Snow White and the Inability to Pick a Struggle

Gal Gadot was somehow not the worst part of this.

I finally watched the remake of Disney’s Snow White today and feel totally justified in my choice not to drop real, American dollars to see this thing in theaters.

Yes, it’s as bad as everyone’s saying it is. I always hesitate to join in a pile-on, but this one was warranted. And since I’ve already dropped my manifesto on why I hate the live-action remake trend as a whole, I may as well tackle this universally reviled entry on its own.

First of all, our leading lady Rachel Zegler is innocent in all of this. She has indomitable charm and talent and whenever she’s singing, the film almost works. I will never forgive Disney for giving her those hacky talking points about the original 1937 being dated and then throwing her under the bus when the public understandably didn’t gel with it.

Snow White ‘37 is a product of its time, of course, but for the reason Disney thinks it is. A lot of these princess movie remakes seem to think that the only way to update these stories is to infuse some girl power into them. And by girl power, I mean whatever CEO Bob Iger thinks girls might find hashtag relatable. This is how we wound up with poor Rachel telling reporters that the new and improved Snow White isn’t sitting around waiting for true love.

Here’s the thing, though. The fact the Snow dreams of being saved by a handsome prince is not even in the top ten things in that movie that need updating. Snow is a bit of an undercooked character, sure, but her seven co-stars are all named after their one personality trait. The Evil Queen is another character whose name tells you everything you need to know. Same with the prince, who doesn’t have a name at all.

This is all because complex storytelling and character development wasn’t at the top of Snow White ‘37’s agenda. Walt Disney intentionally chose a simple, well-known fairy tale to serve as a framework in which he could showcase the full potential of animation. It’s a feature-length painting first and foremost and the storytelling that is accomplished is geared towards Depression-era audiences. Everything from the pacing to the music to the mid-film title cards is out of step with what 2025 audiences like to see.

So yes, Snow should be doing more than waiting for her prince and baking pies. Not just because that’s not what we want out of female leads anymore, but because we expect two-hour movies to be plot-driven with satisfying character arcs.

It’s a major overhaul, but not an unprecedented one.

Cinderella, which came out in 1950, was dated in almost identical ways to Snow White. You might not remember this, but that movie has way more mouse hijinks than you probably remember. Disney remade it about a decade ago and it was received much between than Snow White ‘25 was.

In my opinion, this is because it kind of wasn't a remake at all. Rather, it was totally new adaptation of the classic fairy tale. While it had that Disney touch as well as some subtle references to the 1950 film, it was allowed to build its own new world and expand and update the story in a way that didn’t feel forced or awkward.

Unfortunately, the whole ethos behind the live action remake venture has changed since Cinderella ‘15 dropped. Remakes now have to be a direct extension of the original’s brand and, in the case of girlboss princess films, engage in meta commentary on the story’s legacy.

(At the risk of becoming a full-time Bob Iger hate account, I’m tempted to drop an entire post-mortem about how straight up evil Beauty and the Beast ‘17 is. Thankfully, Lindsay Ellis articulated my grievances better than I ever could’ve.)

Remaking Snow White required the Cinderella ‘15 approach, but we’re living in Beauty and the Beast ‘17’s world. That’s the short answer of why it’s bad. The long answer is as follows:

I won’t talk much about Gal Gadot because she took the brunt of the pile-on, and rightfully so. Her performance as The Evil Queen, which included two songs for some reason, felt like something I needed to mark myself safe from on Facebook. It was not just something I watched, but something I endured.

That being said, she was among the more entertaining parts of the movie. Her awkward line-reads and bizarre physical acting choices were the stuff that hate-watching dreams are made of. She'd have a lot of potential as a camp icon if she wasn’t evil.

Gal aside, the issues with Snow White ‘25 boil down to the story itself. It feels like there are three versions of this story that Disney couldn’t choose between and just mashed them all together.

There’s a straightforward, shot-by-shot recreation of the 1937 film that peeks through on occasion. This wouldn’t have worked for all the reasons I already listed and Disney clearly knew that.

There also seems to have been a version where Snow embarks on a quest to find her father. This bubbled up just enough to where I was genuinely shocked by the reveal that he was dead.

The final version I gleaned, and the one I think would’ve worked the best, was a version where the dwarfs were cut from the story entirely and replaced the Jonathan (our prince stand-in) and his band of thieves. Any scene involving these characters felt most fleshed out and the most enjoyable. Jonathan (played by Andrew Burnap) was a fun addition to the story and his chemistry with Snow had a lot of potential.

I think this is the version they were running with when that “seven politically correct magical creatures” rumor was running around. I mean, that is them in the photo that was circulating around Reddit.

People seemed to believe that Disney backtracked on this because of the backlash, but I’m not convinced. And if you knew your Disney seven dwarfs IP lore, you wouldn’t be either.

(Short version: Disney has been trying for a very long time to fully capitalize on the seven dwarfs and if I’m being totally honest, I think they need to pack it in. It’s just not going to happen, guys. The dwarfs aren’t going to be your “Pixie Hollow for boys.”)

It is my theory that Disney shoehorned the dwarfs back into this movie as a final attempt to make their franchise wishes come true because even in this terrible movie, their segments are uniquely ass. Their antics feel totally out of place in this version of the story, which is wild because they used to be titular characters

They’re also just ugly. There’s not a more articulate way to say it. Many of them, like Grumpy, are basically 3D rendered versions of their 1937 selves but with human skin and pores grafted on. That’s the best case scenario. Dopey is the worst of the bunch because he just looks like an AI-generated guy.

And let me just say that even as a feminist, I would’ve rather heard Zegler sing “Someday My Prince Will Come” than the extended cut of “Heigh Ho” we were treated to instead. I spent that entire sequence wondering why we had to watch them zip through the diamond mines like it was a roller coaster before I realized I was watching an ad for the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at Walt Disney World. Synergy!

The dwarfs are handily the worst part of this movie, which is only fair because Gal Gadot gets to be the worst part of most of her other movies.

So what works here? Rachel Zegler is a star, like I’ve said, and the part with the thieves showed a lot of promise. The new music was pretty generic (a Pasek and Paul signature), but I did like “Waiting For a Wish” and thought it deserved a better movie.

Even though I didn’t see this in theaters, I was delighted to hear that it’s failure had caused Disney to reflect on if this whole remake thing was actually sustainable. This would’ve all been worth it if it had killed that trend once and for all.

But now Lilo and Stitch is somehow doing numbers. Like Sisyphus, I am in hell

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