Maleficent

Hello all, how was your weekend?  I got a ton of reading done YIPEE, so be ready for a deluge of convoluted ramblings in the near future.  As much as I love reading, my sweet Hubbin was in need of a hot dog so of to the movies we went (the movies is the only place he eats hot dogs...).  Since I am spoiled my wonderful and amazing Hubbin took me to see Maleficent, which is supposed to be the back story to the evil faery in Disney's version of Sleeping Beauty.  I was both excited and dreading seeing this movie.  I was excited because Maleficent is by far my favorite Disney villain, followed by Ursula the Sea Witch, and Captain Hook (I am a fan of Disney films and I am not afraid to show it).  I have always loved the story of Sleeping Beauty, more for it's brutal villain's then for its passive princess and the Disney version of Maleficent was everything I wanted, she was strong, beautiful, powerful, even a bit sexy, and completely unapologetic for being as she puts it "the Mistress of Evil".  I was dreading this movie because in the new tradition of humanizing our villains I was afraid they would lose everything I loved about my Maleficent.
WARNING SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE AHEAD! 

Unfortunately I was right for the most part.  They took a powerful and strong female bad ass villain and made her a good guy who just had a bad moment or two.  Seriously I would say that you only get the feeling that Maleficent is any sort of villain for about five minutes of the entire movie.  Her history is not near as extensive as I would like to see, both beginning and ending with the would be King Stefan (Aurora/Sleeping Beauty's dad) and the reasoning behind a lot of what is done is flimsy at best.  She spends the first third of the movie as a good faery, the protector of her realm, which is actually pretty awesome visually.  She meets Stefan, a human whom with she falls in love with, but is heartbroken when he, you know does the whole human greed/ambition thing.  It is very obvious in this movie that humans are bad, destructive and greedy, while every thing else is magic and awesome and the petty humans must destroy it 'cause you know that's what humans do.  Stefan comes back to lull his old friend Maleficent to sleep to kill her so he can be king.

Of course his childhood feelings prevent murder so he just cuts off her wings instead.  He becomes king and she becomes pissed, with a penchant for black pleather.  One of the few cool things she does is create a servant out of a crow that is pretty awesome (I want a crow dude).  Using this crow dude she spies on the king until she learns he has a daughter.  Maleficent in a fit of revenge and pissed offness go swooping into the castle casting a completely watered down curse about sleeping until true loves kiss.  Yep she didn't even give the bumbling "good" faeries a chance to lessen the curse from death to sleep, she just did it herself.  The three colorful faeries take the kid into the woods (which I never understood...why not just take her away for the year between 15&16, how does raising her away from the castle protect her at all?!? Also that never actually happens in the original tales...but then those are not fit for children are they?) and make the most hilarious attempt to raise this squalling infant.  Seriously the best part of the movie is the three "good" faeries, their bumbling attempts to raise a human, and the funny, yet oddly harmless for the Mistress of Evil" tricks Maleficent plays on them.  Maleficent ends up completely enchanted by Aurora, and tries to remove the curse to no avail (note to self, don't cast unbreakable curses unless you really mean them) but offers to let Aurora live with her in the faery side of the giant thorn bush.  Aurora meets a boy, but there is no singing so I'm not sure if it was true love.  Aurora rides to the castle where she finally meets her father, only to find him a bitter, obsessive freak, bent on the destruction of Maleficent.  Aurora pricks her finger, Maleficent brings her the prince she met, but alas no true love there.  Maleficent is sad and kisses Aurora goodbye...which is of course true love and the princess awakens.  King Stefan is still hell bent on killing Maleficent, even after he see's his daughter alive and well, and of course conveniently forgetting the whole reason they are in this mess is 'cause he cut her wings off!!!!!!  Aurora finds the wings, Maleficent is healed, the crow turns into a really cool giant crow/dragon thing (I WANT ONE SO BAD), and the bad evil king is defeated and killed.  Aurora moves in with Maleficent and they all live happily ever after?!?

Yeah, so in case you didn't pick up on it, not my kind of movie.  It was visually stunning, but the gentling of one of the best villains out there just made me sad.  I like my villains to have a back story, very few beings (even fictional ones) are born evil, and knowing their journey usually adds a great dimension.  This however...I don't know...it seemed like they were trying to change history a bit, like in Star Wars when they change it so Greedo shoots first, Maleficent is supposed to be a glorious, bad ass villain, not a sweet earth mother with horns and a bad taste in pleather (though I totally want a giant pair of horns to go with my wings

 now).  The lack of any true badness in Maleficent made it very hard to associate her with the Mistress of Evil in the original movie...she didn't ever really take it out on her subjects.  In fact the only really bad thing she did was the watered down curse...which she tried to lift.  King Stefan on the other hand got a really bad take, in almost every story he at worst harmless and at best a loving and doting father.  I understand that it is popular to villainize the privileged white male, but this was just not the way to do it.  The reasons for his actions were again flimsy at best, and unexplained most of the time and made any reason for his hatred moot.  Over all I loved some of the visuals, want to watch a spin off with the three faeries, need a crow dude of my own,still love dragons, and want to completely rewrite this movie to give it its teeth back.  Instead I will go pick up one of my numerous, fantastic adaptions of the story and remember why I love the story in the first place.  Enchntment, Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep and Spindles End along with rewatching the original movie with all of the Mistress of Evil awesomeness (and maybe a quick rewatch of Enchanted with the fabulous Susan Sarandon showing the world how a villain should be done) will restore my faith in this twisted fairy tale.
What did you think of the movie?  Is it alright for villains to be bad, or are they better with a redeeming factor? What is your favorite villain?  Is it bad that at age 8 I was already preferring the Mistress of Evil to the princess?