Sleeping Beauty (Two-Disc Platinum Edition)

Meanwhile the evil Malificent may just be Disney's most chilling villainess. A beautiful princess born in a faraway kingdom is destined by a terrible curse to prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall into a deep sleep which can only be awakened by true love's first kiss. This classic makes wondrous use of Tchaikovsky's same-titled ballet score, which earned SLEEPING BEAUTY an Academy Award nomination for Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. Though the titular princess is on par with the rest of Disney's essential heroines, most of the fun arises from the trio of charming fairies entrusted with her care: Flora, Fauna, and Meriweather.

(Many earlier releases trimmed the wide-screen images and/or muted the glowing palatte.) The Bonus DVD looks good on a flat screen monitor, but it pales in comparison to the richness of the Blu-ray. See it in its original glory here. Instead of the 19th century storybook illustrations that had influenced the look of Snow White and Pinocchio, the artists adapted the flattened perspective and jewel-like colors of 15th century French illuminated manuscripts. (Rated G: violence) --Charles Solomon Stills from Sleeping Beauty (Click for larger image) --David Kronke

On the DVD Sleeping Beauty was the last and most lavish of Walt Disney's animated fairy tales. The evil Maleficent and the three Good Fairies (Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather) dominate the film, rather than Princess Aurora and Prince Philip. He told the artists not to hurry and to give him "a moving illustration": The film required almost four and one-half years and one million finished drawings. But the CG animation of the dragon and the voice imitations of the Good Fairies fail to capture the magic of the originals in the "Dragon Encounter"; the "Maleficent's Challenge Game"--a hi-tech Twenty Questions--sounds only vaguely like the redoubtable sorceress. Sleeping Beauty was originally released in 70mm, and the Blu-ray edition restores the film to its original splendor. However, Sleeping Beauty suffers from a weak story: the vision of an ageless princess slumbering in a vine-shrouded tower was replaced with elements of Snow White and a boy-meets-girl musical. This, of course, would deny her a happily-ever-after with her true love. And Malificent's castle, filled with warthogs and demonic imps in a macabre dance celebrating their evil ways, manages a certain creepy grandeur. 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. In addition to the commentaries and a making-of documentary, the set includes myriad extras that vary widely in quality. The results remain unmatched for sheer visual opulence. Things almost but not quite turn out that way, thanks to the assistance of some bubbly, bumbling fairies named Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather. 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. Nostalgia buffs will enjoy the recreation of the old Sleeping Beauty's Castle attraction in Disneyland, and the TV program "Four Artists Paint One Tree" provides a welcome showcase for key talents from the film. Disney's 1959 animated effort was the studio's most ambitious to date, a widescreen spectacle boasting a gorgeous waltz-filled score adapting Tchaikovsky.