Snow White
Disney has released the first full trailer for Snow White, the live-action remake of the 1937 animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It’s one of the most egregiously awful trailers I’ve ever laid eyes on. From the nightmarish CGI dwarfs to the oversaturated visuals to the bizarre casting choices, Snow White combines everything wrong with modern filmmaking into one hideous monstrosity—a film that may go down as the straw that broke the Mouse’s back, once and for all.
That would be just fine. If Disney loses hundreds of millions on Snow White, maybe they’ll stop churning out this low-effort garbage. Maybe some soul-searching will take place. Right now, the formula over at Disney seems to be pretty straightforward:
Take a beloved classic animated film and turn it into a live-action version with lots and lots of CGI. Recast the leads to fit DEI quotas, spend absolutely no effort on a decent script but still make enormous changes to the original so that it conforms to the current political zeitgeist. Send celebrity cast out on a press tour with a shovel to dig their own proverbial graves, which they will no doubt manage with flying colors. Release a subpart product that nobody likes as much as the original despite the utterly forgettable new songs. When it bombs at the box office, hide behind the diverse casting, blaming “haters and bigots” to deflect legitimate criticism and clumsily explain poor numbers.
Rinse and repeat.
This certainly seems to be what’s happening with Snow White. The film is oozing CGI to the point where it’s hard to even look at in the trailer. Rachel Zegler is hardly white as snow and, worse, she’s been one of the most notoriously tone-deaf Hollywood stars during her press tour for the film. Just from the trailer we can tell that they’re completely changing the 1937 script so that Snow White can be the vanquishing hero. She talks about “restoring our kingdom” and so forth. Surely, she’ll rescue Prince Charming from the evil witch in the end.
I’m all for stories with tough princesses, but are we really so sure that female audiences don’t enjoy a charming prince showing up to save the princess also from time to time? I know certain people will tell you that it’s all very sexist and backwards to have princes and knights saving princesses and damsels in distress, but I’m not sure the majority of people actually believe that.
In any case, there are certainly stories that retell the Snow White fable with her taking on a more warrior-like role, such as Snow White and the Huntsman, and I’m fine with that. But what’s the point of remaking the 1937 film if you completely change the story in the process? Regardless, it looks genuinely bad, a hodge-podge of ideas and overly aggressive CGI and at least one new totally humdrum song. The movie comes out next March. I do not have high hopes.
At some point Disney needs to start considering its legacy. Not just this corporate, tokenistic diversity drive they’re so hellbent to pursue regardless of what audiences think, but the legacy of their films and what their stewardship of these films and characters and stories will be. There will be a reckoning.
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