Disney's Magic (Part 4)

Original movie poster in 1959

Another main highlight of the Dreams Come True exhibition is the fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty. Again, versions of the fairy tale are known to date back as far as the fourteenth century, and it appears as the first story in Charles Perrault's Tales from Times Past, with Morals. Even though the Disney version is accredited to Charles Perrault's version of Sleeping Beauty, the film's version is more closely related to the Brothers Grimm story of Briar Rose in 1812. Why? The reason is that the Grimm version excluded the more gruesome elements from the Perrault version whereby the mother of the prince becomes an ogre who tries to eat her grandchildren and daughter-in-law (How sick is that mother! She's a cannibal who even eats her own relatives!). Besides that, the Grimm version ends with a happy note, i.e. Sleeping Beauty awakes, marries the prince and lives happily ever after (Again, the happy ending that I really like).

(As extracted from the exhibition) In the Brothers Grimm story, the princess sleeps for 100 years before a handsome prince enters the castle and awakens her with a kiss. In the Disney version, Princess Aurora is betrothed at birth to Prince Phillip, and they meet again by chance on Aurora's 16th birthday, although neither knows the other's true identity. This story adaptation established a romantic connection between the 2 characters that helped create an emotional climax at the end of the film.

The kiss that awakens Princess Aurora

The film was produced in 6 years' time. Different from Snow White and Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty was filmed in the newly developed Super Technirama 70 wide-screen format, thus giving opportunities for artists to experiment with rich colours and more detailed backgrounds. And when was Sleeping Beauty produced? Answer - 1959.

Early drafts of Princess Aurora

Certainly most of us can remember how well Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip sings, and the magical moment when Prince Phillip kisses Aurora to awake her from a deep (or almost forever) sleep. But one part of the movie that was the climax (in my opinion), was when Prince Phillip was fighting against the "Mistress of All Evil", Maleficient (was has turned into a dragon). I will always recall the spell that the 3 good fairies cast upon the prince's sword that defeated the evil witch - "Oh sword of truth, fly swift and sure, that evil die and good endure!”.

The sword aims correctly to Maleficent's heart

Of all the stirring legends of the triumph of good over evil, none has been so inspirational to me as Sleeping Beauty. - Walt Disney


So let's recall the characters in Sleeping Beauty. There's Princess Aurora, Prince Phillip, Maleficent, and the 3 fairies. The red fairy is Flora, the green fairy is Fauna and the blue fairy is Merryweather. And yes, do remember that Maleficent's original spell to Princess Aurora who was still an infant was "to prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and DIE before the sun sets on her 16th birthday". (Out of all her evil and malicious spells, the worst spell is only this?) But anyhow, the blue fairy,  Merryweather (who haven't give Aurora a gift yet), altered the evil witch's spell from death to a deep sleep (as she is not as strong as the evil witch), and later (as we all know the ending), Aurora is kissed by the prince, whereby she wakes up and they lived happily together (with the termination of Maleficent).

Mistress of All Evil - Maleficent

Flora, Fauna and Merryweather

Princess Aurora singing in the woods

What's for dinner? - Sushi [Recipe]

Delicious Sushi

Sushi, a Japanese dish that can be made with much creativity. Examples of sushi are makizushi, inarizushi and nigirizuhi. Sushi is one of the healthier foods which is rather popular in Melbourne. Plus, it's affortable and comes in a wide variety of choice of fillings. There are also quite a few good Japanese restaurants here that offer scrumptious Japanese cuisine, including sushi.

Makizushi

Inarizushi

Nigirizushi

Well, for my dinner, I choose the make the most basic sushi, makizuhi. Among the ingredients I use are roasted seaweed (nori sheets), avocado, cucumber, rice, tuna, egg and cooked Japanese rice. To start, I seasoned the cooked rice with vinegar, sugar and some salt. Then I roll the ingredients with rice and nori sheet before cutting it to slices to eat. Of course, you can make sushi in the uramaki style, where the rice is folded outwards with the seaweed and fillings inside (People often sprinkle sesame seeds, fish roe or seaweed on the sides of this type of sushi). Apart from that, the fillings can be substituted with various ingredients from smoked salmon, pickled carrots, crab sticks to fried shrimps. Sushi is often complimented with wasabi, pickled ginger and soy sauce.

So want to have a healthier choice for dinner? Eat sushi! Itadakimasu (いただきます) ~

Cucumber and Avocado

Tuna and Egg

Sushi 

Disney's Magic (Part 3)

Cinderella Poster

Having known more about Snow White, one of the next classic of Disney's fairy tales is Cinderella. The production of Cinderella took over 10 years of planning and production as a result of the World War II and low budget, but was finally completed in 1950. Similar to Snow White, Cinderella has its storyline altered which excluded some gruesome events in the earlier versions of Cinderella (also known as The Little Glass Slipper). In the earlier versions (Brothers Grimm version to be specific), Cinderella's stepsisters did extreme actions just to fit in the small fragile glass shoe to their feet, which is by cutting off part of their feet. In the Grimm's version there was no fairy godmother but a wishing tree and that the prince was rather foolish (as he had to be told by birds twice) about who the real bride truly is. Thankfully, Walt Disney production adapted one of the best and gracious versions of Cinderella, known as Cendrillon, which was written by Charles Perrault, which (of course) has the fairy godmother and a good ending for everyone (both Cinderella and her stepsisters).

The evil stepmother - Lady Tremaine

The ugly stepsisters, Anastasia and Drizella

The screen version must perceive and emphasize the basic moral intent and the values upon which every great persistent fairy tale is found - Walt Disney


One feature that Disney emphasized in the production is the cat, Lucifer. Lucifer was drawn to bring more comedic elements to the storyline of Cinderella. Apart from that, the Disney animation team did lots of drafts as to perfect the drawings of the pumpkin which will later transform into a magnificent carriage. One part of Cinderella that I like most apart from Cinderella finally gets to escape from the looked chamber and fits into the glass slipper (the one she owns as the original one was broken into pieces) was the magical transformation of her torn pink dress to a spectacular white and elegant dress. Every time I think of that scene, the song Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo will arise in my mind. Well, I also enjoyed the other magic process such as turning the pumpkin to a carriage, mice to horses, horse to coachman and dog to footman.

Fairy Godmother doing measurements for the gown

The transformation to the white gown

And finally (the happy ending that I really like), despite all trials and difficulties, Cinderella can finally be wedded to the prince and live happily together, and leave from her stepmother's evil clutches of slavery as well as the jealousy and cruelty of her stepsisters.

Cinderella fitting into the glass slipper

Cinderella and her Prince charming

Adieu, Su San!

I would like to extend my gratitude to a dear friend Su San, for all her care and help throughout the year of 2010 in Melbourne. Though she'll be heading back to Singapore for work after her studies, I will definitely miss her and I wish her all the best in everything she does and that God will bless her in every aspect of her life.

Su San is more than a friend, and more like a sister to me and I really appreciate her and am very thankful for our friendship. Adieu, Su San! Take care and all the best for your bright future ahead! Love ya~

Su San and me 

Disney's Magic (Part 2)

The entrance to the exhibition 

The trip to the Dreams Come True exhibition was definitely worth it. I got to know more in depth about the behind the scenes stories about Walt Disney production. The start of the exhibition was an introduction to Walt Disney, the one important man behind all our childhood fantasies and dreams. Then it was a rather thorough exhibition about Silly Symphonies (1929-1939), which consisted of The Ugly Duckling, The Three Little Pigs and The Piped Piper. There was even the a part of the cartoon of the 3 Symphonies I've listed above on screen to be watched, which is sadly only about 5 minutes each. But still, it was entertaining and fun! The exhibition also displayed sketches of the animation and a detailed explanation to how the cartoon was developed and produced.

The movie poster in 1937

Next, the exhibition focused on one of the most famous Disney movie ever made, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It certainly amazed me how old the popular cartoon was! The movie was finally put on the big screen in 1937, after more than 3 years of production. As during that period, cartoons only averaged about 6 minutes, thus Snow White was considered by Hollywood as "Walt Disney's Folly". However, the truth was exactly the total opposite, Snow White was a big hit, and still lives as part of our childhood  memory even till 2010. Snow White has become so famous that it's been replayed over the years and I believe that the story of Snow White that most of us are familiar with is the Disney's version. Contrary to the original story of Snow White by Brothers Grimm, the evil queen has a different and earlier death. The Brothers Grimm version has the evil queen put on heated iron shoes and danced to death as she attended the neighbouring country's prince wedding (not knowing that the bride was Snow White). Another main difference is the way Snow White was awaken. In the Disney movie, Snow White was awaken by a kiss from the prince but in the Grimms version, the poision apple dislodge from Snow White's throat (leading Snow White to wake up) when the prince servants stumble during the process of moving her coffin.


There would be no compromise on money, talent or time. We did not know whether the public would go for a cartoon feature, but we were darned sure that audiences would not buy a bad cartoon feature. - Walt Disney 


So does everyone still remember the names of the seven dwarfs? Disney production team came up with thousands of suggestions and finally decided the final seven which are Doc, Bashful, Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy, Grumpy and Dopey.  Another interesting fact that I knew from the exhibition was about the evil queen. Quite to my surprise, the image of the queen was actually inspired by the famous actresses of that time. Wow, if I was the actress I have no idea whether I feel privileged that my image was selected as the queen or disappointed as the character of the queen is hated by millions of children worldwide and for centuries.

The seven Dwarfs

The evil and jealous Queen

 Having grown up, after reading all the information and watching a short clip of Snow White again from the exhibition, one fact that struck me was how fortunate Snow White was when she clean the dwarfs' house. How good would it be to have animals volunteer and help clean the whole house and what Snow White basically does is just monitor the animals and sweep the floor a bit while singing with her sweet voice. If that can happen in reality, I bet I'll learn whole-heartedly how to sing perfectly (Just kidding, there's robots now that can do the job). Another fact that struck me was how iconic Snow White's dress had become. If anyone (usually girls) wears a dress with a blue top and yellow skirt sewn together, which has no collars and round sleeves with red flattened ovals, the first impression we have is that person is trying to dress up as Snow White, and it doesn't even matter if the person have a terrible voice, long hair or is tanned. Apart from that, I was totally amazed by the animators during that time. Being a not-so-talented artist, I could never come up with the images drawn by them, plus all the drawings for Snow White were hand-drawn. Oh, I just can't imagine how much time and effort is invested to complete this animation, no wonder it took more than 3 years!

Snow White and the animals

No matter what, I still like Snow White as it has a happy ending, where the princess is with a prince charming and that the good reins over evil. And lastly, I really like the ending of the movie where "they lived happy ever after" (though life's much more complicated than that).

Snow White and her Prince charming

Disney's Magic (Tangled 2010 Trailer)

Disney's Magic (Part 1)

What to do on a Sunday afternoon? After having a good lunch, Juan and I decided to tour Melbourne again, but this time instead of shopping, we went to the acmi (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) for the exhibition of Dreams Come True. Dreams Come Trues ~ The Art of Disney's Classic Fairy Tales, just the title is enough to make me fired up for the whole exhibition. Indeed, I've grown up with Disney animation and movie, and is very familiar with Disney productions such as Snow White, Cinderella, the Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and the Little Mermaid, just to name a few. I believe most of the people grew up with Disney's memories, and most of us are even supporters of major Disney's productions until now. Well, all credits go to Walter Elias Disney, better known as Walt Disney, and one of his famous quote is "it's kind of fun to do the impossible". Although long cartoons were ridiculous during his time and most people (from Hollywood) think that cartoons that were made into movie (which are basically 2 hours long) are a waste of money and effort during the 1930s, but thank God for Walt Disney's personality that was persistent and 'thinking out of the box', or else we would not have such sweet Disney memories in our childhood times.

So as an end note, I will be anticipating this December's Tangled, based on the fairy tale, Rapunzel. Do check out the trailers and let Disney's magic enchant you again！

The board at the entrance to the acmi

Exhibition tickets

A poster of the exhibition

On the escalator to the exhibition hall