There are three other tales that Disney’s version is being compared to, a manuscript version, and a sixth edition from the Grimm brothers, and one by Charles Perrault. In the Grimm brothers’ versions there are only twelve out of thirteen fairies from a kingdom which are invited to the christening of the princess, so the thirteenth fairy shows up disgruntled and puts a curse on the baby that she will die at age 15 by pricking herself on a spindle, though the other fairies change the curse to only one hundred years. The king

orders all spindle to be destroyed. In both of the Grimms’ tales the entire kingdom sleeps for one hundred years, and is surrounded by thorns and brambles which are the graves for many brave princes, whom attempted to save the princess, but failed and died there. Then when the time is up, a prince comes to the castle, and in the manuscript version of the Grimms’ tale, the thorns part, while in the sixth edition, the thorns and brambles turn into pretty flowers. This is very similar to Perrault’s version, with the exception that Perrault keeps the King and Queen awake while the rest of the kingdom sleeps, and has an extended ending. The prince doesn’t tell his family about meeting the princess and awakening her, but keeps it a secret for two years, even though he has two kids with her, until his father dies. When his father dies, the prince becomes king and tells about his wife and kids, but his ogre mother doesn’t like that, so she tries to cook and eat the kids and wife while the he is off at war, but returns early. His mother is frightened and ends up committing suicide. Not quite fit for children.

To make this a much happier and romantic story, Disney makes sure that the Prince and Princess are in love with each other before they get married or kiss, by making them meet in the forest and harmlessly dance away, while singing quite a catchy little number (“I walked with you, once upon a dream…”). This instills the idea that true love does exist regardless of what social class or fiscal status, since the Prince wanted to marry a peasant rather than a princess, and Aurora wanted to marry someone of unknown status rather than a prince. Of course, this eliminates the idea of the one hundred-year curse of sleep put on by the evil one, which makes sense, because nobody wants to see a man with a broken hip and false teeth kissing a beautiful girl, who doesn’t age a bit. If Disney did make the curse for a hundred years, like in all the original versions, then it would have been depressing that nobody would know Aurora when she woke up, and all her family and friends would have been dead unless he also had the fairies put the whole kingdom to sleep, like in Perrault’s and Grimms’ versions. The movie has the fairies come to the rescue and put the whole town to sleep just in case the Sleeping Beauty doesn’t wake up soon. Luckily for us, it only lasts but a few minutes.

Walt Disney had many conservative and family morals. All of Disney’s early films were based around fairy tales, and therefore had morals at the end, and were appropriate for children. However, Disney died in 1966, from complications of a lung tumor. Some of the Disney company’s later films were less moral, since they were not under the supervision of Walt Disney himself, such as the Little Mermaid, which shows a half-naked female mermaid throughout the film, and the Nightmare Before Christmas, which is about evil and the destruction of Christm

Some topics in this essay:
Sleeping Beauty, Prince Princess, Perrault Grimm, Maleficent Disney, Sleeping Beauty”, Walt Disney’s, King Queen, Bambi Banks, Maleficent Establishing, Prince Phillip, sleeping beauty, fairy tales, appropriate children, disney makes, manuscript version, disney makes prince, version tale, comic relief, kingdom sleeps, father dies, walt disney, similar perrault’s version,