When “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was released by Disney in 1937, it was revolutionary in ways that are hard to wrap your head around nowadays. Not only was it the studio’s first feature length film, it was the first animated feature film period. With this movie, Walt Disney’s dream of animation being more than just the funny shorts that played before live action films was realized, and almost 90 years later animation is still around as a medium that anyone can enjoy. It was also the highest-grossing animated film for over 50 years; adjusted for inflation, it’s still the highest. Of course, Disney is still around, too and has transitioned from a humble animation studio into the biggest entertainment company in the world. With that transition comes a decision that I believe is a slap in the face to its founder and namesake.
This coming March, Disney will release a live action adaptation of “Snow White,” following in the footsteps of its successful adaptations of classics such as “Aladdin” and “The Lion King.” While those versions are harmless enough, with their all-star casts doing their best to work with what they have and their renditions of the famous songs being good enough, this is the adaptation that I believe has gone too far. It’s no secret that Disney as a company loves money, but this is the first time that I believe their desire for it has blinded them from realizing how bad of an idea this film was. The live action “Snow White” has attracted its fair share of controversies in the run up to its release, from leads Rachel Zegler and Gal Gadot’s conflicting political views to the choice to use CGI dwarfs instead of casting people with dwarfism, but beyond all of those things is what I believe is the biggest controversy of all: Disrespecting Disney’s legacy.
When the original “Snow White” was in production, no one thought that a full-length animated movie could be done. They thought that Walt Disney would forever be stuck making animated shorts to play before the actual movies, and that it was a terrible idea to think bigger. Production was quite tedious, and “Disney’s Folly” circulated around the studio as a nickname for what they were sure would be a disaster that no one would see. But against all odds, it was finished, it came out, and it was a tremendous success. As hard as it is to imagine, any animation you love today that stretches longer than 7 or 8 minutes wouldn’t exist without “Snow White.”
Furthermore, Disney has always been a game changer when it comes to animation as a medium. From “The Rescuers Down Under” being the first movie to use digital animation techniques to “Tangled,” their first CGI movie, managing the impossible feat of animating Rapunzel’s hair, they’ve always pushed boundaries and made movies that, whatever their faults, still looked impressive. So committed to this mission were they that they bought the only company who could surpass them, Pixar, for billions, and they put them to work helping out their studio so they could stay the animation giant that they still are.
To me, making a live action version of the movie that proved that animation could work in a longer form is incredibly disrespectful. I wouldn’t be surprised if Walt rolled in his grave when it was announced. Nevermind the fact that the movie will apparently be making multiple changes, as indicated by Zegler saying last year that she found the original movie “creepy” and that she assumes Snow White got “stalked” by the Huntsman. Disney’s live action remakes have long turned their princesses into cookie cutter, “perfect,” yet boring shells in an attempt to be feminist– most infamously with “Mulan,” and I have no doubt this will be true of this adaptation as well.
Instead of seeing the remake when it comes out in March, watch the original on Disney+. Although it undoubtedly shows its age, it still holds up almost 90 years later– something that this version will never be able to accomplish.
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