Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty is a 1959 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney based on The Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault. The 16th Disney animated feature film, it was released to theaters on January 29, 1959, by Buena Vista Distribution. This was the last Disney adaptation of a fairy tale for some years because of its initial mixed critical reception and under-performance at the box office; the studio did not return to the genre until 30 years later, after Walt Disney died in 1966, with the release of The Little Mermaid (1989).

Plot
Filled with jealousy, the evil witch Maleficent (Eleanor Audley) curses Princess Aurora (Mary Costa) to die on her 16th birthday. Thanks to Aurora's guardian fairies (Verna Felton, Barbara Jo Allen, Barbara Luddy), she only falls into a deep sleep that can be ended with a kiss from her betrothed, Prince Phillip (Bill Shirley). To prevent Phillip from rescuing Aurora, Maleficent kidnaps and imprisons him. The good fairies are the last hope to free Phillip so that he can awaken Aurora.

Why Aurora Walked With Us Once Upon A Dream

 * 1) Stunning and very smooth animation with colorful effects.
 * 2) Beautiful art style that incorporates influences from medieval art (particularly the millefleurs style of 15th-century tapestries) which fits the film's 14th century medieval setting very nicely,
 * 3) Well-done character and story-development.
 * 4) Maleficent is a really entertaining antagonist and her dragon form is pure nightmare fuel. Eleanor Audley was spectacularly amazing as Maleficent.
 * 5) The fairies are likable and entertaining comic-reliefs. Verna Felton, Barbara Luddy, and Barbara Jo Allen were great as Flora, Merryweather, and Fauna.
 * 6) Very loyal to the source material with some of it’s own creative adjustments.
 * 7) Most of the songs are memorable, such as Once Upon A Dream.
 * 8) The ending is heartwarming.
 * 9) The idea of making a witch curse the newborn princess when she’s 16 years old is pretty original.
 * 10) With the exception of Taylor Holmes, the rest of the voice cast were great, including Mary Costa as Aurora and Bill Shirley as Prince Phillip.
 * 11) It's not afraid to show blood in a Disney movie for the very first time, which is notable during Maleficent's infamous death scene at the end.
 * 12) Excellent score adaptation from Tchaikovsky’s ballet of the same name by George Bruns.
 * 13) Despite his limited screen time and being a silent character, Sir Minstrel is a hilarious character in the “Skumps” scene.
 * 14) King Hubert is hilarious and an entertaining comic relief as Bill Thompson did a great job voicing him.
 * 15) The French pre-revolutionary anthem played when Phillip and Aurora reunite their family is majestic as beauty.
 * 16) The scene where Merryweather and Flora argue about the color of Aurora’s gown (pink or blue) in the cleaning scene and ending is hilarious and creative.
 * 17) Thanks to the Disney animators having finally mastered animating human characters (including realistic human males) by this film, Prince Phillip is given a larger role as Aurora's love interest in this film, unlike Snow White and Cinderella's respective princes.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Even though Aurora is the main character of the film and the film is called Sleeping Beauty (aka Aurora), she doesn’t get a fair amount of screen time. And to be fair, she is kind of a weak protagonist and has very little character, probably because the film seems to be more focused on everyone else (except Queen Leah); therefore she lacked any personality or character development, compared to the rest of Disney Princesses created before and after her, such as Merida from Brave, who is likable and good character development or personality, despite being an Pixar movie.
 * 2) Phillip is pretty much silent in the last third act. At least, Aurora has an excuse since she's asleep for most of that time.
 * 3) It’s 2014 remake, Maleficent, while a decent film, just waters-down what makes Maleficent so villainous and flanderizing some of the characters by making King Stefan an angry dictator with no character development or redeeming qualities and the Good Fairies as the female version of the Three Stooges.
 * 4) While most of the voice cast were great, Taylor Holmes gave an incredibly bland performance as King Stefan and is almost unenthusiastic in some scenes, though he was okay as the singing voice of Stefan. Not only that, Verna Felton, while still a great actress with many roles like Flora in this film, also gave a bland performance as Queen Leah by giving her no personality or character development.
 * 5) Some scenes can be too scary and intense for younger viewers, such as Aurora pricking her finger and Maleficent’s transformation as a dragon, while being a cool scene.
 * 6)  Slight troubled production: This film may not be as problematic as some of their other productions, but suffered from quite a few conflicts of egos behind the scenes, mostly stemming from lead background designer Eyvind Earle inserting himself into more and more aspects of production with Walt Disney's encouragement, in an attempt to produce a more stylized and modern-looking Disney animated feature. As for the voice cast in regards to the role of King Stefan, they replaced Hans Conried (the voice of Captain Hook in Peter Pan who was working on this film when he was responsible for performing live action reference as King Stefan for animators to capture his expressions and movements for the character) with Taylor Holmes for no apparent reason, making it unknown who voiced the announcing head servant called Lord Duke. This caused the budget to balloon massively. Despite being second only to Ben-Hur at the 1959 box office, it received mixed reviews from the critics and became the worst financial failure of any of the studio's animated canon until The Black Cauldron nearly a quarter-century later, resulting in the animation department being heavily downsized afterwards until The Great Mouse Detective help saved the studio. It wasn't until after Walt's death that the film was Vindicated by History and Disney would resume making fairy tale films with The Little Mermaid, which kicked off its Renaissance period.

Reception
Sleeping Beauty used to have mixed reviews, but in the recent years, the movie was well-received. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film received a 90% approval rating with an average rating of 8.2/10 based on 40 reviews. Its consensus states that "This Disney dreamscape contains moments of grandeur, with its lush colors, magical air, one of the most menacing villains in the Disney canon.".

Trivia

 * It was the first Disney animated feature-length film to used the 2.55:1 aspect ratio, though it was shown in theaters in the 2.20:1 aspect ratio. Though earlier home video releases of the film present the film in either the cropped pan-and-scan version on VHS releases or in the cases of the 1997 laserdisc and 2003 Special Edition DVD, in its 2.20:1 aspect ratio, the film is presented in its full 2.55:1 aspect ratio for the very first time on the 2008 Platinum Edition DVD/Blu-Ray release.
 * Hans Conried, the voice of Captain Hook in Peter Pan, originally recorded some dialogues as Stefan, but his voice as Stefan was not used in the finished film as he was replaced by Taylor Holmes for the voice role, which probably makes it unclear who voiced Lord Duke.
 * The demo songs from the Legacy Soundtrack Collection were cut from the film before it made its debut in theaters.