will fatally prick her finger on a spinning wheel before sundown on her 16th birthday. This, of course, would deny her a happily-ever-after with her true love. Things almost but not quite turn out that way, thanks to the assistance of some bubbly, bumbling fairies named Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. It's not really all that much about the title character--how interesting can someone in the middle of a long nap be, anyway? Instead, those fairies carry the day, as well as, of course, good Prince Phillip, whose battle with the malevolent Maleficent in the guise of a dragon has been co-opted by any number of animated films since. See it in its original glory here. And Malificent's castle, filled with warthogs and demonic imps in a macabre dance celebrating their evil ways, manages a certain creepy grandeur. --David Kronke
Customer Review: I enjoy the movie
its really awesome. But i spent $40 on the dvd only to find out disney is planning to realease this as their final Platnum Edition from their series. It will, of course, be cheaper and have even more extras than this one. This one mostly has games and menus. good behind the scenes but not all. Im personally happy with my $40 purchase but feel that I should have waited for the Platnum release.
Customer Review: Commentary, Extras
This is a very well done DVD by Disney. The art looks great, and sound is wonderful. If you're thinking of buying this, though, get this for the extras: all are dated and easily recall the era of the late 50's that the movie was released in. "4 Artists Paint 1 Tree" and "The Peter Tchaikovsky Story" are especially enjoyable and add another dimension to the viewing of the film.

The commentary, on the other hand, is nothing special. Yes, there are a couple of songs thrown in that got cut out of the final production. But there is also quite a bit of buttering up of the final production as well as of Walt Disney himself. The commentary is also almost completely disembodied from the film itself - it sounds like they carried out separate interviews with those involved on a few major topics (background art, overall design, Walt Disney) and simply rearranged clips with the voice of a narrator, while in large part ignoring the action of the film.

Get it if you really need to complete the collection. Otherwise, an extremely entertaining rent from your local library thanks to the extras they decided to include.