joevitus said: "GiantsInTheSky2 said: "
Do you also find the 1939 Wizard of Oz film to be “an insult” to L Frank Baum? Or the same for Wicked to MGM? Is Black Ariel a slap in the face to Disney’s 1989 animated classic? How about Disney’sDescendants series?"
Tremendously bad analogies. Neither of those movies was a live action remake of a beloved cartoon reproducing the look of said cartoon. The point is, this movie's whole reason for being is people's love for the original, and seeing that original "come to life" in live action. That's the point behind each of these live-action remakes. So to radically change the meaning isn't just to come up with a variation on the Grimm's Brothers' tale (as Sondheim did with various stories inInto the Woods) but to hold out the promise for one kind of thing and replace it with another.
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I agree. If I am seeing the live action version of Disney's Snow White, I want to see Disney's Snow White. In live action.
I don't want to see Snow White, Part Deux, "with a modern 2025 sensibility." In other words, Snow White, with the subscript "Without the Romance (we don't need it, it's 2025), Without the Kiss (we don't need it, it's 2025), and No Prince Need Apply (he isn't needed, it's 2025)."
It's no longer Disney's Snow White then.
If you want a story like that, create a different movie with an empowered princess. And make it your own. Don't sell something as the beloved classic, tied specifically to a beloved and known Disney product, and then change the story around. If someone wants to go back to the original fairy tale and make it their own with no allusions to the Disney version, go for it.
It will be interesting to see how this movie fares. It might do okay. But if it doesn't, it will be ironic to see that while the original was being mocked by the woman playing the lead in this "refreshed" version of the movie, it will be the one that still lasts. It will be the present one that doesn't stand the test of time.
And the former, which had that "weird" and "stalking" prince (who the actress currently playing the role noted could have been left on the cutting room floor, along with the actor playing him, and it wouldn't have been a big deal) was made almost 90 years ago.
Which is a true testimony to the "dead for 60 years" Walt, and how ingenious his products really were. Despite his flaws.
And yes, we know, he had them. So do all of us.
To inject race into the discussion on Snow White though is irrelevant. But if it does need to come into play, Walt did employ diversity at his studio, including Blacks, Latinos, Jews and women. Were the numbers disproportionate to the number of white men and women working for him? Yes. But he didn't exclude people. As Floyd Norman, a Black animator who worked for Walt noted, " “Walt Disney was a man of his time, but he was determined not to be imprisoned by it. He dreamed of a better world and had the audacity to try to build it.”
I worked for Disney for ten years and met many people who had worked for and with Walt while he was still alive. A truly diverse group of people. And all of them had nothing but praise for him. There will always be those who can find faults in him, just as faults and flaws lie within all of us. That doesn't change my feelings for the man. He was human.
Updated On: 3/21/25 at 01:02 PM