And while Maleficent makes no attempt to justify her cruel and evil actions or retroactively make her into an antihero, it does give us some context to a beloved but originally rather one-note Disney Villain, making the rewatch of Sleeping Beauty into an intertextual Shakespearean tragedy. The film even has a subtle feminist and queer vibe (especially as seen in the initially close relationship between Maleficent and Amileah) as Maleficent’s non-effeminate actions and ambition make her the source of much of the very scorn and fear that propels her on her path to villainy, making one wonder that if they’d just let her be herself, she might have turned out differently.

Barsi shines as the eponymous character, demonstrating her vocal range by voicing her from infancy to adulthood, practically embodying Eleanor Audley by the end. Setting up the events of the original film, it showcases how Maleficent’s tragic and doomed friendship with a human, Amileah, the future Queen Leah and mother of Princess Aurora (Mandy Moore), ultimately drives Maleficent’s actions against Aurora in the original film. This tale, which follows young Maleficent as she grows up under the stifling laws of the Fairy Folk and becomes angry, selfish, ambitious, and casually cruel, lets us see the world from Maleficent’s perspective, and witness the events that shaped her along the way. Maleficent (2005): Once he got away with sequels, Joe Ranft greenlit a CG animated prequel in this tale of the Sleeping Beauty villainess, produced and directed and voiced by Jude Barsi with the Skeleton Crew.

Click, Clack, Boo! by Doreen Cronin