Divergent and Maleficent Trailers Feel Familiar, for Better and (Mostly) Worse
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Maleficent SHOULD feel familiar, of course – it’s what Disney is counting on. What’s most surprising is how much they’re leaning thus far on recreating scenes from Sleeping Beauty that we’ve seen before, when I thought the whole idea was to show Maleficent’s tale from when she was younger, and how she turned bad. Elle Fanning’s Aurora sounds pretty much like Elle Fanning. It looks cool, but so did Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland from trailers alone.
As for Divergent – its familiarity isn’t based on my having read any book, but the fact that the whole premise is basically the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter, with the tattoos and chaste romance of The Mortal Instruments, which itself was already based on Harry Potter fanfic. I like that Shailene Woodley isn’t your typical Hollywood glamor girl, but that’s about it so far on that one.
Both are after the jump.
About The Author
Luke Y. Thompson has been writing professionally about movies and pop-culture since 1999, and has also been an actor in some extremely cheap culty and horror movies you will probably never hear much about (he is nonetheless mostly proud of them, as he met his wife on one). As editor of The Robot's Voice since 2012, he can take the blame for the majority of the site's content, all of which he creates because he loves you very, very much. (Although he loves nachos more. Sorry.) Prior to TRV, Luke wrote for publications that include the New Times LA, Los Angeles CityBeat, E! Online, OC Weekly, Geekweek, GeekChicDaily, The L.A. Times, The Village Voice, LA Weekly, and Nerdist