Sleeping Beauty...

For about the first 10 years of my life, my favorite movie was Sleeping Beauty, no question about it. To this day, I still love it. It is definitely one of my favorites of the classic Disneys. Being all grown up however, has led me to realize that Sleeping Beauty has some very non-typical character structures for a Disney movie. Have any of you noticed that throughout the majority of the film, the plot does not follow that of the title character or her handsome prince, but of the doings of the three good fairies? Aurora and Philip really only speak within one twenty minute section of the movie, they're in it for quite a bit more, but they for some reason never speak. Aurora never speaks after getting the bad news that she won't be able to see the man she met in the forest again. This does seem odd, but considering for the majority of the rest of the film she's either depressed or asleep, it's not too unbelievable. Philip however doesn't speak after he tells his father that he's going to marry a peasant girl. It is a few minutes later in the film than Aurora, but he actually has quite a few scenes in which the characters around him speak, but he remains silent. Maleficent taunts him with a tale of his possible future, and the fairies talk to him and guide him out of Maleficent's prison to the castle, but the whole time, he doesn't even let out a heroic yell as he rides to his love's side. I've even heard rumors that the prince's odd silence is because the voice actor died halfway through, but a little research on the Internet Movie Database says that he didn't die until about twenty years after the movie was released.
Why the writers didn't give the main characters more lines is unclear, but it obviously wasn't too bad of a move since it took me 19 years and probably around 500 views to notice.
One more thing, Sleeping Beauty and her prince aren't the only characters to stay silent for most of the movie. The Queen has one line in the first five minutes ("and you aren't offended your excellency") and then never speaks again, not even after seeing her daughter for the first time after 16 years.