Tag Archives: Snow White and the Seven Dwarves

Fleeting: Do Disney Villains Kill?

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Don’t ask me where this question came from, I suppose it was one of those lingering thoughts that stemmed from a photo:
Comic-Con Disney Villains

Which then inspired a Facebook conversation where someone mentioned that the the hunter in front was the most evil because he was the one that killed Bambi’s mother…

Then a few years later a separate conversation between friends as to which villains have actually killed… which then inspired this post.

So that begs the question…

Which of Disney Villains Kill?
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Comparison: Mirror Mirror vs Snow White and the Huntsman

This has happened in Hollywood before… One movie is announced to be in development and soon after there is another movie of a similar vein that is also announced. This happened with The First Daughter and Chasing Liberty and it happened again between Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman.

What is interesting though is that even though Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman are deviations from the same fairy tale “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” they do take two very distinct paths in the retelling / interpretation to their stories…

MIRROR MIRROR
Mirror Mirror very clearly takes a light hearted, comical approach to their storytelling, considering that they have Julia Roberts as the “Evil Queen” I can’t say that I am all that surprised. After all Julia does comedy well… Sometimes almost too well. She does balance it out with the sinister part of the Evil Queen and there are times when I believed in her “evilness” but more often than not I found myself smiling and smirking in the comedy.

But then again there are aspects that I kind of wished I could have seen in this version as well… Like a little bit of fighting between the Evil Queen and Snow White, but you can’t have everything that you want in life.

Oddly enough as I think about Mirror Mirror I realize that it reminds me a little of Ella Enchanted as a bit of a modern day fairy tale where the female is just as strong and independent as their male counterpart. Then again both female heroines had to grow into their independence… Not only that but they happened to fight with their male heroes as well… And nothing says love more than being able to hold your own against a guy!

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN
On the other side of the spectrum you have an action drama semi-adventure like Snow White and the Huntsman with its fairly predictable plot line and the requisite attempt of a love triangle. Yes there is a bit more mythology involved particularly with that of the Evil Queen and her ascension over time… Or even of that of the Huntsman and his life and the aftermath.

There is a lot that was purposely left open ended with possibilities of sequels down the road and if that is indeed the case, then it is easy to see how and why this first movie was fairly predictable in plot and deviations. Then again between the two, Snow White and the Huntsman tends to stick closer to the original plot while as Mirror Mirror appears to rearrange and takes quite a few liberties with the stories.

Would I have liked to have seen the connection develop more between the duke’s son and Snow White as opposed to taking their relationship at face value? Absolutely, but what can one do? I the end this movie / story is about

Both have something to offer but both also fall short in one capacity or another.

Review: Snow White and the Huntsman

The second movie I decided to watch soon after I concluded Mirror Mirror was – surprise surprise – Snow White and the Huntsman. I mean how could I not? They were both available and it would be a shame to watch one and not the other… So I decided to give it a go.

Snow White and the Huntsman actually keeps the key points of the original fairy tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves more so than that of Mirror Mirror… Obviously with some twists and changes along the way. The major deviation is turning the overall tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves into more of an action / adventure type of film and in some ways this works out decently in the grand scheme of things.

The Evil Queen is brought to Snow White’s father’s attention via a battle wherein she was the prisoner of the opposing army. Enamored by her beauty the king married her soon after only to be killed on their wedding night. The Evil Queen then takes over the kingdom with few escapees and makes Snow White prisoner with no one that escaped knowing if Sow White had survived or not.

And this is my first issue with the changes… Why keep Sow White prisoner? What purpose does it serve? The Evil Queen has proven time and time again that she will do what it takes to keep her youth by sucking the life out of other women. And she has no qualms of killing anyone around her for self-preservation even going so far as to sacrifice the life of her own brother… So why keep Snow White alive?

Alas, we may never know the answer to this wee little loophole in the story and as thus we, the audience, are expected to take this conundrum at face value… Ah well.
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Review: Mirror Mirror

So on the plane ride to Korea (on the way to Vietnam) I found time to catch up on a few movies that I was interested n seeing but never really wanted to pay for in any capacity due to the mixed reviews… But watch I did.

First on the list: Mirror Mirror

Julia Roberts as the Wicked Queen / Stepmother is hilarious, some really nice one liners. Heck there are some fun one liners in this movie. she balances the whole vanity / self-indulgent thing to the extent that you are not irritated nor wishing the worst of her. In fact I would go so far as to say that the Wicked Queen is not only the antagonist but also the comedic relief in this particular retelling of the classic story.
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Conventions: FablesCon aka Fabletown and Beyond

A lover of fairytales, folklore, mythology, etc I found it rather interesting that I didn’t pick up this series sooner. In fact if you head on over to the Entertainment link in the upper right hand corner and on the drop down menu click on Literary you’ll see that the Fables series is one of the book series that I highly recommend reading.

Fables
For anyone that really enjoys fairytales and nursery rhymes and are open minded to the seeing them in a new light would really pick up this series. Taking many of the beloved fairytale characters and re-imaging them while staying true to their roots (roots as in the original Grimm stories and those from Hans Christian Anderson, etc… none of the Disnified versions).

A very strong example of this is the story of Snow White, while everyone knows of the tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves the tale of Snow White and Rose Red. Bill Willingham masterfully combines the two “Snow Whites” and created a full and colorful backstory that not only is unique, colorful, and truthful.

The Fables world eventually expanded into Jack of Fables, The Literals and the Great Fables Crossover, the Cinderella mini-series which includes: From Fabletown with Love and Fables are Forever and most recently Fairest.

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Entertainment: Disney Stained Glass

I just loved this so much that I HAD to share via the blog: The Mary Sue


Have fun trying to figure out who is who (though most would be pretty obvious).

The Disney Hunger Games

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So I finally read – or more accurately, listened – to the Hunger Games and while I gather my thoughts on the first book of the series here is a little gem for the Disney fans out there:

I take no claim in creating this…

In any case… the creator of this little gem provided their reasoning as to why they chose the set up that they did… But like everyone else out there, I have a tendency to pick it apart and analyze the work. So here are my thoughts (if I disagree) with the creator’s original thought processes:

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Visual Art Commission: The “Expanded” Genres by Tony Akins

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Disney has ruined fairy tales for me, well for all of us really. I mean we grow up thinking that there is a happily ever after, except when we start reading the original fairy tales that the Disney versions are based off of, we end up with a rude awakening. Namely that the fairy tales don’t really have a ‘happily ever after’ in fact they usually have a warning label or a lessons learned disclaimer on the back.

Interestingly enough, I started to really enjoy the original fairy tales and soon started to look for other tales from various other cultures to satiate my thirst. That was when I was introduced to “Fables”.

You see, Fables is a comic series from Vertigo that takes all the beloved fairy tale characters and sends them to live in New York City, far from their Homelands where a singular enemy has turned all these beloved characters into refugees on the Earth or Mundy as they like to all it. Not only is this a witty conglomeration of every beloved fairy tale that you can possibly think of, but the creator of the series: Bill Willingham, has quite intelligently combined fairy tales and nursery rhymes together when necessary.
– Take the Big Bad Wolf for example (also known as Bigby Wolf in the series), he is a singular character in the Fables universe, but he is the same major wolf character in a variety of stories.
– Snow White is widely known as the beloved princess of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, but she is also the sister to Rose Red in the fairy tale of Snow White and Rose Red. In the Fables universe she is also introduced as the uptight, strict deputy mayor of Fabletown.
– Little Boy Blue isn’t quite so “little”, rather he is not only Snow White’s right hand man in the mayor’s office, he also has a hell of a military back story from back in the Homelands
What Bill has done is very creatively and realistically tied together stories to create a richer back story to these beloved characters in such a realistic and natural way that you can’t help but love them even more.

Then Bill did something new, he expanded upon the universe and created a world of Literals beings who were essentially the personification of literary themes and terms. The Editor became Mr Revise, Deus Ex Machina became Dex, and the various fictional categories became The Genres. All of these characters found in the spin-off series: Jack of Fables.

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