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Aurora (Disney) facts for kids

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Aurora
Sleeping Beauty character
Princess aurora disney.png
Aurora as she appears in Disney's Sleeping Beauty wearing the blue version of her famous color-changing ballgown.
First appearance Sleeping Beauty (1959)
Last appearance Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)
Created by
Portrayed by Elle Fanning (Maleficent & Maleficent: Mistress of Evil)
Eleanor Worthington Cox (8-years-old) (Maleficent)
Vivienne Jolie-Pitt (5-years-old) (Maleficent)
Voiced by
Based on Briar Rose from the Charles Perrault's fairy tale
Information
Nickname(s) Sleeping Beauty
Briar Rose (alias)
Affiliation Disney Princesses
Title Princess, Queen (Maleficent)
Family
Spouse(s) Prince Phillip
Children Princess Audrey (Descendants)
Relatives

Princess Aurora, also known as Sleeping Beauty or Briar Rose, is a fictional character who appears in Walt Disney Productions' 16th animated feature film Sleeping Beauty (1959). Originally voiced by singer Mary Costa, Aurora is the only child of King Stefan and Queen Leah. An evil fairy named Maleficent seeks revenge for not being invited to Aurora's christening and curses the newborn princess, foretelling that she will die before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday by pricking her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel. Determined to prevent this, three good fairies raise Aurora as a peasant in order to protect her, patiently awaiting her sixteenth birthday — the day the spell can only be broken by a kiss from her true love, Prince Phillip.

Aurora is based on the princess in Charles Perrault's fairy tale "Sleeping Beauty", as well as the heroine who appears in the Brothers Grimm's retelling of the story, "Little Briar Rose". For several years, Walt Disney had struggled to find a suitable actress to voice the princess and nearly abandoned the film entirely until Costa was discovered by composer Walter Schumann. However, Costa's southern accent nearly cost her the role until she proved that she could sustain a British accent for the duration of the film. In order to accommodate the film's unprecedentedly detailed backgrounds, Aurora's refined design demanded more effort than had ever been spent on an animated character before, with the animators drawing inspiration from Art Nouveau. Animated by Marc Davis, Aurora's slender physique was inspired by actress Audrey Hepburn. With only 18 lines of dialogue and equally few minutes of screen time, the character speaks less than any speaking main character in a feature-length Disney animated film.

When Sleeping Beauty was first released in 1959, the film was both a critical and commercial failure, discouraging the studio from adapting fairy tales into animated films for three decades. Aurora herself received negative reviews from both film and feminist critics for her passivity and similarities to Snow White, and would remain Disney's last princess until The Little Mermaid's Ariel debuted 30 years later in 1989. However, Costa's vocal performance was praised, which inspired her to pursue a full-time career as an opera singer to great success. Chronologically, Aurora is the third Disney Princess. Actress Elle Fanning portrays a live-action version of Aurora in the film Maleficent (2014), a retelling of the 1959 animated film Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the title character. Fanning returned to portray Aurora in Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019), which is set five years later.

International versions

When Sleeping Beauty was released in 1959, a dubbing process was started which, in the space of one year, brought the movie to number 10 dubbings by 1960. Along the years, Disney's expanded its market to new countries, having the movie dubbed into a constantly growing number of dubbings, as well as a starting massive re-dubbing process which regarded many of the oldest dubbings. To this date, only five of the 10 dubbings initially released are still in use and were never redubbed. To this date, the animated movie numbers a total of 34 dubbings currently in use in as many languages, and 9 more versions which were later substituted by newer dubbings.

Originally, in the Danish and the first Latin American Spanish dubbings, Aurora's speaking voices, Ellen Winther and Estrellita Díaz respectively, were meant to sing the princess' songs as well. But while Winther was replaced by Inge Stauss because the Danish directors thought that her voice didn't suit Aurora's singing well enough, Díaz didn't get to sing because she died short after having recorded her spoken lines, without having recorded the songs.      Highlighted versions were released between 1959 and 1960     Highlighted versions are a redubbing of an older dubbing

Appearances

Film and television

Aurora debuted in Sleeping Beauty (1959) as the only daughter of King Stefan and Queen Leah. Angered by not receiving an invitation to her christening, the princess is cursed by an evil fairy named Maleficent, who dooms her to die when she pricks her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel before the sun sets on her 16th birthday. However, one of the three good fairies named Merryweather alters the curse so that Aurora will instead sleep until she is awakened by a kiss from her true love. Merryweather and the two other fairies, Flora and Fauna, take extra precautions by raising the princess in a secluded cottage under the alias Briar Rose to protect her from Maleficent until her sixteenth birthday arrives. Several years later, a 16-year-old Aurora meets a handsome man in the forest. Unaware that he is actually a prince named Phillip, to whom she has been betrothed since infancy, the two fall in love and agree to meet again. However, the fairies finally reveal Aurora's true identity to her and thus forbid her from seeing him because they plan on returning the heartbroken princess to her parents. While alone at the castle, Aurora is hypnotized by Maleficent, who causes her to prick her finger and fulfill Merryweather's prophecy. The fairies then place her in the highest tower to sleep peacefully, and put the entire kingdom to sleep until the spell was broken. Meanwhile, Maleficent has captured Phillip, whom the fairies release upon realizing that he is in fact the same man Aurora met in the forest earlier that day. Helping him defeat Maleficent, Aurora is successfully awakened by Phillip's kiss, and is finally reunited with her parents.

In Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams (2007), Aurora, voiced by actress Erin Torpey, stars in the segment "Keys to the Kingdom", in which her parents leave her responsible for running the kingdom in their two-day absence with assistance of their majordomo, Lord Duke. Declining assistance from the fairies, they give her her own wand instead should she need help. At first reluctant to use it because she is determined to accomplish everything on her own, Aurora eventually succumbs when her duties prove overwhelming. However, her inexperience with magic leads to several consequences, which forces Lord Duke into warning Stefan, Leah, King Hubert, and Prince Phillip, who were all coming back from a royal conference, about the giant chickens, green pigs, and cows. She is then forced to solve without magic before the others came in the throne room. She hosts a banquet for her parents, King Hubert, Prince Phillip, Lord Duke, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather.

In Maleficent (2014), a live-action re-imagining of the animated film in which Sleeping Beauty is retold from the perspective of the villain, Aurora is portrayed by actress Elle Fanning, while actress Janet McTeer voices an elderly version of the character in the role of film's narrator. The princess is raised by Maleficent after first being cursed by the fairy in an act of revenge against her father King Stefan, only for a strong mother-daughter bond to develop between the characters; Aurora affectionately refers to Maleficent as her fairy godmother. When her curse is finally fulfilled, Aurora is awakened by Maleficent's remorseful kiss to her forehead as opposed to a prince's. Aurora defends Maleficent from her father, and eventually returns her wings to her when she is crowned queen of both the human kingdom and the fairy kingdom known as the Moors. Fanning reprises the role in the sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019). Five years have passed since Aurora became Queen of the Moors. One day Phillip finally asks for her hand in marriage, which she gladly accepts. Despite Maleficent initially not accepting Phillip's blessing, she agrees to go have dinner at the castle in Ulsted, Phillip's kingdom, to meet Aurora's future in-laws. Maleficent is then wrongfully blamed for cursing Phillip's father, King John, and Aurora refuses to go back home with her. Eventually, Aurora begins to miss her godmother as well as her life in the Moors. She soon discovers that it was Phillip's mother, Queen Ingrith, who cursed the king and that a trap is being set to kill the creatures of the Moors. Aurora and Phillip help Maleficent stop the war against Queen Ingrith, and they are finally married.

A live-action version of Aurora appears as a recurring character in the fantasy television series Once Upon a Time, portrayed by actress Sarah Bolger. She made a guest appearance in a Sofia the First episode, Holiday in Enchancia called on by the mystical amulet of Avalor to assist young Princess Sofia in finding her missing stepfather, King Roland II. She assured Sofia that she could rely on her animal friends' to help just she had long ago.

Aurora, alongside other Disney Princesses, appeared in the film Ralph Breaks the Internet, as was announced at the 2017 D23 Expo.

Miscellaneous

Aurora appears as a non-player character in the Kingdom Hearts video game series, depicted as one of the seven Princesses of Heart. In the prequel Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep (2010), the character goes through the same events as the original film. Aurora appears in Kinect Disneyland Adventures (2011), asking players to collect items various items, including songs performed by birds.

Performers dressed as Aurora make "fairly regular" appearances throughout several popular locations at the Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, specifically Walt Disney World's Epcot France Pavilion, Cinderella's Royal Table, Disney Dreams Come True Parade, and Princess Fairytale Hall in the Magic Kingdom, Fantasyland's Princess Meet 'n' Greet at Disneyland California, Fantasyland's Princess Pavilion and Auberge de Cendrillon at Disneyland Paris, Fantasyland and World Bazaar at Tokyo Disneyland, and the Wishing Well at Hong Kong Disneyland.

Trademark

The Walt Disney Company currently has a trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office, filed March 13, 2007, for the name "Princess Aurora" that covers production and distribution of motion picture films; production of television programs; production of sound and video recordings. This has caused some controversy because "Princess Aurora" is the name of the lead character in The Sleeping Beauty Ballet, from where Disney acquired the name and some of the music for its animated film, and which is performed live on stage and sometimes television and often sold later as a recorded performance on video. The trademark was granted on January 17, 2012.

Images for kids

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: La bella durmiente (franquicia) para niños

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