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| - Entry #16 of the Disney Animated Canon, Disney made the Fairy Tale Sleeping Beauty into a movie in 1959, based loosely on the Brothers Grimm's story, Briar Rose. The title comes from Perrault's La Belle aux bois dormant (The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood). By a bit of contortion, they manage to come up with a reason for calling the heroine both Aurora and Briar Rose (the French and German versions of her name rendered into English). Having already adapted two similar Fairy Tales, the biggest challenge story-wise was how to make the plot different without recycling too many elements. Walt wanted the story to be more streamlined, focusing on the central plot about the two lovers without the numerous side plots involving minor characters like dwarves or mice. Technically, the final film is rather streamlined with one major plot... because the animators had so much fun fleshing out the Three Good Fairies that the film completely unintentionally became a Perspective Flip about the efforts of three heroines to rescue the sleeping beauty and her prince from an evil witch. And if Walt's original plan had been followed, the fairies would have been Single Minded Triplets with no distinctive personalities. Also one of the movies to feature in the Kingdom Hearts series, where Maleficent takes the role of the leader of the Disney Villains and serves as a primary antagonist in the first game. (Oh, and Aurora appears as one of the Princesses of Heart.) While she never quite achieves that level of prominence again, she continues to play a supporting role in the series, while the faeries appear as a One-Scene Wonder in Kingdom Hearts II. The prequel Birth By Sleep introduces an entire world themed after the movie.
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