A powerful fairy named Maleficent lives in the Moors, a magical forest realm bordering a corrupt human kingdom. As a young girl, she befriends and falls in love with a human peasant boy named Stefan (Michael Higgins), whose affection for Maleficent is overshadowed by his ambition to become king. As the two grow older, they become estranged, and Maleficent becomes the protector of the Moors. When King Henry (Kenneth Cranham) tries to conquer the Moors, Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) commands primeval forces and makes him retreat. Mortally wounded in battle, he declares that whoever kills Maleficent will be named his successor and will marry Princess Leila, his only daughter.
Stefan (Sharlto Copley) visits Maleficent in the Moors and drugs her, but cannot bring himself to kill her. Instead, he uses a chain made of iron, which burns fairies, to cut off Maleficent's wings which he then presents to the dying king as evidence…show more content… Bent on revenge, Maleficent crashes the event 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 the three pixies - Knotgrass (Imelda Staunton), Thistlewit (Juno Temple), and Flittle (Lesley Manville) - 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 soldiers to hunt and kill Maleficent, but she surrounds the Moors with an impenetrable wall of thorns. As the years go by, King Stefan descends into madness in his obsession with killing Maleficent and even refuses to see his wife, Queen Leila, who is on her