People who grew up with Disney and are older nowIckabod said:
I haven't seen it yet, but from the things I've read they wanted to end things on a fairly high note, so the idea is that the second act is needed to set up her attempts at redemption. The idea being that Maleficent is bad, but had reasons to be, and eventually gets perspective and tries to set things as right as she can. The interpretation I've been hearing is less that she's supposed to be charmed by Aurora, but the realization that she's hurting innocents which she see's through her.Jofe said:
Ooh, I like this idea. Turn the Lion King's Mufasa into a Hitler style figure and start the film with the racist Hyena genocide and expulsion. Scar is the horrified hero who tries to protect them because he understands the role of scavengers in the circle of life and does not believe, like the rest of the lions, that they are dirty creatures that undermine the natural order by their very existence.Uriel_Hayabusa said:
I could see Scar... but Gaston would be a little redundant as he's already a subversion of a heroic archetype to show the uncomfortably regressive and possessive machismo that can come with it, plus he's already an impressively nuanced antagonist, not quite a villain, but someone so enamoured with their own self-image of the hero that they'll do monstrous things out of ignorance and a sense of entitlement to the woman he sees as a prize.Uriel_Hayabusa said:
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Neither of those really sound that appealing, though. It works with Maleficent because she is literally just the Evil Queen, and has no expressed motivation. To justify her megalomaniacal swath of destruction would take something pretty interesting, but the other villains already have really transparent motives. The Lion King is just your average, run of the mill power struggle wherein brother kills brother to acquire the throne. Hans outright states his reasons for it (he's too far down the line of succession and marrying into another throne is the fastest way to get what he wants without having to go in and axe all of those who would take the throne before him by law and tradition), and the Duke of Weselton is just looking to upend the trading balance on its end in his favor instead of Arrendale's. Neither of those make for a particularly telling revamp. Gaston is a flat, two-note moron, invested only in how much people love him and in maintaining his vision of the world. Belle didn't love him at first sight like every other man, woman, child, cat, dog, and singing bird, so his entire relationship with her is to break her into admitting she considers him the pinnacle of male fantasy as every one else does, and the Beast fits perfectly into the category of things he feels he needs to kill to show off how much of an incredibly powerful and skilled hunter he is. There's not a lot of depth here, so mining these for materials for a gritty reverse POV movie would be relatively pointless. There's nothing to gain by watching Gaston have a series of unfulfilling, presumably abusive romances with other women, be admired by men, and then say how his need to kill the Beast was to offer self-validation. It works (kinda) in this case because we get to see what it is that lead to the unflinching, unrelenting, unapologetic destruction that Maleficent wanted to inflict, and it offers and attempt of justifying irrational behavior.Uriel_Hayabusa said:
I don't see how you can't have subversions of subversions. In fact, I think a skilled enough writer can craft a story that hearkens back to "classics" while ironing out the unfortunate implications instead of going full-on "The nice guy is actually a douchebag"/"The love interest dies"/*insert "darker"/"more subversive" twist here*leviadragon99 said:
I was thinking the same thing with the wish of love by all. But with that ANYone could have woken her up honestly :/Scarim Coral said:
