MALEFICENT
Maleficent, a powerful fairy, lives in the Moors, a magical forest realm bordering a
corrupt human kingdom. As a young girl, she meets and falls in love with a human
peasant boy named Stefan, whose love for Maleficent is overshadowed by his ambition
to become king. As they grow older, the two grow apart, and she becomes protector of
the Moors. When King Henry tries to conquer the Moors, a grown Maleficent forces him
to retreat. Fatally wounded in battle, he declares that whoever kills Maleficent will be
named his successor and marry his daughter Leila. In response, the grown Stefan visits
Maleficent in the Moors, where he drugs her but cannot bring himself to kill her. Instead
he cuts off her wings off with iron - a lethal substance to fairies - and presents them to
the king as evidence of her death. Maleficent awakens to find herself wingless.
Anguished by Stefan's betrayal, she declares herself Queen of the Moors, forming a
dark kingdom with Diaval, a raven whom she gives a human form to serve as her
confidant.
Sometime later, Diaval informs Maleficent that Stefan, who is now king, is hosting a
christening for his newborn daughter, Aurora. Bent on revenge, Maleficent arrives
uninvited and curses the infant princess: on her 16th birthday, she will prick her finger
on the spindle of a spinning wheel, putting her into a deep sleep from which she will
never awaken. When Stefan begs for mercy, Maleficent offers an antidote: The curse
can be broken by true love's kiss. Stefan sends Aurora to live with a trio of pixies until
the day after her 16th birthday, while he destroys all the spinning wheels in the kingdom
and hides them in the castle dungeon. He sends his armies to find and kill Maleficent,
but she surrounds the Moors with an impenetrable wall of thorns.
Despite her initial dislike for Aurora, Maleficent begins to care for the girl when the
incompetent pixies inadvertently put her in danger. After a brief meeting with the young
Aurora, Maleficent watches over her from afar. When Aurora is 15, she encounters
Maleficent and, aware of being watched over, calls her her "fairy godmother". Realizing
she has grown fond of the princess, Maleficent attempts to revoke the curse, but she
cannot. Aurora later meets Prince Philip, and the two are smitten with each other. On
the day before Aurora's 16th birthday, Maleficent, hoping to avoid the curse, allows her
to move to the Moors. When the pixies inadvertently tell Aurora of her parentage and of
Maleficent's true identity, a furious Aurora runs away to her father's castle. Meanwhile
King Stefan, mad with paranoia, sits in his castle talking to Maleficent's wings, and even
refuses to see Queen Leila on her deathbed.
After a brief reunion with Aurora, Stefan locks her away in her room for safety. However,
she is drawn by the curse to the dungeon, where a spinning wheel pricks her finger and
she falls into a sleep-like death. Intent on saving her, Maleficent abducts Phillip and
infiltrates Stefan's castle to have him kiss Aurora and break the curse, but Philip's kiss
fails. Maleficent apologizes to Aurora and swears no harm will come to her, kissing her
forehead and breaking the spell, Maleficent's motherly concern for Aurora constituting
true love. Aurora forgives Maleficent and they attempt to leave the castle, but Maleficent
is trapped in an iron net and attacked by Stefan and his guards. Maleficent transforms
Diaval into a dragon, and he lifts the net off her, but is driven back by the guards. Stefan
beats and taunt Maleficent, but before he can kill her, her wings, freed from his chamber
by Aurora, fly back to her and reattach themselves. Maleficent overpowers Stefan and
carries him onto a tower, but cannot bring herself to kill him. Stefan attempts once more
to kill her but they both plummet off the tower. Maleficent eventually breaks away,
allowing Stefan to fall to his death.
Soon after, Aurora is crowned queen of the human and fairy realms by Maleficent,
unifying the two kingdoms, with Phillip at her side. Maleficent returns to her role as
protector over the kingdoms.
