Showing posts with label Faery Queen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Faery Queen. Show all posts

Saturday, April 19, 2014

BREAKING NEWS: Maleficent Spoiler Thread Discloses Interesting Use of Fairy Tale, Myth & Legend (and, Of Course Spoilery Things) Note: Any spoilers here are hidden


So here's an interesting development.

The IMDB message boards are buzzing today as spoilers are leaked in an effort to put to rest any concerns people might be having about the movie (aka damage control from the giant "investors concerned" headlines that have been prominent the last coupe of weeks), particularly in turning Maleficent into some benign, essentially good person who's misunderstood and killing the reason she's resonated with people for so long.

 While there are a ton of spoilers in the thread there are some very interesting fairy tale, myth and legend notes included as well, which I will get to in a minute. First - where this is coming from.

Here's info about the source:
I happen to work at Disney corporate and have not only been authorized to "leak" this info here to gage audience response, but will be "leaking" even more in the next couple of weeks.  
He's also one of the attorneys on the film. 
Here's the reason Disney authorized an underground "leak":
someone private messaged me to ask why i'm posting this, and i got permission from my supervisor to address it here, in the interest of fairness and disclosure.  
the studio has asked me to do a minor form of damage control and clear up some prevalent misconceptions about the film, on a grass-roots level - "grass-roots" in their opinion meaning the imdb message boards. there have been some very negative outlooks and expectations being spread about the film around the internet - which i really have no problem with - freedom of speech and freedom of expression being in fact my legal speciality - however, my goal here is to create more positive word-of-mouth for a film i think really warrants the exposure and deserves to get a good vibe. 
Here's the IMDB thread link. Please note that THERE ARE A LOT OF SPOILERS in the pages at the IMDB thread! Read at your own discretion. While the entire plot, the twists etc aren't fully revealed, there's a lot more here than you usually see:

Maleficent (2014) : 2 weeks to first dragon reveal! SPOILERS...

Possible spoiler: (Highlight to read below! There are crown images at the head and tail of the possible-spoiler sections)
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Yes - they're talking about Maleficent as a dragon. Remember there has been speculation about the one we've seen looking rather avian? Well that's because it is. And that one is NOT the Maleficent dragon. We'll be seeing Maleficent-as-dragon in the last marketing push before the film is released.
IMDB POSTER:When you say "maleficent's dragon" do you mean her dragon form and that she turns into a dragon not just her crow?DISNEY CORPORATE GUY:exactly.this was a fairly recent decision to include the maleficent dragon at the end. investors recently got scared off because the first four drafts only had Diavel transforming into the dragon at the end, and in the latest draft, he even sacrificed his life so that Maleficent could escape at the end...but the investors, from what i've heard, thought that this would be a major let-down for fans hoping to see the big dragon fight at the end, and watching Maleficent become the villain they remembered her to be. So...they tacked on a second ending, and, after Stefan dies, Maleficent now does turn into the giant dragon and fight prince philip, etc. the model of the Maleficent dragon i've seen looks amazing...similar in texture to the Witch-King's dragon-thing in LOTR, but with the features of the classic Maleficent dragon... 
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Now, about the fairy tale relevant stuff. It's pretty awesome. (Try not to squee too much.) I really hope this is addressed in the Art of/Making of book when/if (please!) it's released. I'm using excerpts, cobbled together to not give away too much, even if you do highlight and read everything, so if it seems a little disjointed it's because you're missing some of the between conversation. (You can read it all on IDB of course.)

Note: ANY MOVIE SPOILERS WILL BE MASKED so you can choose whether or not to read them.

DISNEY CORPORATE GUY:
Woolverton actually admitted recently to using the Welsh tale of Culhwch and Olwen as inspiration, even though the characters are so dramatically different...the story of Stefan and Maleficent was actually inspired by Spenser's The Faerie Queene inasmuch as i have heard at the conference table (specifically Arthur the Golden Knight's pursuit of his would-be lover, the Faerie Queene). Quite a sly, subtly move...considering the Faerie Queene is such an obscure piece of lit...
 also, as far as i know we do NOT see her in the forbidden mountain castle - that part's been rewritten to keep her more of a creature of the woodlands, of the realm of faerie...in line with Spenser and other myths of course...although i do admit that seeing her in that castle would have been badass!
Maleficent... is still a tragic villain at the end, constantly defeating herself by giving in to aggression and fear and hatred. 
From what i've seen, this has the potential to be quite powerful - it takes the Wicked-type reimagining of a wicked witch to a level Wicked was afraid to go - by choosing to have Maleficent end up AS the villain. 
But after all, isn't one of the main reasons to see a movie like this anyway? The whole point is to see WHY someone went bad, NOT to see that they were really just a nice, peace-loving fairie all along, and misunderstood and given a bad smear campaign after their eventual defeat. 
By the end of the film, we should be rooting for Maleficent to walk away from it all, and keep peace in the land, but alas, she chooses poorly. And becomes the physical manifestation of the thing she most truly hates. 

Iron is deadly to Maleficent and her people, but of the human inhabitants only Stefan really knows that...the faeries do too, and use this to their advantage..when they feel they have no other alternative.
Now you know the classic animated ending and there has been worry/concern/speculation about how true this reinvention is going to be. I think people who read a lot of fairy tales and understand myth will be pleased with the final direction they took - though it was apparently difficult to choose. The reasons and pop culture influences on why are below (and they might surprise you) and they hint at an interesting new direction for Disney storytelling (at least in their films):
as far as i know -- they restructured the story to make it much more non-linear - now, rather than appearing about half-way into the film, the christening scene pretty much opens the film...we are introduced to Maleficent as she is presented in Sleeping Beauty, and then go back in time to learn, as Paul Harvey would say it..."The Rest of the Story." 
i'll admit, it is a risky move for the studio to kill her off at the end...but hopefully it will now come off more as a shakespearean tragedy to some degree...her death, while sad, is portrayed as justified...and brought about by her own lack of self-regulation... 
the studio and investors were torn between having a Wicked-ish "happier" ending and a darker one where the protagonist really does turn into the villain and even dies at the end. 
I'll tell you what made the difference - and very ironic, in one sense - the ending of AMC's Breaking Bad and the amazing popularity of that show. 
Before that, the prevailing attitude among studio heads and investors had been that audiences wouldn't really be that interested in seeing a character turn completely evil without some sort of redemption at the end. After Breaking Bad all that changed, and now Disney is trusting (fingers crossed!) that families and mainly kids, will be intrigued, entertained, and not turned off by such an ending. Plus, Disney also doesn't have to deal with the problem of ret-conning the original film at all - the original film, now, can be viewed as a fairly truthful film, but a propaganda piece made by the winners to villainize Maleficent. 
Trust me, it's a much more powerful film now than it was shaping up to be before. 
But thanks to Breaking Bad, and the incredible viewer response, Disney's decided to move the film into more risky territory and hope they get lucky in doing so. 
I think they will :)
So there you have it - along with a lot more, if you'd like to read it HERE.

Personally, I'm in the yay category on this news. It's much more in line with true fairy tale sensibilities and more in line with the messages I want my son to be exposed to. People get hurt, make bad choices and there are repercussions. While there are Disney movies that say this, the endings tend to water down the message drastically. I like the risk they're taking on this one!

Monday, January 20, 2014

Sprite Symphony (Fairy Installation) by Davy & Kristin McGuire (Do NOT Tap the Glass!)

Not specifically a fairy tale but it might be the sort of thing you'd find in a fairy tale, here's a lovely little film of an inspired installation being hosted and exhibited by the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company), made with holograms (and fairies!).

Thank you to the ever-creative and tuned in Lisa Stock of InByTheEye for alerting me to the magic.
The team, Davy and Kristin McGuire, were the creative geniuses behind another "projected project" I love, titled The Icebook, (you can see my post on it HERE), and they've done many more since.
Take a look at this lovely, lovely thing!
From the Vimeo description:

Commissioned by and developed for the Royal Shakespeare Company and later adapted for the Enchanted Parks, Sprite Symphony is a magical installation using projections and sound to create a beautiful yet dark display of fairies that have been trapped in jam jars and are trying to escape their glass cages. 
The fairies knock and tap on their jars and thereby create a polyphonic musical composition. 
The sprites are currently exhibited in a Victorian display cabinet in the RSC theatre foyer in Stratford upon Avon, (and) they also featured in the windows of the park keeper‘s shed at the Enchanted Parks in December 2013.
I'm thinking the fairies are drawing people to them with this magical sound and display, in order to persuade you to let them out. Trouble is, I don't entirely trust fairies. No matter how pretty they are, they tend to bite.

And just to underscore my wariness, this RSC exhibition also has a piece titled 'The Haunted Dress'. Worn by the Faerie Queen, it has a life of it's own.. and possibly teeth. (You can see the trailer for it HERE.) *shudder*
The Haunted Dress is an installation using theatre couture, projections and sound to tell the gruesome story of a beautiful but savage fairy queen who seduced a man into madness.
The exhibition, which opened in November last year, will run until March 2, 2014.

Press release from the RSC (and I'm including the artists' info & credit below as well, because these guys are just amazing!):
Sprite Symphony. By Davy and Kristin McGuire  
PACCAR Room, Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon  
16 November 2013 – 2 March 2014 
Sprite Symphony takes you on a journey around the theatre into a world of magical fairies and sprites. Follow the trail to find enchanting fairies trapped in jam jars and the Queen of the Fairies' haunted dress. Discover a cabinet of curious sprites in the foyer and listen to their enchanting music.  
Created by award winning artists Davy and Kristin McGuire, Sprite Symphony combines animation and projections with costumes and props made by the Royal Shakespeare Company, recomposed to invent a brand new contemporary fairy tale.
Davy and Kristin McGuire: Winners of this year's Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award, Davy & Kristin McGuire are multidisciplinary artists whose work has included The Icebook and an atmospheric stage adaptation of popular fantasy novel, Howl's Moving Castle. Their latest commercial commission for Courvoisier was displayed at Harrods and their new theatre production The Paper Architect premiered in July 2012 at the Barbican. The McGuires critically acclaimed theatre projects have toured to 12 different countries over 3 continents and their art work has been exhibited, published and screened internationally.