If you haven’t yet seen Maleficent, you may very well want to quickly brush up on your classical Disney viewing and give Sleeping Beauty one more look. If you do, you’ll be struck by just how much is almost exactly the same, which is both satisfying and sometimes disappointing…a recap below:

Maleficent herself	Of course, she is a more well-rounded character here, but in looks she is practically identical (insanely high cheekbones included). The one HUGE diff: those wings!!	She is one of the most iconic, hypnotic and eccentric of the Disney villains; no wonder they decided to make a reboot in her name…and those horns!!
Other fairies	The three principal fairies (Thistlewit, Knotgrass & Flittle) are the weak link in the live action film, awkward and ungainly when in their teeny forms, mildly amusing but somewhat stifled as humans	These same three were one of the highlights of the original film, with the hilarious ongoing dispute as to which color suited Aurora (and just about everything else) best: Green, Red or Blue!
The ‘Moors’/ Enchanted Forest	This setting is brilliantly reinvented in the new film, looking like something out of Avatar meets Peter Pan	A pretty classic enchanted forest, with foreboding dark backgrounds and a mysterious, ominous energy
Maleficent’s sidekick, the crow	He gets a lot more screentime than his animated counterpart, and even his own name: Dieval. But as a crow, he is only partially successful (his human-like qualities are not nearly as well-defined as, say, the hilarious chipmunk in Disney’s prior—and delightful—effort in this vein, Enchanted)	A classic sidekick henchmen, this crow lives to serve his evil queen and serves as an anthropomorphic inspiration for Diaval.
Aurora, aka Sleeping Beauty	Brought to life by Elle Fanning, she is essentially lifted right out of the animated film, minus the black headband	One of the luxuries of being a cartoon is that you can be as gleeful and whimsical as you want, and people will still take you seriously. If only it were that easy in real life!