After reading this blog post on BookRiot, I have to say I can agree with everything that Rebecca said.
The issue which came up was whether people should use books for crafts and destroy the book itself. Essentially Rebecca said that it shouldn’t matter what happens to the book. She used the analogy of popsicle sticks. You don’t care what happens to them, especially if you recycle them. It just matters about what was there in the first place.
She made the point that the book itself doesn’t exactly matter. But it’s the story that is what is important.
I can agree with that on many levels. But if you are going to destroy an old book, don’t do it. Take a new book and distress it or get creative. I do not agree with the destroying of old and antique books for the sake of crafts, as the actual book itself is beautiful to look at.
But if you want to make a literary craft, then go ahead and use the book. You may be destroying the pages, but the story will live on.
Just a fun little video I made for the Ultimate Star Wars Book!
It has information on characters, creatures, locations, technology, vehicles and more! It even has a forward by Anthony Daniels, or better known as C-3PO. Written by Patricia Barr, Adam Brag, Daniel Wallace and Ryder Windham.
I apologize if the video is blocked in certain countries. It is due to the soundtrack. If I get too many complaints that it is not viewable then I’ll re-upload it with a new non-star wars sound track. (Comment thoughts!)
Update May 21: Video has been re-uploaded and edited so it should be viewable in every country!
Angelina Jolie – Maleficent
Elle Fanning – Aurora
Sharlto Copley – Stefan
Summary
“Explore the untold story of Disney’s most iconic villain in this wickedly fun twist on the classic SLEEPING BEAUTY. In an unforgiving mood after a neighboring kingdom threatens her forest, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) places an irrevocable curse on the king’s newborn daughter, the Princess Aurora. but as the child grows, Maleficent finds herself becoming fond of the girl. And as the conflict between the two realms intensifies, Maleficent realizes that Aurora may hold the key to peace in the land. Journey beyond the fairy tale in this soaring adventure that is “visually arresting, brilliantly designed” (Andrew Barker, Variety).”
Honestly, I’m speechless. This movie was absolutely stunning. The visual effects were beautiful, the characters were portrayed amazingly well, and the story of such an evil villain, and showing how she wasn’t necessarily what others saw, was so creative.
In the Sleeping Beauty story, and in the movie, you always disliked Maleficent, and you were supposed to because she was the bad guy, oh, sorry, bad woman. But in this movie, it showed why she was portrayed to be the bad woman and how she changed as she watched Aurora grow and looked after her.
So the story was the first amazing thing about it, how they were able to twist such a well-known story and make you feel for her. But then the other amazing thing was the visual effects. From the moment the movie started, it was magical and the creatures, from fairies to the water creatures, was just stunning.
Some of the creatures were kind of creepy looking, but they were supposed to be. It was all about judging someone by how they looked throughout this entire movie. They judged Maleficent and her friends because they were magical beings and the one Kingdom wanted to destroy them because of it.
Now Angelina Jolie, playing Maleficent was amazing. She played that part SO well. She took on that role and really was just….amazing. I don’t know how else to explain it because she had the personality down pat and was able to get all the subtle things down. Jolie was able to walk around with an air of grace but deadly grace when she went evil.
This, is probably one of my favorite scenes of her portrayal of the character in the movie with the way she looks down and acts all innocent but has this deadly air to her.
So, to me, besides the story, the visual effects were the best thing to me as I’ve always been interested in how they do it and such and it’s amazing how magical they can make a movie nowadays.
All in all, this is a really really good movie. It was PG-13, so it’s not for children, and it really wasn’t, especially with all the violence. For being based on a Disney movie, this really was Hollywoodized (not a word, but I’m making it one now) which is kind of annoying but as a near adult, it didn’t really detract from the movie for me and I still loved it, but if you want your younger kid to watch this, this really isn’t for them because of the nature of what happens. It is quite a dark movie, lighting wise (for parts of it), and dark also in the nature of what happens.
I highly recommend it, even if you don’t really like Disney movies, because I don’t love Disney movies but still absolutely loved this. It take the classical fairy tales and adds a twist to them.
