Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009)

For me Disney movies were a big part of growing up. Of course you watched a lot of other cartoons, but those long movies were fun to watch. I can remember watching Robin Hood at school or collecting stickers from The Great Mouse Detective. As a kid you felt the magic these movies had and couldn’t get enough of them. I’m still a big fan of them now (although I don’t watch them as much any more), but there was a time when the animation studios had a lot of trouble. The quality of their movies was getting worse and there were talks of a takeover and splitting up the company. Something needed to be done to get everything on the rails again. Sleeping Beauty shows what was done between 1984 and 1994, a period in which Disney managed to get back on top with movies like Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King.

The movie is narrated and directed by Don Hahn, who was involved as a producer for Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Emperor’s New Groove. Using a lot of behind the scenes footage the viewer gets a look into the animation kitchen and all the struggles that were going on behind the scenes on management level between Roy E Disney, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner.
It shows small parts where the animators (like Tim Burton and John Lasseter) are drawing and basically doing crazy things which usually seem to take place in creative environments. The main focus though is on the power struggle that took place, which of course was also fought publicly and eventually ended with Katzenberg leaving the company (which resulted in him starting up Dreamworks).

Waking Sleeping Beauty is partly narrated, but also consists of a lot of interviews with the people involved. If you are a Disney fan I’m sure you will like it as it provides a part of the history of one of the biggest brands in the world.

Score: 8

Trailer:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyeoyRjEiUU&feature=player_embedded#!]