To be fair, I have thought a lot of this movie and found the conclusion that Disney does neither understand the old animated movies nor the original fairy tales.
If you do a twisted fairy tale movie, okay all right, then use a different name, as was done with Frozen or Tangled or "Mirror, Mirror" and whatever. Of course, Disney movies are always different, but there is a high responsibility as they are regarded as cultural representation, and as a German, I really want to talk about this controversy. All right, if you need to change the back story of the name Snow White, why not simply introduce a real name. Dwarfs in fairy tales are of course not the same as people with dwarfism, and so the CGI idea with also introducing a human actor with dwarfism (with even a heroic task) could have worked, but removing simply the word dwarf does not help. How odd, as usually Disney is so careful of historical accuracy, there is silence about the obvious German connotations of both 1937 movie and the original tale. Although the love story with a guy called Jonathan is more contemporary elaborated than the insta-meet-cute with her prince, it can not evoke the same emotions as the 1937 movie. CGI animals are cute, but seriously? Snow was already in 1937 a leading lady and strong character, but Walt Disney decided to focus on a decision for love instead of power or ambition, so the political-moral connotations in this new movie are rather more backwarded than they actually are thinking. Although going the safe way with keeping definitely surprisingly many things intact from the 1937 movie, even with an old-fashioned fairy tale book opening and taking something from Cinderella live action - with amazing brightness and cheerfulness, it soon goes away from the old story into a world of reimagining. It makes me think of "Mirror, Mirror" with touch of the Disney Robin Hood and Tangled movies (and a bit of the German Simsala Grimm Schneewittchen version!), yet failing to showcase the kindness Snowy is constantly talking about. There could have made better use of the original tales (Brothers Grimm, but also tradition of Ludwig Bechstein, Johann Musäus and Ludwig Albert Grimm). Never much exploring the original characters, but somehow throwing in Jonathan's seven bandits as MIRRORED version to the dwarfs (these were the first version leaked, which turns out not to be the 7 "dwarfs",which is a good attempt to keep up a mirror structure of the main Disney couple), but so random named (Bingley?? Norwich??? Why???). Anyway, the music is charming, but reminds with "let go, let glow" too much of you know what I mean, also such like a reminiscence "Waiting on a Miracle" from Encanto. The spectacular musical scenes are very good, but a big contrast to the quiet cottage-core feeling of the 1937 movie In fact, it's a twisted remix, just like a rock/pop version of a music piece by Mozart. It might be worth as an idea offering enjoyable moments and tunes, but considering it as improvement is insane. Just like Enchanted was already a reimagining of Snow White, this is also another one and should be called in my opinion perhaps "Mirrored". An interesting advertisement campaign for the old movie and related products through reverse psychology. Particularly, too many mixed ideas. "Strong independent" - but princess -, still not as daring as in Mirror, Mirror, here in a child costume advertisement spot, and let's not forget that girl empowerment does not work this way with an anachronistic understanding of monarchy (Disney Queen franchise?), and let us simply dream, not be lessoned...
