If there's anything I like more than movies - it's complaining about them.
Alright, I kid, but you'd never know if from talking to me.
Honestly, it's just the opposite: the one thing that really kills me with some bad movies is complete waste of potential.
This is where Maleficent comes in...
So for anyone who knows me, you probably know how hyped I was when that film was first announced, and even more so when they started dropping trailers. It looked - for lack of better words - completely epic.
And don't get me wrong - I WANTED to like this movie - I tried really, REALLY hard to like this movie, but when all it can do is change the story around and make every character aside from it's lead incredibly unlikable (and let's be clear, Sleeping Beauty has some of the best side characters out of any early Disney film) and try and make a character known as the MISTRESS OF ALL EVIL, who's name is literally Maleficent - into a sympathetic, misunderstood whatever...
...it's lazy storytelling.
Here's how to fix it:
So the basis of the Maleficent movie was supposed to show her backstory. Cool, I can get behind that. Unfortunately it hits its first snag by trying to have us believe that she was this sweet, kind, gentle fairy girl.... who's name is Maleficent. Disney... what're you doing? You picked that name for her to show how evil she is!
So step one: give her a different name for earlier in her life. This also helps to see her as a different person before and after whatever happens to make her the Mistress of All Evil.
Which brings me to the next step, so to speak. How/Why does she become the Mistress of All Evil?
Content warning: rape/ sexual assault mention.
So in the movie, what makes Maleficent first go to the Dark Side is she befriends/ falls in love with a human (I did kind of like the backstory with her and King Stephan, I'll give it that) who drugs her and burns her wigs off with an iron chain. The actual fuck, sir.
Obviously, and Angelina Jolie herself has confirmed this - Yes - this is supposed to represent sexual assault, and that's where I start to have issues with this narrative. Stay with me here.
So listen, I take that kind of thing very seriously and I'm not trying to make light of a very real, very serious problem that many, many women have experienced, which is why I am getting really sick of the "woman is assaulted for the sake of character development" trope. It's been done to death and thus diminishes real traumas actual women (and men, for that matter) experience every day.
So, what can we possibly do to give some kind of character change to this once kind and gentle fairy woman?
This question can actually be answered by reading the "Curse of Maleficent" novel. ... which I swear I read just because the illustrations are amazing.
Don't judge me.
Anyway, the novel is told from literally every POV except it's title character's (like y'do) and one other fairy introduced explains that fay aren't supposed to use their magic for selfish reasons (buddy, you don't know real Fae then...)
Either way, that's signified by the change in the color of Maleficent's magic in the movie, supposedly (when she's "good" it's gold - when she's "evil" it's green.)
Keeping that in mind, I think a better narrative - that actually fits the character and what we know about her - is easy enough to put together.
We begin with a fairy woman - call her whatever you like, we know who she's going to become - who is devoted to her home and protecting her people from the invading nearby kingdom (if we want to keep that bit in there. The battle scene with that earth dragon was pretty damn cool) However, in doing this, she begins to enjoy how powerful her magic makes her feel, especially when she's using it against humans with no supernatural abilities of their own. She begins using her magic for herself and is corrupted by it. She starts hanging out with a raven, takes up residents in the nearby castle ruins and enslaves whatever those big things were and forces them to be her minions.
Before long, the once gentle/good fairy is now known by a new name and identity - and there you have Maleficent.
The rest of the story would follow the same path it did in Sleeping Beauty - with her being spiteful at not being invited to the princess's name day (which is actually a huge slap in the face, considering they're royalty and they've clearly chosen a side between faeries that don't like each other. That's a big No.)
She puts a curse on the princess - maybe show more of her hanging out in her castle being pissy about it and giving some reasons why - maybe she's got an old grudge with the kingdom from back during that cool battle scene from earlier. We don't know how long it's been - but I'm sure she can hold a grudge for a long ass time if she really wanted to.
Also - have Maleficent be the one to turn into a Goddamn dragon. Jesus.
I will admit the movie had a few things I liked - Diaval was a fun character (actual raven's name is Diablo, by the way) and the whole thing with Aurora being essentially babysat by Maleficant was interesting, but I don't think those elements should replace the already good characters and story of the original film.
Got a movie for me to fix? Let me know and I'll see what I can do.
Til next time, this has been your Captain
