A Maleficent Movie?

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Sleeping Beauty is my absolute favorite Disney princess. I don't know why, but her movie was my favorite when I was younger, and I still love the movie. So when I heard they were making a movie about Maleficent, I was a little disappointed--why focus on the bad guy? She's creepy, and has horns growing out of her head, which is weird. A live action Sleeping Beauty, I could get behind, but a live action Maleficent? Ew.

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And then Angelina Jolie was attached to the project, and I got a little more optimistic about it. I'm still not entirely sure about Maleficent, but Sleeping Beauty is a darker fairy tale anyways, and yes, I'm curious to see how Maleficent got those horns. Are they real? I'm really interested.

The first teaser trailer was haunting and pretty, and all other trailers released promise beautiful visuals, if nothing else. I'm not really sold on the tree-monster things (nice CGI and everything, but it seems a lot like Narnia to me), but, Angelina Jolie, man. She looks and sounds exactly like the cartoon character (hopefully she will take that as a compliment?) and that laugh is absolutely perfect.



Then when I heard Lana Del Rey's haunting rendition of "Once Upon A Dream", I was both horrified that they'd creepified one of my favorite Disney songs, and also very intrigued. Basically, the marketing ploy worked on me.

All this goes to say, I'm interested. And cautiously optimistic. I think looking at it as a remake of Sleeping Beauty is the wrong way, as the trailer makes it clear that although these are familiar characters, the story is very different from the tale I've grown up with. I'm excited to see what they've done with this classic.

Maleficent hits theaters May 30.