DVD Review: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney's first ever feature length animated movie, was recently released on DVD once again, though this time it's packed with two Blu-ray discs, one containing the film and one containing a bunch of extra features, such as:
- Disney Family Play
- What Do You See? - Decipher the scrambled image
- Mirror, Mirror On The Wall - Which Princess are you most like?
- Jewel Jumble - Test your matching skills
- Backstage Disney
- Snow White Returns - Newly discovered storyboards. Was Walt planning a Snow White sequel?
- Hyperion Studios - Explore Walt's original studio
- The One That Started It All - See how Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs forever changed the world of movies
- Exclusive Sneak Peek At Walt Disney Picture's The Princess And The Frog
- Classic Bonus Features
- Dopey's Wild Mine Ride Game
- "Heigh-Ho" Karaoke Sing-along
- Disney Through The Decades
Why do I mention these here at the beginning of the review instead of at the end like normal? Because these are all on the second Blu-ray disc, not on the DVD, and since I do not yet have a Blu-ray player, I can not yet watch them. The only extra features on the DVD, besides the typical previews (which hardly count), are a sneak peak at The Princess And The Frog (which is worth mentioning because the preview is like seven minutes long), a music video by Tiffany Thornton, and a feature length commentary by Walt Disney, which is pretty amazing when you think about it since the guy passed away long before DVD commentaries ever existed.
Next I'd like to mention the packaging. There are two different versions, one a Blu-ray case and one a DVD case, and each has different cover art. The Blu-ray case features the old witch with her bright red poison apple front and center with smaller picture of Snow White directly underneath. The DVD case switches the two, putting a larger Snow White front and center, which is the version I have and I personally think it looks much better. The outer cardboard protector has various foil embossing in different areas with different colors which just ends up making the thing look beautiful.
Okay, on to the movie. So you probably know the story already. Before watching it, I thought I knew just the basics and was missing a lot, but after watching it, I realized nope, what I thought was the basics was actually the entire story... as there isn't much story here. The princess Snow White has an evil stepmother queen who gets all jealous after a magic mirror says that Snow White is hotter than her, so she orders a hunter to kill her stepdaughter... talk about overreacting! The hunter can't go through with it and just sends Snow White away into the forest where she eventually finds a house and makes herself at home.
The the owners of the house, the seven dwarfs, come home and totally freak, but because she's hot they totally accept her. Then the evil queen learns from the mirror that Snow White is still alive, so devises an odd plan to get rid of Snow White in the form of conjuring up a magic poison apple that will put Snow White in a coma state until she is kissed by her true love. Erm... okay, she couldn't just use arsenic or something? Why go through all that trouble of making a magic poison which can be easily overturned when you can just use a normal poison that will make the kill permanent?
Anyway, that's about the whole story right there, so there's a whole bunch of filler content to get a running time of 84 minutes. Snow White running through the forest, Snow White and her animal pals cleaning the house, the dwarfs trying to figure out who was in her house, and the dwarfs washing up for dinner are all good examples of scenes that, to me, went on a lot longer than they needed to be. Another thing that I didn't remember was how annoying Snow White's singing voice is. Even my wife was shocked.
On the good side, the movie is beautiful. The film was obviously restored and corrected, because the colors are bright and crisp and and it looks so clean. Words can hardly do it justice. So even if there isn't much story going on, just watching the animation is entertaining enough. I would love to see the old Transformers cartoon given this kind of treatment. I can only imagine what it would look like on a Blu-ray player.
So there it is. Snow White. You know it. I would have liked more story, but you probably love it. This is a great version of the film, but lacks the expected extra features unless you happen to own a Blu-ray player.
