Lessons to take away from Maleficent

Going into the movie night project, I had never seen Maleficent (2014) before. Before sitting down and watching the film, my expectations were not very high. I thought that since it was basically a remake of Sleeping Beauty (1959), it would be just another unoriginal Hollywood remake. To my surprise, I found this new side of the Sleeping Beauty story very refreshing. The new conflicts and background information of the plot really added a lot to the story.

Some of the significant lessons in dealing with conflict that this film taught were about revenge and the destructiveness of an aggressive system of conflict. Revenge was not only an aspect on conflict in the film, but also one of its major themes throughout. Maleficent turns from a peaceful fairy living in harmony into an evil queen in spite of her search for revenge against King Stefan. This conflict between Queen Maleficent and King Stefan is what drives all the other conflicts throughout the film.

Another conflict in the film is the hostile relationship between the three fairies. This conflict provides an example of what an aggressive system looks like. Their constant overt yelling, name calling, and aggressive behavior towards one another is displayed clearly. The plot of the story could be somewhat different if the fairies employed a collaborative system to deal with their conflicts. If the fairies worked as a team, they would have made it possible to protect Princess Aurora from Maleficent’s curse. Nonetheless, this conflict presented viewers with a sample of a common type of conflict system and clearly displayed how it was destructive.

In the ‘movie forum’ that took place in our group, we all agreed on most of the issues and conflicts that took place between the story’s characters. The experience provided our group with a thought-provoking discussion in which we described some of the possible solutions for each of the three main conflicts. This discussion truly helps one understand the film in a different way by giving group members an opportunity to analyze the conflicts in-depth.

The Movie Night project in general was interesting to me in how the lessons learned in class were employed. Watching a movie and constructing a report on it is just as useful as reading a piece of literature to learn about the class material. The discussions between our group that took place after watching the film helped strengthen my understanding of some of the types on conflicts between characters as well as the themes of the film as a whole.

Putting its special effects aside, Maleficent provided examples of conflict that we can relate to today. Whether it is about revenge or simply people that always seem to be butting heads, the conflicts in this film create an interesting plot and provide an accurate representation of some of the conflicts that occur between people in the modern day.