Product Description

Awaken your senses to the majesty of SLEEPING BEAUTY, Walt Disney's classic fairy tale. See more than you've ever seen before through the magic of state-of-the-art technology, and experience this groundbreaking film restored beyond its original brilliance, in the way Walt envisioned it pristine, beautiful, utterly breathtaking. SLEEPING BEAUTY will transform your home into a fantastic world your family will want to experience again and again.

In the original story, Princess Aurora sleeps for 100 years before being awakened by a prince's kiss. In the Disney version, Prince Philip comes to her rescue much sooner.
George Brun's orchestral score, which was nominated for an Academy Award, expertly blended famous themes from Tchaikovsky's ballet.
With a budget that exceeded $6 million in 1959, this was Walt Disney's most lavish and expensive animated feature to date.
Determined to make the characters as realistic as possible, Disney had a live action film shot with actors posing as Sleeping Beauty, the Prince, and Maleficent, for the animators to use.
New York Times critic Bosley Crowther called the fight between Prince Philip and Maleficent the noisiest and scariest go-round he (Disney) has ever put into one of his films.
All-New Digital Restoration With Enhanced Picture And Sound
All-New 5.1 Disney Enhanced Home Theater Surround Sound
All-New Once Upon A Dream Music Video, Performed By HANNAH MONTANA'S Emily Osment
Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough A Fully Immersive Virtual Tour
All-New Enhanced Dance Game With Help From Briar Rose's Forest Friends, You Can Learn How To Dance
Never-Before-Seen Alternate Opening
Deleted Songs
All-New Making Of SLEEPING BEAUTY Featurette
And Much, Much More

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #295 in DVD
• Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
• Released on: 2008-10-07
• Rating: G (General Audience)
• Aspect ratio: 2.55:1
• Formats: AC-3, Animated, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Restored, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 75 minutes

Features

• Awaken your senses to the majesty of SLEEPING BEAUTY, Walt Disney'sic fairy tale. See more than you've ever seen before through the magic of state-of-the-art technology, and experience this groundbreaking film restored beyond its original brilliance, in the way Walt envisioned it -- pristine, beautiful, utterly breathtaking. SLEEPING BEAUTY will transform your home into a fantastic world y

Amazon.com
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

On the DVD
Sleeping Beauty was the last and most lavish of Walt Disney's animated fairy tales. 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. 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. The results remain unmatched for sheer visual opulence. 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. The evil Maleficent and the three Good Fairies (Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather) dominate the film, rather than Princess Aurora and Prince Philip. Sleeping Beauty was originally released in 70mm, and the Blu-ray edition restores the film to its original splendor. (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. In addition to the commentaries and a making-of documentary, the set includes myriad extras that vary widely in quality. 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. 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. (Rated G: violence) --Charles Solomon




Stills from Sleeping Beauty (Click for larger image)

Customer Reviews

Still Looks Great
I vividly remember the release of Sleeping Beauty. I was old enough to go see it myself - just barely. There I was sitting way up front eating my popcorn and all of a sudden this spectacular dragon materialized right before my eyes. Popcorn forgotten, I was hooked. Cartoons never looked the same to me, and I spent the rest of my life inhaling fantasy and science fiction on a quest for the same thrill.

Animation has changed quite a bit in the ensuing years, but even today Sleeping Beauty is a towering achievement. Now I'm more sensitive to the tricks of the art and can see the masterful use of perspective that made the scenes leap out at you. When I first picked up this DVD I half expected to be disappointed, to find it really wasn't so glorious in retrospect. This is hardly the case - this film is just as vibrant and alive as it was in 1959.

The added dimension now is that I can see how Disney's work was a formative influence on animation even today. Artist/Directors like Miyazaki owe much to this film and its predecessor Snow White. And they freely admit it. As a production, Sleeping Beauty created a sense of legitimacy for animation that proved that high quality animation was something well beyond the Saturday morning funnies.

Disney took a great risk when creating this film, pouring a tremendous amount of resources in making it something as perfect as was possible for his time. While the studio reaped the financial benefits, the audience was the real winner, as a whole genre exploded before our eyes. Even now, with anime rapidly becoming a force to be reckoned with, this film stands out for story, art, and music.

The additional features, especially those that retell the making of the film, are excellent as well. All captures in fine detail on this DVD. This is a must see for anyone who still loves a fairy tale.

Superb Edition of a Disney Classic
Disney took a while, but they have finally embraced the DVD format. As with everything else, when they do it, they do it right and big!

When Disney first stuck their foot in the DVD waters they did it slowly, offering movies without major extras and at a price well above their competition. With a stable of classics in their coffers I wrote some scathing reviews and comments on various web sites. Disney finally got it through their heads that DVD has broken through to become the standard format for the new millenium.

Several other Disney Disks have gotten this deluxe treatment. Their collaborations with Pixar; Toy Story One and Two, A Bugs Life, Monsters Inc were among the first. Tarzan, Atlantis, Beauty and the Beast as well as Dumbo and a variety of lesser films have editions chock full of extras as well. It was fitting that Snow White was released as a Double Disk set last year and they have followed that up with one of my faves, Sleeping Beauty.

The film has been remastered all around. Crisp new sound and picture wrapped up with a bevy of extras that will make any cinemafile drool. Along with the standard documentaries and commentaries this edition has something I wish had been packaged with every disk released to date; A widescreen to pan and scan comparison. Finally I can show my friends and family why widescreen is preferable to 'full screen'. (You reading this Blockbuster video??)

Getting off the soapbox now...

I pre-ordered mine. Make sure you don't let this one slip away for another generation.

Should be part of any child's DVD collection
In 1959, the New York Times called Sleeping Beauty "a crisply stylized fairyland where the colors are rich [and] the sounds are luscious." In his book The Disney Films, critic Leonard Maltin writes that Sleeping Beauty is "a very good film, but more so for older audiences than for young children." The Gospel According to Disney says the movie illustrates "an eternal promise of resurrection," while From Walt to Woodstock claims it is a "therapeutic experience" that celebrates "a male-female relationship based on true equality."

As for me, I'd say that regardless of what you read into it, Sleeping Beauty is a must-own. A true Disney classic, the movie has such stunning visuals and such a strong villain that it makes up for its one major flaw: the lack of a good lead character.

The art, for example, is astounding. Full of bright 1950s color, each background is a graphic collage of rectangles and straight lines that is filled to the edges with meticulously sharp detail. On each tree you see every leaf; on each shrub you see every thorn. It's a look that set the stage for other Disney movies to come, such as Pocahontas, Mulan and Hercules.

As a whole, the characters are terrific. Kids will love the fairies. On-screen longer than anyone else, Flora, Fauna and Merryweather fly like bumblebees, ooze oodles of personality and are truly funny. They lose their temper and make many mistakes, especially in their attempts to bake a birthday cake and sew a dress.

The villain is perhaps the scariest in any Disney film. "The mistress of all evil," devil-horned, green-skinned Maleficent is a sarcastic, high-class horror show all by herself. She curses baby Aurora to death, imprisons a prince so that he can't save the grown girl, and eventually turns herself into a towering dragon that breathes green fire.

The movie's only weakness is the princess herself. Aurora -- dare I say it? -- is quite a snooze. Unlike the leads in Cinderella or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, this 16-year-old is a plain, passive Barbie doll who sings like an opera star. Unlike Cinderella or Snow White, she has no history of being mistreated. She's likable enough, but tough to relate to.

Still, that's the opinion of an adult, not a child. I give Sleeping Beauty five stars because of the art, because young kids -- especially girls -- will love it, because parents will also be entertained, and because its wholesome message that love conquers hate has rarely been presented better. A product of its time, the film is not perfect but still tough to beat. If you have kids and are building a collection of DVDs for them, this should be on your list.