What’s this? A narrator who sticks around beyond the first scene? How very interesting! Too bad he isn’t really needed at the moment. We see the king and queen watch from the castle balcony as the fairies take away their darling wittle baby girl while Mr. Narrator pretty much says just that. Maybe he’s being considerate to the blind in the audience…?
Anyway, it’s time to go back to the book for a second. Mr. Narrator tells us that the king and his people were all very unhappy for the years that Aurora was away. As the time for her to return grew nearer, though, they perked up. It’s still storming up in the Forbidden Mountains, where Maleficent’s lair is. That means Maleficent is frustrated, and if Maleficent is frustrated, then the prophecy hasn’t been fulfilled yet.
Inside Maleficent’s precariously positioned palace, she’s pacing back and forth while ranting at her army of armored animal minions. “It’s incredible!” she shouts. “Sixteen years and not a trace of her! She couldn’t have vanished into thin air! Have you searched everywhere?”
Of course, they say. The mountains, the forest, the houses and all the cradles!
"…Cradle?" Maleficent asks, looking as though she’s wishing she hadn’t heard that right. No such luck; her scouts have spent all sixteen years looking for a baby. At first she laughs rather hard, and the minions laugh along with her. Bad idea.
"FOOLS!" she suddenly screams. "IDIOTS! IMBECILES!” The minions scatter as she shoots purple lightning out of her staff and zaps them, sending them screaming off to hide. When they’re gone, she sinks down on her throne. "Oh, they’re hopeless. A disgrace to the forces of evil.” She beckons to her raven, and it flies onto her hand. “Circle far and wide,” she tells it. “Search for a maid of sixteen with hair of sunshine gold and lips red as the rose. Go, and do not fail me.”
As the raven flies away, we fade over to the forest. The camera moves through the trees to reveal a little cottage desperately in need of roof repair. This, Mr. Narrator says, is where the fairies have been hiding Aurora. Or Briar Rose, as she is now known.
We then get our first view of the grown-up Aurora, opening a window and singing to herself while cleaning it. Mr. Narrator lets us know that the fairies are planning a real party for her this year, along with a very special surprise.
Downstairs, the fairies are huddled around a book of dresses on the kitchen table. They’ve already picked out a rather flattering one and are discussing the changes they’ll need to make.
"We’ll make it blue!" Merryweather declares.
"Oh no, dear, pink," Flora answers, and the most epic clash of wills in all Disney canon begins.
While they’re discussing how to get Aurora out of the house, she comes into the kitchen and hears them. “Well, and what are you three dears up to?”
After some stuttering, they settle on sending her out to pick berries. She picked some yesterday, but they need more! More! “Now don’t hurry back, dear!” they add. “Don’t go too far, and don’t speak to strangers!”
Aurora smiles as she leaves, clearly aware that they’re up to something. “Goodbye!”
"I’ll get the wands!" Merryweather says once she’s gone.
"Oh, no!" Flora and Fauna tell her. "No magic!"
"But the sixteen years are almost over," she protests. "I never baked a fancy cake.”
She won’t have to. Fauna’s going to make the cake since she’s always wanted to, and Flora’s going to make the dress.
Merryweather finds this quite unsettling. “But you can’t sew, and she’s never cooked!”
"Oh, it’s simple," Fauna says. "All you do is follow the book." Unfortunately the book doesn’t go into quite enough detail for someone like Fauna. "Flour, three cups. Cups cups cups cups cups…" She soon manages to find three cups. They’re all different sizes, but that can’t matter, right?
Flora puts Merryweather on a stool and throws a length of cloth over her, because she’s going to be the dummy for the dress. “What’s that?” she asks and Flora cuts out a hole far too large for Aurora’s head.
"Well, it’s got to have a hole in the bottom! That’s for the feet to go through."
Merryweather would complain more about this if there weren’t more pressing matters, like how the fabric is PINK!
Meanwhile, the book tells Fauna to fold two eggs into the dough. She finds this a bit odd but does it, shells and all. Crack.
The dress is coming along well, though. At least, it would be if it was being made to fit Ursula. “It looks awful!” Merryweather remarks.
"That’s because it’s on you, dear. Oh gracious, how the child has grown."
This gets them all choked up. The sixteen years have flown by for them, and in a few hours, their Briar Rose will be gone forever. It’s a cute moment.
"Good gracious, we’re acting like a bunch of ninnies!" Flora says before they can get too carried away. "Come on, she’ll be back before we get started."
Elsewhere, Aurora is wandering through the forest. Not really singing so much as vocalizing, but…but…
I try not to swear in these blogs. But HOLY SHIT, these visuals are beautiful. I mean, wow. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen anything like this. I don’t know if it’s the colors or the details, but something about this artwork really strikes a chord with me. It’s just so well done, and this is back when everything had to be drawn out by hand. So that’s why it took eight years to make.
…I should probably get back to the story now.
So Aurora is wandering around vocalizing, which gets the attention of two birds. They decide that their fellow denizens of the forest must not be deprived of this auditory honey and wake up a chipmunk, who wakes up some rabbits, who wake up an owl. They all gather around Aurora and follow her across a log bridge. In the background, a horse and rider trot across the screen from the opposite direction. We’re not supposed to know yet, but this is Prince Philip, also all grown up.
Philip turns his head as he hears Aurora’s singing in the distance. “Hear that, Samson?” he asks his horse. “What is it? Come on, let’s find out.” When Samson won’t go, Philip bribes him with a bucket of oats and some carrots. Samson gallops off after the singing a little too enthusiastically. When he jumps over a log, he throws Philip off his back into a pond. "No carrots."
Meanwhile, Aurora is picking the berries and actually starts an actual song. "I wonder, I wonder, why each little bird has a someone to sing to…" Maybe if she hopes long and hard enough, a someone will find her and sing her a love song too. While it conveys the same idea as the songs Snow White and Cinderella sang, I think that “I Wonder” is a little more innocent and wistful than them. I also like how the idea of Aurora’s wish being granted is a happy possibility here rather than a definite thing.
As the song ends, Aurora wanders up to the edge of a cliff overlooking the kingdom and sighs as she gazes at the castle. “Oh dear,” she says to herself as she leaves, “why do they still treat me like a child?”
The owl flies after her. “Who?” Oww, my pun gland…
"Aunt Flora and Fauna and Merryweather," Aurora says as she sits by a pond with her friends. "They never want me to meet anyone. But you know something? I fooled ‘em. I have met someone!"
"Who? Who? Who?"
"Oh, a prince," she says as though this is perfectly normal. "Well, he’s tall and handsome and…and so romantic. Oh, we walked together and talked together, and just before we say goodbye, he takes me in his arms, and then…" Her smile fades. "I wake up. Yes, it’s only in my dreams. But they say if you dream a thing more than once, it’s sure to come true. And I’ve seen him so many times!"
The chipmunk sees a hat, cloak and boots on a nearby tree and points them out to the other animals, and they all go to retrieve them. The owl puts on the hat and cloak while the birds lift up the edges of the latter, and the rabbits crawl into the boots. Together they form a rather fine makeshift prince and go back to show Aurora. The clothes belong to Philip, of course, and he gives chase when he sees them literally walking off.
Aurora laughs when she sees her friends’ handiwork. “Why, it’s my dream prince!” Getting up, she curtsies to them. “Your highness! I’m not really supposed to talk to strangers. But we’ve met before…”
My famous musical number senses! They’re tingling again! INCOMING!
