One BIG Thing I Love Way More About The Snow White Live Action Movie Vs The Original, And One Thing I Didn't

The following contains SPOILERS for the live-action remake of Snow White.

Disney’s live-action remake of Snow White isn’t a massive hit. Whatever else might happen in the future, it’s clear that this was not a movie audiences were dying to see. Critics are largely split on whether or not the audience is actually missing anything.

However, as I have previously written, I actually really enjoyed the new Snow White, as did my daughter. As somebody who tends to prefer it when Disney tries to do something different with its remakes rather than simply making carbon copies like The Lion King, there was actually a lot to love about how the new film was approached. It looked like the animated original, but in some big ways it is quite different. Some changes worked well, others not so much.

I Love That The Live-Action Snow White Is A Full Modern Musical

When we talk about Disney’s animated musicals, we tend to throw into that group any of its movies that have major set-piece songs, especially those sung by characters in the film. However, most of those movies aren’t actually musicals.

The “Disney animated musical” as we know it is less than 40 years old. The first film that really deserves that title is 1989’s The Little Mermaid. This is because it was the work of the great Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. The two Broadway stars had been brought in by Disney to revitalize Disney animation, and they did, creating the Disney Renaissance.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the original animated classic by Walt Disney, is not a musical. Neither is Cinderella, The Jungle Book or Sleeping Beauty. They have songs, and those songs are sung by characters in the film, but that alone does not make a musical.

Songs in musicals have distinct purposes. Sometimes they’re designed to give us insight into characters, sometimes they progress the plot, but they almost always have a use that is necessary to the story being told. If you can remove a song from a movie and nothing is lost, you’re doing it wrong.

To be fair, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is probably the closest to a traditional musical with most of the early animated Disney movies. It has an “I want” song, an almost necessary staple of the genre. In fact, it has two. But beyond that, while the songs are entertaining, they don’t qualify the movie as a musical.

But the live-action Snow White is actually a real musical. This marks the first time that Disney has taken a movie that wasn’t originally a musical and made it one for the remake. This is a fantastic decision, as it makes the movie different, and that’s something.

The decision also required songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul to write a lot more new music than we usually see in the remakes. When actual musicals are remade, like Aladdin or Beauty and the Beast, we usually get one or two new songs, that never feel like they belong among the classics.

Here, Snow White is more new music than old, and the reused songs “Heigh-Ho” and “Whistle While You Work” have been adapted so that all the songs feel like they belong in the same movie.

Now, if you don’t like musicals (and based on the way that Hollywood has marketed musicals recently, there are apparently a lot of people like that), then this change may not blow you away. But I love musicals in general, and I like almost all the songs in the new Snow White. Gal Gadot’s song as the Evil Queen is one exception. While the choreography of the number itself is glorious, the singing performance leaves a little to be desired.

However, my biggest problem with the new Snow White also has to do with the Evil Queen, though it isn’t Gal Gadot’s fault.

Snow White’s Anti-Climactic Ending Leaves A Lot To Be Desired

Even with Gal Gadot’s less-than-thrilling song, I loved Snow White from basically the storybook opening all the way through. At least almost all the way through, because the actual finale I thought was pretty weak.

It starts off strong: Snow White makes her triumphant return to her kingdom, and its citizens line up behind her in support. The music swells, everybody sings and it’s quite powerful. Unfortunately, once the music stops, so does the third act’s momentum.

Once the Evil Queen realizes that the people have united against her, she runs off, running by seven angry Dwarfs who apparently let her go, to find her Magic Mirror. When she realizes she has been truly defeated, she smashes the mirror in anger, which then absorbs her, and she’s just… gone.

Needless to say, this is less than thrilling. Snow White literally stands by and watches the Evil Queen be defeated. Considering that the other great improvement of Snow White is that it makes the title character the hero of her own story, it was disappointing that she didn’t do anything to defeat her stepmother.

I’m not a professional screenwriter, so I’m not going to pretend that I have the perfect solution for how Snow White should have ended. A fist-fight action sequence between Snow White and the Evil Queen certainly would be the wrong move, but perhaps something that leaned into the movie’s strengths, like giving the pair a duet song that saw Snow White triumph, would have worked better. The right song could have given the end the power it was missing.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs sees its climactic events all happen while the main character is asleep. The Dwarfs chase down the Evil Queen, and while she is mostly defeated through random happenstance, it’s still a scene with some solid action. Then, of course, you have the kiss, which is a memorable finale, even if it hasn’t aged well. Snow White had more agency at the end of the remake, but it didn't go far enough. The original may actually have the better ending.

Overall, Snow White is a solid movie, even if its poor ending leaves you wanting more. Its box office fate seems all but sealed, but at some point I hope everybody with a Disney+ subscription gives it a try. It’s worth watching.