Introduction
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the first American animated feature film, the first animated feature film by Walt Disney Productions, and the first traditionally animated film. It is adapted from the Grims' Fairy Tale. This movie was released around the 20th anniversary of animated feature films. Excluding the Academy Award Review of Walt Disney Cartoons, this movie was also the tenth animated feature film.
Synopsis
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs opens with a storybook with the title of the movie on it. It opens up and the first page is shown. It reads, "Once upon a time, there lived a lovely little Princess named Snow White. Her vain and wicked Stepmother the Queen feared that some day, Snow White's beauty would surpass her own. So she dressed the little Princess in rags and forced her to work as a Scullery Maid." The whole story could have been avoided if the Queen had just killed her before the story. Why did the Queen think that rags would change the beauty of someone? It's really stupid. Anyway, the page turns and it reads, "EACH DAY the vain Queen consulted her Magic Mirror. 'Magic Mirror on the Wall, Who is the fairest of them all?', Snow White was safe from the Queen jealousy."
The scene fades to show a castle. It then pan-fades to show a window on the castle. It then continues to pan fade until the Queen is shown walking towards her black mirror. She stops at the mirror and summons the slave in the mirror. Yes, slave. This is what she refers to him as. Once he, a face, appears, she statse her famously misquoted line, "Magic Mirror on the Wall, Who is the fairest of them all?" Unnessarly descriptively, the slave in the Magic Mirror is told that the fairest of them all is Snow White. The Queen is surpised at this result.
The scene then shows Snow White washing a step with some birds. She is humming. She then walks over to the well to get more water. She asks the birds if they want to hear a secret and they shake their heads to indicate, "yes". She then asks if they promise not to tell anyone and they shake their heads to indicate, "yes". She then tells the birds, while singing, that they are standing by a wishing well. She says that all they have to do is throw a wish into the well. She says that if you here it echoing, then the wish will soon come true. She says, "I'm wishing..." and an echo returns it. She continues "...for the one I love to find me..." and the echo returns with "to find me". She continues, "...today." The echo returns it. She continues, "I'm hoping..." The echo returns it. She continues, "...and I'm dreaming..." As she continues, a prince on a horse rides to a wall. She says, "...of the nice things..." the echo returns, "the nice things". She continues, "...he'll say." and the echo returns it. She then sings into the well and the echo returns it. As she is doing this, the prince climbs over the wall. She repeats the process until she reaches, "today". After she says it, the prince appears and sings it. Snow White is surprised to see him. He greets her. She says, "Oh." and starts running. He asks, "Did I frighten you?" As she is running he says, "Wait. Wait, please." She runs to a door and closes it. He says, "Don't run away." She looks out her window. He serenades her. As he does this, she walks out onto her balcony. It pans to show the Queen watching this, unhappily. She closes the curtains and it returns to the prince's serende.
In the next scene, the Queen tells the Huntsman to take Snow White far into the forest, where she can pick some flowers. Here, he is to kill Snow White. This shocks the huntsman. She reminds the huntsman that he knows the penalty if he fails. She tells him that to ensure that he has actually killed her, he is to bring back her heart in a box.
In the next scene, Snow White is picking flowers and singing. She stops when she sees a baby bird, looking for its parents. While Snow White talks with the bird, the huntsman takes the opportunity to attempt to murder her. She screams, but he is unable to do it. He explains that the Queen is gone crazy because of her jealousy towards Snow White's beauty. He tells her to run away and she listens to him. She runs through a scary forest until she finds herself to frightened to move. She falls and cries on the ground. The light starts to shine in the spot, where she landed. Several animals look to see what's going on. After a whole scene involving Snow White getting acquainted with the animals, she is shown a small cottage. She looks to see if anyone is inside. There isn't anyone. She knocks on the door. No one answers. She opens the door and asks if anyone is home. There is still no answer. She then walks in. I think I should say something about this, but I don't think I need to. Anyway, she finds a small chair and sits in it. She notices six more chairs and thinks they are all for children. She notices how untidy and dirty everything is. She then believes that these seven children are orphans. She then cleans the house with the animals. She also sings a song. She does this because she believes this will let her stay if she cleans the house.
Meanwhile, in a mine, seven dwarves are mining for crystals, while singing. Eventually, it is quitting time. They do the shift ending responsibilities and walk home, singing the same song.
Back at the cottage, Snow White goes upstairs to see what's there. She sees seven beds all with the names of the "children" on them. She then says that she is feeling sleepy and falls asleep on Dopey, Sneezy, and Happy's beds. Soon, the dwarves arrive. They see that the light is lit at their house, which is the cottage. They enter the house to see that everything is clean and that the dishes are put away. They don't like this because they have gotten used to this. For some reason, the birds play tricks on the dwarves, making them think there's a monster. They send Dopey to investigate. He sees what he thinks is a monster, but is really just Snow White stretching. He then screams, in a voice that I don't think fits his character. Anyway, he returns downstair and Doc translates the movements of Dopey to say that there is a monster in the beds. They all go up to want to kill the monster, but when they get there, they find out that she is just a woman. She wakes up and they hide. The rest of the scene is then just them introducing themselves to her. Snow White remembers that she was cooking soup for the dwarves. She runs down to serve the dwarves. They run down to eat, but she stops them and tells them to wash their hands. The next scene is them doing that while singing.
Meanwhile, back at the castle, the Queen asks who the fairest of them all is now. The slave in the Magic Mirror says that Snow White still is and after the Queen says that she has Snow White's heart in the box, the slave in the Magic Mirror says that the heart is a pig's heart. In his weird riddle-like way of conveying information, he reveals the location of Snow White. Anyway, the Queen is angry that Snow White is still alive. She goes down to her alchemy lab, where she gets a book to disguise herself. She makes a potion to turn her into an ugly peddler. She drinks the potion and is transformed into the ugly peddler. The Peddler then finds the perfect way to kill Snow White, which is a poison apple, which will send her into Sleeping Death.
Back at the cottage, the Dwarves and Snow White have fun and dance and sing around. At the end of the fun, Snow White sings a song about how she will be happy when her prince comes to save her. After she is done, it is 11:00 PM, which is bedtime. She tells them to go off to bed. Doc says that Snow White should sleep there and they will sleep downstairs. This then happens even though only three of them would actually need to sleep downstairs.
Back with the Peddler, she is putting the apple into the potion. She then takes it out and soon after, the potion seeps into the apple, making it pure red. She then checks to see if there is any way to break the spell. She sees that it can only be broken by love's first kiss, which is not to be confused with love's true kiss from Sleeping Beauty. The Peddler says that there is no way of that happening because the Dwarves will bury her. She leaves her alchemy lab with a basket of apples, cackling. She goes down to a boat and starts rowing away from the castle. She then stops when she reaches land and starts walking towards the cottage.
The next day, it is time for the Dwarves to go to work. Snow White says good-bye to each of the Dwarves by kissing them on the forehead. Grumpy warns her not to let anyone into the house. Later, she makes a gooseberry pie while singing. The Peddler arrives at the house. She asks what Snow White is doing and she says making gooseberry pies. The Peddler says that what men want is apple pies. She then offers Snow White an apple. She says they look delicous and the Peddler tells her to taste an apple. The birds see vultures nearby and realize the Peddler is the Queen. They start attacking her, but Snow White tells them to stop. The Peddler says that her heart is hurting and that she needs to be brought inside for some rest and water. Snow White does so. The animals then run to the mine and start dragging them towards the cottage. The dwarves think the animals have gone crazy.
Back at the cottage, the Peddler says that becuase Snow White has been so good to her, the Peddler will share a secret. She says that the apple is actually a magic apple and that if Snow White bites into it, her wishes will come true.
Back at the mine, Sleepy believes the animals are acting this way because the Queen is attacking Snow White. The other Dwarves agree and start running towards their cottage.
Back at the cottage, the Peddler gives Snow White the apple and tells her to make a wish. She starts to make her wish, but it is cut with showing the race back to the cottage. It cuts back to the cottage and she finishes her wish. The Peddler tells Snow White to take a bite. She does so and is "killed". The Peddler walks out of the house as it starts to rain. She sees the Dwarves and runs. For some reason, the Dwarves assume the Peddler is the Queen and chase after her. The Peddler climbs up some rocks until she reaches a cliff. The Dwarves follow after her. The Peddler tries to stop them will a large rock, but the cliff is struck by lightning, causing her to fall and the Dwarves to be morally good or at least prevented them from having to make the moral choice between if they are going to kill her or not. The rock also falls on the Queen to ensure that she is dead.
Back at the cottage, the Dwarves mourn the death of Snow White, the princess they met less than a day before.
Text appears in front of changing seasons. It explains that the Dwarves could not bury her becuase of her beauty, so they put her in a glass and gold coffin. They also stayed by her side. Meanwhile, the Prince, who had searched for Snow White was told of her.
The scene then shows the Dwarves aproach the coffin and give her flowers. They then kneel. The prince arrives and walks over to her. He then kisses her, seemingly out of respect. He too kneels. However, to his and the Dwarves surprise, Snow White wakes up. The prince then carries her to the hourse and they ride into the distance, stopping to see the Prince's castle in the distance.
The scene then shows the last page of the book with the classic line, "...and they lived happily ever after." The book then closes.
Characters
Snow White
While Snow White is not the best protagonist, she is nowhere near the level of awful that Prince Achmed, from The Aventures of Prince Achmed, is. She is not the smartest person and is gullible, but she is definitely a sweet and kind person. However, I noticed that she is kind of bossy.
The Seven Dwarves
One of the weirdest things of this movie is that the title calls them, "Dwarfs" instead of the correct thing, which is "Dwarves".
Anyway, the Dwarves are not that complicated. They seem to keep their trait pretty consistantly. Although, Grumpy did sort of have a character arch in the film, where he started out as disliking Snow White and then by the time the mourning scene came around, he cried the strongest.
Queen/Peddler
While the Queen is not the best mother, she does actually pay attention to her step-daughter. She knows that Snow White likes apples and that she will help and old woman.
In regards to her intellegence, in her Queen form, she seems to be more more stupid than in her Peddler form. The Peddler found out if there is an antidote, which most villians don't think about, which was really kind of awesome to see a villian do that.
She definitely deserves to be in the Disney villian line-up. She does not stray from her character and seems to actually get crazier as the movie goes on.
Her death scene marked the beginning of the Disney tradition of not having an on-screen death.
Prince
He is just your standard genaric, any male can fit into role, prince. I was glad to have had a least a little more of the character than just the scene where he shows up and kisses her. It was good to see some kind of relationship before that scene.
Animation
I quite enjoy the animation, but I do have one critism. It's inconsistant. The Dwarves, Vultures, Peddler, and a few of the animals looked more like a cartoony version and Snow White, the Queen, Prince, and most of the animals looked more realistic.
The background are beautiful. They definitely did not cheap out on them.
I definitely like the effects in the film, especially the transformation scene.
Music
The music, both background and songs, are fit the mood perfectly. I quite enjoyed them. My favorite song was Heigh-Ho. My least favorite was Someday My Prince Will Come for it making Snow White seem like she is dependant on her prince to rescue her.
Similarities
The first similarity is Cinderella. The fact that Snow White is a maid, the Queen is her evil stepmother, and Snow White talks to animals reminds me of that film.
The second similarity is Sleeping Beauty. The line, "Did I frighten you?" is similar to a line used by Prince Phillip in that film.
The third similarity is Romeo and Juliet. The fact that the prince is serenading Snow White on the balcony is similar to a scene in that play.
The fourth similarity is Once Upon a Time. The fact that the show focuses on Snow White and Prince David is one of the similarities. Another is when Snow White is picking the flowers. In the episode, Wish You Were Here, Emma is shown picking flowers and humming.
The fifth similarity is Bambi. Some of the animals, remind me of the animals from that film.
Conclusion
Much like The Adventures of Prince Achmed, this one is a bit more controvercial. The big con of the film is that it does use a rather primitive way of looking at relationships. If you are bothered by inconsistant animation, then I suggest not watching this film. I also do not recommend this film for little kids as some of the scenes might scare them. With that being said, there are still some good things about this. It holds five historical titles, which I listed at the beginning. It also has a pretty fun story if you can get past its primitive nature and inconsistant animation. If you like good villains, I also recommend this film for that respect. If you like the songs, I also recommend watching this film.
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