maleficent

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RosslynV

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Loved it. Nice twist at the end. Some critics point to the lack of character development and a disjointed plot. That may be the case, but it’s a fairy tale after all and the focus of the story was on maleficent (jolie).
 
See, that’s funny. For me, the twist at the end made me go from being mildly disappointed in the movie, but still liking some parts, to downright hating the movie. It was bad enough that they made Maleficent not really evil, just hurt and trying to protect her people from the evil humans. (and who could blame her) But then they go and do that?

If it was just a movie about a horned fairy who got betrayed, and then learned to love and forgive by the love of an innocent child, I might have liked it. Actually, I would have liked it. On the surface that’s a good plot.

But it was supposed to be the Sleeping Beauty story, which it ain’t in the least. And specifically, it was supposed to be about Maleficent, THE Maleficent, one of the most iconic Disney villains. She’s pure evil, and she doesn’t have any reasons for being evil, she just likes the power. She’s like the devil. That’s why she’s such a good villain. Making her into a hero is just plain wrong. That’s like making the Wicked Witch of the West good. (Oh wait…)

I’m tired of all these complicated villain stories. Why aren’t there real heroes and villains anymore? Villains aren’t really bad, they just got hurt and are lashing out. And of course, there can never be a really true hero, who doesn’t have some selfish motive.

Yeah, real life isn’t usually that black and white, but there is such as real good and real evil, and the whole point of fairy tales is to teach kids that and to learn that evil can be beat. We’re afraid to tell kids that now. Why?

Anyways, sorry for the rant. :o I’m glad at least you liked it. I just really didn’t enjoy watching a story I grew up with get ruined like this.
 
Also, the fact that this:



never happened in the movie, made me mad. How can you make a Maleficent movie and not have this scene?! How? :banghead: If you could just get one thing right, please, get this part right people.

Ok, I promise I’m done ranting now. 😉
 
Robyn_p said:
Also, the fact that this:

never happened in the movie, made me mad. How can you make a Maleficent movie and not have this scene?! How? :banghead: If you could just get one thing right, please, get this part right people.

Ok, I promise I’m done ranting now. 😉
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I didn’t watch the new movie, but if I remember how that scene turns out, she wouldn’t be doing much learning, “to love and forgive by the love of an innocent child” afterword.
 
Robyn_p said:
Yeah, real life isn’t usually that black and white, but there is such as real good and real evil, and the whole point of fairy tales is to teach kids that and to learn that evil can be beat. We’re afraid to tell kids that now. Why?.
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There is real good and evil, we had an example of that in our town yesterday:
komonews.com/news/local/Donations-pour-in-for-Seattle-campus-shooting-hero-262250211.html
Judging by the outpouring of gratitude to the quick-thinking young man, people still appreciate good versus evil. He appears to be someone who learned the lessons of the stories well.
 
I can only agree. There needs to be a clear delineation between good and evil. People are killing their entire families and there is always some do gooder who blames the system and paints abuse as a child etc and people are released only to kill or rape a few days later.

I will not see the film for many of the aesthetic reasons mentioned, but we are now in a society that is killing those we should be loving at a level similar to the Nazi era, and we must educate our youth to discern real evil, not as part of some social blancmange mixture where everything is bland and acceptable, or worse excusable as a product of someyhing else. Remember Frankenstein?
 
Petaro said:
I can only agree. There needs to be a clear delineation between good and evil. People are killing their entire families and there is always some do gooder who blames the system and paints abuse as a child etc and people are released only to kill or rape a few days later.

I will not see the film for many of the aesthetic reasons mentioned, but we are now in a society that is killing those we should be loving at a level similar to the Nazi era, and we must educate our youth to discern real evil, not as part of some social blancmange mixture where everything is bland and acceptable, or worse excusable as a product of someyhing else. Remember Frankenstein?
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Deathtolls:
Legal abortions in America:55M
Mao:40M if you count deaths he caused by mass starvation 10M otherwise
Hitler:34M if you count all the deaths he caused by starting WWII 15M otherwise
Stalin: Harder to pin down, but as few as 20M to possibly as high as 50M

The Nazi’s don’t have anything on us, and even Stalin and Mao at their worst would still be playing catchup.
 
Robyn_p said:
See, that’s funny. For me, the twist at the end made me go from being mildly disappointed in the movie, but still liking some parts, to downright hating the movie. It was bad enough that they made Maleficent not really evil, just hurt and trying to protect her people from the evil humans. (and who could blame her) But then they go and do that?

If it was just a movie about a horned fairy who got betrayed, and then learned to love and forgive by the love of an innocent child, I might have liked it. Actually, I would have liked it. On the surface that’s a good plot.

But it was supposed to be the Sleeping Beauty story, which it ain’t in the least. And specifically, it was supposed to be about Maleficent, THE Maleficent, one of the most iconic Disney villains. She’s pure evil, and she doesn’t have any reasons for being evil, she just likes the power. She’s like the devil. That’s why she’s such a good villain. Making her into a hero is just plain wrong. That’s like making the Wicked Witch of the West good. (Oh wait…)

I think that you went into the movie with preconceived notions about how you wanted it to be similar to the original. Of course you were right to be disappointed – Maleficent took a completely different track. Aurora was just a small character in this movie. The tables were turned by making the King the villain and Maleficent first the victim who was bent on revenge then finally the hero who had a change of heart. This movie could teach kids that the spirit of revenge will always have negative consequences and that people can change. My take is that the story is a new fairytale, which doesn’t have to mirror the original.

I’m tired of all these complicated villain stories. Why aren’t there real heroes and villains anymore? Villains aren’t really bad, they just got hurt and are lashing out. And of course, there can never be a really true hero, who doesn’t have some selfish motive.

Yeah, real life isn’t usually that black and white, but there is such as real good and real evil, and the whole point of fairy tales is to teach kids that and to learn that evil can be beat. We’re afraid to tell kids that now. Why?

Anyways, sorry for the rant. :o I’m glad at least you liked it. I just really didn’t enjoy watching a story I grew up with get ruined like this.
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I actually like the movie. One of the most compelling story-telling is the fall from grace. I like to see how villains our created because I truly believe that evil isn’t born, it is made. Malefiicent turns to evil because of the betrayal. Also, compelling is the fall of the king. He starts off as an innocent child and friend of her. Than the amibtion of the world and his own desires (tempations of the flesh and world) corrupt him into what he becomes at the end of the movie.

Also, I really like the redemptive quality of the story (I am a sucker for villians becoming heroes again).

I do agree, however, that if you were a fan of the original disney story, you would be dissappointed because this completely changes the storyline of the original since Auora is such a small part, but movies are always subjective and people have differentl likes/dislikes.

I also agree that in the world today there is an active campaign to ignore right and wrong and make everything grey, so I can understand why some strongly dislike this movie.
 
Seraphignatius said:
I didn’t watch the new movie, but if I remember how that scene turns out, she wouldn’t be doing much learning, “to love and forgive by the love of an innocent child” afterword.
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Exactly. 😉 I like seeing a prince slay an evil dragon. Not
get put to sleep, passively dragged by a witch who now regrets cursing a girl into a castle and dumped in front of her bedroom door and say, “wait? What am I doing here?” It’s just anticlimactic.

It just didn’t feel like it was really a movie about Maleficent, but another generic villain redemption story. Which is why I said if it was just a fairy tale movie about love and forgiveness, I would have liked it. But they tried to make it about Maleficent, and it just didn’t connect with me.
 
piratesfan9013 said:
I actually like the movie. One of the most compelling story-telling is the fall from grace. I like to see how villains our created because I truly believe that evil isn’t born, it is made. Malefiicent turns to evil because of the betrayal. Also, compelling is the fall of the king. He starts off as an innocent child and friend of her. Than the amibtion of the world and his own desires (tempations of the flesh and world) corrupt him into what he becomes at the end of the movie.
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You know, 99% of the time I’m right there with you. I love redemption stories, they’re inspiring and compelling, like you said. They are my favorite story line as well.

But I didn’t like it with Maleficent. It’s just not her story. To me, that’s like making Sauron or Voldemort or Emperor Palpatine turn into good guys. :nope:

And actually, I would have been fine seeing Maleficent fall from grace. That’s really why I went to see the movie. But she never really did. She had one scene where she became sort of evil, and then she regrets it. And really, what the king did was so horrible to her, I couldn’t blame her. I almost wish, if they HAD to make her repent, that her fall into villainy was a little more poignant, a little less about getting betrayed by a man and more about being lured by the glamour of evil, but then she sees it’s emptiness. Even that story I would have been ok with.

It still wouldn’t have seemed right, and I probably still would have disliked it, but at least she would have had the chance to really be the Maleficent we all know.

Ahh oh well though. 🤷 My family says I’m too hard on movies, so maybe I’m just overthinking it. :o
 
i saw it the other day with a couple friends

has anyone else seen it? what did you think?

i know certain people have problems with it because they think that it’s satan’s plan to make traditionally evil people seem good. but that’s not what i thought. there was the part where she said she was lost and consumed with thoughts of revenge and she apologized and tried to undo the curse and make things better. what’s so wrong with repentence? the main thing i got from it was that even those that we think are the worst can be redeemed.

what about you?
 
angell1 said:
i saw it the other day with a couple friends

has anyone else seen it? what did you think?

i know certain people have problems with it because they think that it’s satan’s plan to make traditionally evil people seem good. but that’s not what i thought. there was the part where she said she was lost and consumed with thoughts of revenge and she apologized and tried to undo the curse and make things better. what’s so wrong with repentence? the main thing i got from it was that even those that we think are the worst can be redeemed.

what about you?
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My husband and I saw it not too long ago and both enjoyed it. I agree with you…it has a positive, Christian message about redemption. It reflects the Christian view (and espoused by St Augustine) that evil is not a force in of itself but rather is a corruption of something that God originally intended to be good. I also liked how it showed the power of maternal love.

I was never a fan of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale so I thought this “Maleficent” movie was an interesting alternate version of it.

That’s my take on it anyway. 🙂
 
I agree. My favorite part was the underlying theme that even the worst people have good in their hearts. When you watch Sleeping Beauty, you assume that Maleficent is vile and corrupted in every way and you cheer her death at the end. But the way how in the movie, it showed things like her interacting with Aurora and even coming to love her, realizing her mistakes and finding the goodness that was still there even though she locked it away…it was a very good message and certainly a Christian one.

The only thing I noticed was odd was how they had a Christening for the child although clearly the Christian religion was not around 😉
 
I also enjoyed the movie.

The name of the fairy, Maleficent, however, still gives me pause. Disney used that name in the original Sleeping Beauty story because maleficent means “malicious, causing evil or harm.”

I would have preferred to learn that she really had another name, a loving name, and only picked up the name Maleficent from the evil humans who wanted to defeat her.
 
Nan_S said:
I also enjoyed the movie.

The name of the fairy, Maleficent, however, still gives me pause. Disney used that name in the original Sleeping Beauty story because maleficent means “malicious, causing evil or harm.”

I would have preferred to learn that she really had another name, a loving name, and only picked up the name Maleficent from the evil humans who wanted to defeat her.
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i guess disney didn’t want to get bogged down with changing names around or something.

but i guess it shows that despite what your name is, it doens’t really give you a bad personality
 
Nan_S said:
I would have preferred to learn that she really had another name, a loving name, and only picked up the name Maleficent from the evil humans who wanted to defeat her.
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Because she’s Maleficent, the character (name included) had a following long before Jolie was cast in the (may I add, very successful 👍) role. She’s an established ‘sub-brand’ under the Disney Villains moniker. It’s like McDonald’s never ridding itself of the golden arches logo whenever it tries to shift from bad corporate image.
 
Sleeping Beauty was the only animated movie I can really say I ever loved. The animation was wonderfull and done to a scale unmatched at the time bomb or not when it came out I loved it. Especially the dragons at the end. I didn’t see Maleficent because I don’t want to ruin that experience. I’ve never seen Wicked either though. The poor little villian stories go against the grain for me.
 
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