"... and they lived happily ever after."
Hello everyone!
As if I could just let the insult that is the 2025 version slide without touching the original.
And even then, the ACTUAL original is a fairy tale written way back when!
But I digress.
Back in the days before WWII, Disney decided it was going to try and launch this whole animation shindig.
This was the tale they chose to do it with.
They were so successful that they've been regularly pumping out animated features about "their" princesses ever since!
So remember to stay away from perfect-looking, delicious apples, and let's have a look at Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs!
This Disney adaptation is the one every single other adaptation has tried to emulate, but ultimately (usually) failed because they also kept trying to change things. The original one makes things rather easy, non complicated, and so very straight-forward!
Snow White, the princess of an unnamed kingdom, is named because at birth - aka, the birth that was incredibly wished for by her parents - her hair is super dark, her lips are red, her skin is white as snow. She's the apple of her father's eye, pun intended, although sadly by the time we clock into the story the only parent she has is her wicked stepmother.
Said stepmother, obsessed with beauty, dresses the girl in rags and forces her to clean like a servant, in the hopes that people won't notice how cute she is, but the joke's on her, because just singing by the well in the courtyard has Snow White attracting the attention of a prince who just HAPPENS to be riding by at the time.
This opening song of the musical is probably my favourite of the entire thing, and I love how Snow White first runs off in fright, then fluffs up her raggy clothes to re-appear on the balcony LOL.
Anyway, her stepmom has this magic mirror she always asks about who's the fairest, and naturally one day the mirror's like, woman u gettin old, dis kid cuter.
The queen? Goes ballistic.
She orders the huntsman to take her stepdaughter into the woods and kill her, bringing her heart back as proof, but as the huntsman isn't completely bonkers, he instead repents, shoos Snow White into the forest, and brings the queen the heart of a pig.
Poor Snow White has an over-active imagination and the forest terrifies her, until she manages to calm down and realizes the forest animals are all just curious and want to help her. They lead her to a cottage in the middle of the wood, the owners of which just do NOT care for personal hygiene or cleanliness at all. To allow her to stay, Snow White cleans the place up with the help of her animal friends, then falls asleep.
The seven Dwarfs who live in the cottage are miners, and return home to find the princess sleeping across their beds. Grumpy is the only one who is REALLY against her staying, considering the queen will absolutely lose her mind if she ever finds out, but the rest allow it, and they develop a routine in which Snow White takes care of the home and them (easy after having to clean the huge castle all the while!) and they go off to work.
As for the queen, obviously the mirror isn't fooled, and reveals that Snow White is still alive, so she sweeps down into the dungeons dramatically with her cape to transform herself into an old biddy, poisoning an apple and heading out to give it to Snow White.
The only cure for the spell is love's first kiss, but she's confident that even IF someone were to love Snow White so much to cure her, she'd be buried long before they figured it out, and so it's moot point!
Snow White, initially hesitant about the old woman, defends her fiercely when said old woman gets attacked and pecked by the forest animals who sense a trap. Since they realize the silly human fell for it, they switch gears and rush to get the Dwarfs.
These guys ALSO take forever to put two and two together, but when they do, they become rather terrifying as they hurry back home, led by Grumpy, who used to be Snow White's biggest nay-sayer.
Of course, by the tie they arrive, the apple's already done it's work, but they spy the old woman hurrying away, and charge after her with anger and dangerous intent. Trying to escape them, the queen climbs a steep slope and attempts to loosen a rock to send crashing into them, but instead, when lightning strikes, she slips and loses her footing, and the rock splats onto her down into the ravine.
Thus out of the picture, the scene shifts to the Dwarfs again who, seeing Snow White's loveliness even in death, couldn't bring themselves to bury her, so they fashion a gold and glass casket for the princess instead, and sit vigil around it (the scenes of Grumpy crying are HEARTBREAKING).
The prince, who's been searching far and wide for the girl he saw that one time, finally stumbles over the scene, and kisses her farewell in sadness.
This breaks the spell, and everyone's overjoyed when Snow White wakes up!
She waves the Dwarfs goodbye as the prince takes her to his castle, pictured in the clouds, and they live happily ever after.
The end!
Short, sweet, and to the point, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs manages to not only capture the hearts of viewers but also convey the message it wants: that beauty comes from within, not without (but the one without is also pretty nifty to have, while you're at it, apparently LOL).
Funnily enough, the thing I forgot because it's been FOREVER since I've watched this, is that Snow White and the evil queen never actually face each other, as that wasn't the thing that happened in these old animations. All the new books focus on how the princess stands up to the queen at the end after the curse is lifted, but here in the original, by the time Snow White awakens, the queen is already dead!
And to be honest, they don't NEED to face off. It's completely moot point, as Snow White gets her happy ending without that as well.
... needless to say that there's also plenty of people who believe the final shot of the castle in the clouds signifies the princess actually died, and the prince was an angel taking her to Heaven, but that's something I'll leave up to you to interpret as you will.
All in all, no adaptation can ever come close to the 1937 original cartoon, so I'm definitely sticking to this one as my preferred version! Especially since the queen never sings in this one, yet is MORE than suitably terrifying.
xx
*images and video not mine
** side note, if a lot of the scenes seem familiar, like the dancing one and whatnot, it's because they were re-used later in the Robin Hood feature
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