"Waking Sleeping Beauty" Informal Review

                Waking Sleeping Beauty documents the history of Disney animation from the failure of The Black Cauldron through the success of The Lion King. It gives history about the company including power struggles, the rise of big names like Tim Burton and John Lasseter, the Disney Renaissance, and the advances in technology that led to the hand-drawn animation we have today. It met all my expectations of what a documentary should be and, thankfully, the subject was extremely interesting and there were no controversial topics to get me riled up.

                Waking Sleeping Beauty not only presented facts about Disney’s animation history, but it did so in an interesting way. The film began with its ending, the prerecorded speeches given at the staff premiere of The Lion King, at which point the narrator, a Disney animator who was present for the events covered in this documentary, takes things back to when he first started working for the company. While all of the normal documentary-esque elements such as interviews, photos, and news clips were present, it also kept things interesting by showing home videos, clips from Disney films, and caricatures of various members of the Disney team, presumably drawn by the animators themselves. There were several different narrators throughout the film, all of which were part of the team as well. There were very few instances throughout Waking Sleeping Beauty where I lost interest and I really enjoyed learning more about my favorite kind of Disney film.

                As usual, where Disney is involved there is magic and Waking Sleeping Beauty is no exception. Although the story was far less glamorous than the fairytales Disney is so well known for telling, it was no less engaging. I would highly recommend this film to any Disney fan or animation enthusiast.