1 - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
All right! number 1. This is the one that started it all. By that
I mean every Disney princess trope imaginable. Now, I can't remember
if I had seen this before or if I had just heard about it enough over
the years to make it feel like I had seen it but either way it was
definitely interesting to watch.
My first thought was "hooooly crap is this old fashioned"
and that thought never really went away but it was also kind of
refreshing. The story is just absurdly simple. Evil queen/stepmother
is jealous of Snow White's beauty so she tries to get her murdered.
Snow White escapes and meets a bunch of dwarfs. Evil queen manages to
“kill” Snow White but ends up getting herself killed as well in
the process. Finally, true love's kiss revives Snow White. Happily
ever after.
I'm sure I didn't need to really recap all of that but it really
does strike me as strange as that's all that really happens in a
little over an hour. I'm also oversimplifying it but there really
isn't any character development except possibly in the case of Grumpy
(who gets less grumpy?). That's not to say the characters aren't
interesting in many ways. Snow White is super likeable, friends with
animals, hopeful and still has a bit of a motherly side. That said,
she would not fly today. She is way too perfect and she doesn't
really need to overcome any obstacles.
The evil queen is still pretty scary. That is really cool. I
didn't realize until I was watching it again but she didn't just want
Snow White dead, she wanted the huntsman to cut out her heart and put
it in a tiny box. That's some crazy crap. Her motivations for killing
Snow White aren't fantastic but they squarely put her in the crazy
evil side so I can't complain.
And finally the dwarfs. I mean, they were cute, they did what
they had to in the story which was basically make Snow White look
good. They were funny and all their personalities really made each of
them interesting but clearly they were there mostly for comic relief.
Hell, at the end Snow White up and abandons them right after she gets
revived. Again, I can't complain. The movie was only a little over an
hour, which is not a lot of time to develop seven different
characters so it makes sense that they only really focus on a few of
them consistently.
I definitely can't complain about the music. Sure, it's also
pretty old fashioned and the lyrics are overly optimistic and
sentimental but that's kind of the point of fairy tales. The one
thing I could do without was that weird old style of singing where
every note they sang (Snow White in particular) had just wayy too
much vibrato. I sounded a bit too much like someone was shaking them
sometimes.
So all in all, it was a cute little old fashioned animated movie.
I feel a bit bad talking about character development and things like
that because it clearly wasn't a goal for the creators back then.
After watching the movie I can clearly see why it's still considered
a classic. For all it's faults it did do some things really well.
It's themes are things that people still talk about today. The idea
that true beauty isn't just skin deep and comes from within. The idea
that friendship and love can overcome anything. Those are things that
really make these movies special to me and I'm excited to keep
getting to see them.
In any case, 1 Down. 52 to go.
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