Disney's Snow White 2025- Page 2

[degrassifan]

Posted: 8/14/24 at 10:05pm

The trailer looks magical and enchanting! I’m pretty excited for the movie! 
 

Not sure what people want from these Disney remakes. On one hand, if it strays too far from the animated version, people get mad. If it’s too close to the animated version, people still get mad. Can’t make everyone happy. 
 

Rachel Zegler was going to be hated by a certain group no matter what she did or said simply because she is half Hispanic. Just like Halle got so much hate. 
 

I hope this will end up like Cinderella. There’s so much room for plot expansion and character development. Plus, it’ll be a musical, so I’m excited to see how the new songs will mesh with the ones from 1937. 

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/14/24 at 10:20pm

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "I think there IS a way for these live-action remakes to be done artfully by the right people, this just ain't it.

There has to be a level of reimagining.

I just scrubbed through Disney+ and the original Disney movie is 83 minutes soaking wet. The woodsman tries to kill her at minute 8, she arrives at the Dwarves' house at minute 15. About half the songsare novelty numbers for the dwarfs. The leading character demonstrates a mental capacity of an eleven year old. Walt improved his formula on Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty.

There's a lot of room to expand!"

I mean I won't disagree but that discounts what is still so striking about it.  A lot of the cinematography--and certainly all the genuinely terrifying stuff with the Queen/Witch (and the chase in the woods) holds up so well next to ANY live action film of its time, if not better (this is true of all of the initial "great five" Disney features, when Walt was the most invested and was throwing time and money at the works with the hope of attracting the largest audience possible, and not just families--Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, even if that was done on a budget to try to recoup the huge losses from the films after Snow White, and Bambi.  Just stunning example of film work.) 

And the way that music is used--I realized the last time I watched it that it really in many ways is a full on operetta (complete with a lot of rhymed dialogue)--I'm not sure how Pasek and Paul will be able to fit in with this style--and of course Disney doesn't get credit for making sure the songs are relatively well integrated into the plot when that wasn't yet the musical standard.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 8/14/24 at 10:32pm

Eric, I don't disagree about the brilliant moments in the original like the ones you cited!! But then there are also multiple sequences that stop the action of the story and let the Dwarves do cleverly-animated antics. A remake doesn't erase what was good before, it just offers an alternative: one that can flesh out more of the story, which I'm sure this will do regardless of whether it's good or bad.

The score is definitely in the Jerome Kern/Victor Herbert mode, and Harry Stockwell (a Broadway operetta star of the 30s-40s and a replacement Curly in the original OK!) voices the prince.

For me, SLEEPING BEAUTY is the one that gets it the most right, from the delicious villain to the jawdropping animation to the adaptation of the score, and a leading lady with a little bit more agency.

[TaffyDavenport]

Posted: 8/15/24 at 12:31am

rosscoe(au) said: "I can live with Gal, but Rachel is sadly not very talented. She’s bland and that’s a crime worst than being bad."

I thought her debut in West Side Story was stunning, and she was also great in the Hunger Games film. She’s already been better than Gal has ever been, in my opinion.

Updated On: 8/15/24 at 12:31 AM

[degrassifan]

Posted: 8/15/24 at 2:29am

TaffyDavenport said: "rosscoe(au) said: "I can live with Gal, but Rachel is sadly not very talented. She’s bland and that’s a crime worst than being bad."

I thought her debut in West Side Storywas stunning, and she was also great in the Hunger Gamesfilm. She’s already been better than Gal has ever been, in my opinion."

Agreed. She also won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical for her first film ever. Also, remember she was cast in Snow White before West Side Story was even released. I think I remember reading that filmmakers saw scenes of Rachel in the yet-to-be-released West Side Story and cast her as Snow White, similar to how Robert Wise had cast Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music after watching rushes from the yet-to-be-released Mary Poppins (which she eventually won the Golden Globe for Best Actresss as well). 

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 8/15/24 at 3:07am

Pia Zadora won a Golden Glove as well, that’s not high praise. 

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/15/24 at 4:30am

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "Eric,I don't disagree about the brilliant moments in the original like the ones you cited!! But then there are also multiple sequences that stop the action of the story and let the Dwarves do cleverly-animated antics. A remake doesn't erase what was good before, it just offers an alternative: one that can flesh out more of the story, which I'm sure this will do regardless of whether it's good or bad.

The score is definitely in the Jerome Kern/Victor Herbert mode, and Harry Stockwell (a Broadway operetta star of the 30s-40s and a replacement Curly in the original OK!) voices the prince.

For me, SLEEPING BEAUTY is the one that gets it the most right, from the delicious villain to the jawdropping animation to the adaptation of the score, and a leading lady with a littlebit more agency."

And I absolutely agree with your points as well.  The Dwarves' comic scenes remind you that Disney was testing out how to do a feature with their Silly Symphony shorts which I love but often, despite mega hits like Three Little Pigs, would amount to something like 7 minutes of Easter bunnies doing cute gags involving painting Easter eggs, etc.Still, I think they more or less work (and smartly Disney did cut two additional Dwarf segments--one involving eating soup and the other involving building a large bed for Snow White, so even he must have realized they were becoming just filler.)

I also think Sleeping Beauty is the best of the older Princess films (interestingly, the stuff where Malificent has captured the prince was very closely taken from a sequence in Snow White that was storyboarded but cut early in the making.)  And yeah, Tchaikovsky's music (even if now it throws me to hear Puss in Boots music from the ballet used for the villain) and especially Eyvind Earle's gorgeous designs are a big part of it (and yeah both the princess and the prince seem to have more agency and just more to do than in the Snow White or even Cinderella even if they also sometimes feel like they escaped from a 1950s teen romance movie.)  Of course it went way over budget, took years to make partly because Walt was distracted by DIsneyland and moving more into live action, and was a big box office bomb (and critical bomb--critics at the time found it distanced and cold) but I think its legacy has more than made up for that.

And wow, never made the connection with Stockwell as Snow White's prince (who I don't think even HAS any dialogue really--he basically just seems to sing.)

 

[TaffyDavenport]

Posted: 8/15/24 at 8:29am

rosscoe(au) said: "Pia Zadora won a Golden Glove as well, that’s not high praise."

I agree that the Golden Globe doesn’t mean much, but Rachel was also named best actress by the National Board of Review that year.

Updated On: 8/15/24 at 08:29 AM

[Kad]

Posted: 8/15/24 at 9:30am

It’s easy to forget that Snow White was the first American animated feature film (and the most influential and widespread animated feature film of those very early ones). It has wonkiness because it had no template or precedent to follow- it was setting the rules as it went. The fact it holds up so well almost 90 years later is kind of remarkable. 

[MagicalMusical]

Posted: 8/16/24 at 1:03am

Aurora is probably the classic Walt era princess with the least agency. The only agency she seems to have is in trying to get her aunts to let her go with the man she loves, but even that gets squashed when she thinks she has to be betrothed to another guy.

Snow White actually has a lot of agency. She runs away from the evil Queen who is trying to kill her (even though she was told to do so), she asks animals where to stay and finds said place, and she thinks of ways for the people who own the home she found to let her stay. It is only in being so naive she gets poisoned that she is really bad in any way, I would say. Snow White is supposed to be 14, still a child, so of course she acts so mentally young in the original animated feature.

Cinderella has a lot of agency as well, and rivals Snow White, if Cinderella is not better. She pushes her stepmother to let her go to the ball, and works hard for it and tries to make her dress for it. When that gets sabotaged, yes, she must rely on a fairy godmother, prince, and animals, but she cleverly thinks of how to get the cat away so the animals can free her, and of using the other slipper to prove her identity and secure her happy ending.

Still, Snow White is the best of Walt's classic princess films. It has the most emotion. I feel bad and sad when Snow White, the innocent, gets poisoned. I feel so sad when the Dwarfs mourn her. And I feel so much joy when Snow White practically wakes from the dead and lives happily ever after.

Cinderella has near that much emotion, but not quite. And I would say Sleeping Beauty has less emotion than Snow White or Cinderella. Yes, I identify with the critics who find it distant and cold. Sure, Sleeping Beauty is the most beautiful of the films, but that's style over substance I say.

By the way, Sleeping Beauty was not quite a bomb. It was the most popular film after Ben-Hur of the year the films came out. Sleeping Beauty was just so expensive it couldn't make all its money back that year.

And yes, it's amazing Snow White still holds up all these years later. The fairest one of all. Certainly will remain fairer than this remake.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/16/24 at 5:36am

Fair enough, but how much agency does she have if a man violates her with a KISS when he thinks she's dead (a plot point of course borrowed from Sleeping Beauty by Disney.)?  ;)  (I'm kidding of course--I think the argument that started some years back that you had to make sure your kids knew that kisses needed consent was completely idiotic in this context.)

Variety at the time listed it as a box office bomb, but you're right of course that it actually did healthy enough business, it was just so expensive (due to the production time, using 70mm--Lady and the Tramp had been in CinemaScope but that was a cheaper process,) stereo, etc...

[degrassifan]

Posted: 8/16/24 at 6:07pm

I would say Cinderella had the most agency out of the Walt era princesses, while her prince was the least developed male lead. Sleeping Beauty had the princess with the least agency, but the most developed prince. Snow White was more middle ground.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 8/16/24 at 11:59pm

I'm gonna be that dude and ask why a thread for a movie is on the main board and not the off-topic board. 

[MagicalMusical]

Posted: 8/17/24 at 12:22am

I agree with all that, EricMontreal22, including how ridiculous it is for the man Snow White loves to need consent to kiss her.

I wish I could agree Cinderella has the most agency of the Walt princesses, degrassifan, but Snow White may have more. I just feel Snow White really takes care of herself up until that apple bit. At least Cinderella tried to get to that ball!

[degrassifan]

Posted: 8/17/24 at 12:51am

CarlosAlberto said: "I'm gonna be that dude and ask why a thread for a movie is on the main board and not the off-topic board."

It's a movie musical. 

MagicalMusical, I saw a video once where Walt compared Cinderella to Snow White, and he said, “She [Cinderella] believed in dreams, all right, but she also believed in doing something about them. When Prince Charming didn't come along, she went right over to the palace and got him.”

[MagicalMusical]

Posted: 8/17/24 at 12:59am

Yup, degrassifan, I have seen that clip, too! It's one of my favorite Cinderella-related clips! But I must say, I never agreed with it, it was Cinderella's fairy Godmother who got her to the ball! Of course, it was because Cinderella was kind, and had faith in her dreams, that she got rewarded with it. Snow White still ran away from someone who wanted to murder her and found a way to live safe and happily!

EricMontreal22, I forgot to mention, the awakening kiss seems to be taken from the Grimm's Briar Rose where the Prince kisses Briar Rose's hand and she wakes up.

Updated On: 8/17/24 at 12:59 AM

[Theatrefan2]

Posted: 8/17/24 at 4:27am

Youtube recommended a good (if long) video on the dosney princesses and how ridiculous a lot of the criticism is against them. I agreed with most of it.

It never stops surprising me how people don't understand simple fairytales.  Even the creators of Bad Cinderella and CHF went on about how the original was about wanting a man etc and it clearly isn't.

https://youtu.be/pbzxv_J6QzM?si=oD6LZYyZm8ZWOP4p

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 8/17/24 at 7:17am

 

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 8/17/24 at 6:25pm

degrassifan said: "CarlosAlberto said: "I'm gonna be that dude and ask why a thread for a movie is on the main board and not the off-topic board."

It's a movie musical.

You'd think at my age I would have gotten the memo. Never mind us old folks. Carry on, youngins...