I was driving home the other day and heard Tchaikovsky’s ballet score The Sleeping Beauty and almost instinctively started humming away. It’s such as highly infectious score that you’d be hard pressed NOT to hum to its waltz-like theme after you listen to it. I adore Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, the music is such an integral part of why I adore that movie so much. From the beginning of the movie with Hail to the Princess Aurora all the way to the finale, it’s filled with beautiful melody. Mary Costa, who’s also a professional opera singer, lent the voice of Princes Aurora/Briar Rose.
The feature itself is fantastic, it’s by far one of the best hand-drawn animation with its vibrant colors and detailed texture, an impressive feat given it was done back in 1959. It has such a timeless quality even compared to today’s sophisticated CGI animation. Tangled, which is a contemporary take on the Princess fairy tale genre looks pretty good, though it remains to be seen if it’ll be regarded as a Disney classic like this one.
I’m taking a bit of a blogging break today so I thought I’d share my favorite scene from the movie – Once Upon A Dream:
Disney’s Princess flicks certainly got some truly memorable songs. If I were to list my top five, it probably goes like this:
- Sleeping Beauty‘s Once Upon A Dream
- Cinderella‘s A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes
- Little Mermaid‘s Part of Your World & Kiss The Girl (tie)
- Beauty & The Beast‘s Something There
- Pocahontas‘ Color of the Wind
FLIXCHATTER FILM BLOG 
You know what? I think that would be my list, too. Although I might stick God Bless the Outcasts from Hunchback. ❤ Disney.
“Might stick … in there, too.” Sigh.
Oh I almost forgot about Hunchback… though it’s not really a Princess movie though right? 🙂
Overwhelmingly “You’ll Be In My Heart” by Phil Collins, from Tarzan (1999).
BTW, YBIMH won a Golden Globe for Best Original Song, and an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Also an excellent one.
Oh yeah absolutely! I LOVE ‘You’ll be in my heart’ … it’s such a lovely and heartwarming song, I tear up every time that song is on. It’s definitely in my top 10 Disney songs list (Princess & otherwise). It deserves to win those major kudos!
Glad you guys like it, it was one of the first songs to get on my iPod…
Also love A Whole New World from Aladdin (1992). It also won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. 😉
Oh, I suppose. I don’t think of them in terms of princesses so much. That whole designation is highly suspect anyway. 😉
Yeah, there’s a time and place for those ‘princess’ genre but I’m glad we’ve moved away from that. Still, since I grew up with ’em I’ll always have fond memories of the fairy tales 😀 And it didn’t make affect my romantic expectation the way some people accuse Disney of doing to young girls. Seriously people, what part of ‘fairy tale’ do you not understand?? (ok, end rant) 🙂
CAN YOU FEEL THE LOVE TONIGHT was lovely, COLOUR OF THE WIND was also amazing, BEAUTY AND THE BEST is super charming …. UNDER THE SEA makes me wanna shake my bum every time 🙂
Those are all awesome songs, Dez… I think with Disney songs, you could do a top twenty and still miss some of the great ones. The Little Mermaid does have fabulous songs, both ballads and more energetic ones… yes, Under the Sea is awesome. I love Sebastian… I used to keep the stuffed animal even all the way to high school!
There are too many…to your point…great songs from Disney! I love so many of them myself! from Beauty and the Beast to Mulan, from Little Mermaid to Lion King, from Snow White to Hercules. You are correct in that a list of 20 would still do exclude some great hits.
If I had to pick ONE song it would probably be Hakuna Matata, followed by Be Our Guest. (I think I know all of Beauty and the Beast by heart!…not just the songs either! haha)
2 things that made me smile about this post.
#1- I read it before I went to work and this song was in my head all day at work!
#2- I have a post about Disney in drafts that is scheduled to publish tomorrow!
Nice work there! 🙂
Hey, nice new gravatar, T, totally appropriate 😀 Yeah, that’s why I just limit my quick list to just Princess movies, I was too tired to do a lot of research for my post.
Ohhh I adore Hakuna Matata!! I have a fondness for meerkats anyway so it was a fun scene to watch. Beauty & The Beast is great, do you have the Blu-ray? Someone tweeted a while ago saying how gorgeous it looked there. I might buy it if it’s on sale… must be nice for you to get discounts from BB! 🙂
He..he.. I guess the Sleeping Beauty song really is infectious then. Hey I’m curious what you’ve got scheduled for tomorrow, I’ll be sure to check it out.
thank you! I hope you enjoy tomorrow’s post! I am still waiting to get my copy of B&TB on BD before it gets vaulted. I have also heard it is AMAZING!! I will look for sales!
What does it mean ‘gets vaulted?’ I’m hoping there’ll be a bunch of Blu-ray movies on sale on Black Friday 🙂
“vaulted” in reference to how Disney puts their movies in a vault from time to time so that they are not available for purchase. their practice of re-releasing them every 3 or so years. Black Friday ads are out all over the internet. In a totally unbiased way…here’s a site that lists almost all of the retailer’s ads! 🙂 http://www.black-friday.net/
Since we’re stickin with Princess movies…mine would be Once Upon a Dream, Part of Your World, A whole New World, Beauty and the Beast.
Expanding it would include. Hercules – Go the Distance , Treasure Planet -I’m Still Here , Lion King – Circle of Life ….
I like A Whole New World… I just don’t like Aladdin much. I do love Go the Distance… I usually don’t care for Michael Bolton’s voice but I love that song! Great picks.
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