4 Reasons Why Maleficent is the Greatest Disney Live-Action Remake of All Time

Disney has been a major part of my life ever since I was born, and in recent years, the beloved animated films produced by the studio have been turned into live-action remakes. While many people I have talked to find these remakes unnecessary, one of them stands out among the others as the greatest live-action remake of them all (no Snow White reference intended). That film is Maleficent (2014), the first of the modern wave of Disney Live-Action Remakes. In it, Angelina Jolie stars as the eponymous Disney villain, who is portrayed in this adaptation as an anti-hero who evolves into a mother figure to Aurora, ultimately coming to atone for the curse she inflicted on the princess in her infancy. Here are 4 Reasons Why Maleficent is the Greatest Disney Live-Action Remake of All Time.

It's Technically Not a Remake

When Maleficent came out in 2014, no one could have predicted the barrage of live-action remakes Disney would produce over the following years. Some of those remakes are carbon copies of the original animated classic, while others take the characters and story in a different direction. Maleficent, however, is technically not a remake; it is a spin-off that expands upon the 1959 Disney Princess film Sleeping Beauty by telling the story we know from the perspective of its iconic antagonist. Rather than being a shot-for-shot remake of the animated original, it tells a whole new story using the characters we have known and loved for over half a century. Sure, the set-up remains the same as the animated original, but this adaptation makes it clear from the start that this is not your parents' Sleeping Beauty. To elaborate, Maleficent is a dark fantasy film in which the title character rules over the Moors, a woodland realm of fairies and other magical creatures and fights to protect her kingdom from human invaders. The original Maleficent, on the other hand, is an archetypal evil sorceress who lives in a dark and terrifying castle and isn't exactly a mother to her minions. Additionally, 1959 Maleficent has a pet raven named Diablo, whereas 2014 Maleficent is aided by Diaval, a raven that she gave human form to save his life and agreed to serve her out of gratitude. As the film progresses, Maleficent and Diaval become parental figures to Aurora, and the ending hints at a romantic relationship between the two. In contrast to Maleficent and Diaval's adaptational heroism, Aurora's father, King Stefan, is portrayed in this adaptation as the main antagonist, with whom Maleficent has a dark past which sets the plot in motion (more on this later). In the animated film, Maleficent turns into a dragon to fight Prince Phillip at the climax, whereas in the live-action adaptation, she turns Diaval into a dragon to fight the paranoid and deranged Stefan. In Maleficent, the principal characters remain the same, while the characterization and plot are radically different from the Disney animated classic.

It Can Stand On Its Own

Following the success of the first film, Disney released a sequel in 2019 called Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and is now planning a third film. Mistress of Evil ended with Maleficent and Aurora going their separate ways, with the former going off to join her own kind and the latter marrying Phillip. When the remake ends, a new franchise begins, and since the aforementioned Jolie is the only cast member confirmed to be reprising her role at this point, whatever Disney has in mind is going to be interesting. In the meantime, the second film revealed that Maleficent is a member of an endangered and powerful fairy race called the Dark Fey, who ultimately play a major role in taking down the film's main villain and Aurora's mother-in-law-to-be, Queen Ingrith. The Dark Fey will undoubtedly feature prominently in the upcoming third film, and if there's a good story to be told, I'm excited to see which direction Disney plans to take this infant, unconventional franchise. In the words of American singer Bebe Rexha, "You Can't Stop the Girl".

The Cast Fits Perfectly

In many animated films, the characters bear a strong resemblance to the actors who voice them. Maleficent did the reverse of this by casting its actors based on their resemblance to the original animated characters. In addition to Angelina Jolie (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) as Maleficent, the film also features Sharlto Copley (District 9) as King Stefan, Elle Fanning (My Neighbor Totoro) as Aurora, Sam Riley (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) as Diaval, and Imelda Staunton (Harry Potter), Juno Temple (Ted Lasso), and Lesley Manville (Another Year) as Knotgrass, Thistlewit, and Flittle, respectively, three bumbling pixies tasked with raising Aurora. All of these actors are perfect fits for their roles. Mistress of Evil brings in Chiwetel Ejiofor (Doctor Strange) and Ed Skrein (Deadpool) as Conall and Borra, respectively, two Dark Fey with differing views on humanity, and Michelle Pfeiffer (Hairspray) delivers a horrifyingly malevolent performance as the genocidal and power-hungry Queen Ingrith, who manipulates her kingdom into regarding Maleficent as a villain and wages a war of annihilation against the fairies. If I were Maleficent, I would have used the Death Star to kill Ingrith and bring an end to five years of Game of Thrones-level carnage and political machinations, although doing so would inevitably result in Earth being destroyed. After all, both the Maleficent franchise and the Death Star are owned by Disney, but the point is that Pfeiffer absolutely killed it in her villainous role. Out of all of Disney's live-action remakes, Maleficent is the probably the only one where the entire cast looks exactly like their animated counterparts.

It Gives the Villain a Backstory

Sleeping Beauty does not give Maleficent a legitimate backstory, but when the iconic villainess becomes the star of her own franchise, we are provided with an understandable reason for why Maleficent cursed Aurora as a baby. As a young girl, 2014 Maleficent met and fell in love with a human peasant boy named Stefan, who gave her what he called a true love's kiss on her 16th birthday. Also, when Maleficent and Stefan first meet, the latter is wearing an iron ring, and takes it off due to iron being the former's weakness. The fact that iron is fatal to Maleficent and the other fairies is weaponized by both Stefan and Ingrith in their respective conflicts with Maleficent, although Stefan genuinely cared about the fairies enough to trust Knotgrass, Thistlewit, and Flittle with hiding and protecting his daughter while Ingrith sought their extermination out of pure hatred. As they grew older, they grew apart, with Maleficent becoming protector of the Moors and Stefan aspiring to become king. One day, the Moors is attacked by a human army led by King Henry, and Maleficent mortally wounds the King, forcing him to retreat. On his deathbed, Henry declares that whoever kills Maleficent will succeed him as king and marry his daughter. In a scene that is highly allegorical of date rape, Stefan drugs Maleficent, but cannot bring himself to kill her, so he amputates her wings instead. He then presents Maleficent's wings to Henry as "proof" of her death, and is subsequently crowned king. When Maleficent wakes up, she is utterly distraught by Stefan's betrayal, and after learning the truth about what happened, her heart blackens and the Moors becomes dark and sinister. This deeply tragic backstory turns the roles of hero and villain on their heads, with Maleficent being depicted as a tragic heroine while Stefan is portrayed as a depraved villain. Disney's then-recent runaway box office hit Frozen (2013) and the hit Broadway production Wicked did the same thing, portraying iconic fairy tale villainesses as tragic heroines while the real villain is a male ruler who was depicted as a hero in the source material. All three productions make viewers feel sympathy for characters who are traditionally portrayed as villains, causing them to question the molds Disney has used for its characters since the beginning. In many Disney animated films, you can tell a lot about a character's personality based on their physical appearance, and the inversion of archetypes proves that one should not judge a character based on its design. Additionally, many of Disney's iconic villains are female, so the inclusion of a male monarchical villain also calls the studio's traditional gender roles into question. In the end, Maleficent gets her wings back, defeats Stefan, and returns the Moors to its former glory, providing the reformed Disney villainess with a sense of closure after all that happened to her.