As Classic As They Come
There isn’t a lot about “Snow White” that can be said that hasn’t already been over the last seven decades. Obviously its significance in film history is known, but it’s a remarkable film in so many other ways, too. The story is that of a young and beautiful princess who has an evil and jealous step mother. Each day, the Queen asks a magical mirror on the wall that famous line — ‘mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?’ Normally, the response from the ghostly voice is that she, the Queen, is still the most fair. However one day, the mirror pronounces Snow White the most fair of them all, and the Queen’s jealously burns so hot within her that she orders the murder of her own step daughter.
Snow White is able to escape into the forest before her appointment with death and encounters the Seven Dwarfs. The Seven Dwarfs befriend Snow White and with them she is protected, but one day when they aren’t around the Queen is able to convince Snow White to take a bite of a poisonous apple that puts her into a deep sleep. Thought to be dead, the Dwarfs prepare to bury Snow White when her prince charming, a young man who had long since had an eye on Snow White, kisses her. The kiss awakens her, and the two, you guessed it, live happily ever after.
By now, we’ve just about all heard this story before, and have seen many other adaptations of this classic theme, but “Snow White” was the first to do it in animated feature form and that’s part of this film’s legacy. That it was also the first film to be designated for preservation by the Library of Congress also gives you an idea of how significant the movie really is.
Significance in the historical sense may not mean a lot to most people, especially kids. It’s no coincidence then, given the film’s popularity over the decades, that “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is also a truly classic film, appealing to generation after generation.
The Diamond Edition
This three disc set (two Blu-rays, one DVD) is packed with features, more so than you will see on the DVD release which isn’t due out until November 24th. The first thing I noticed upon putting in the Blu-ray disc was the cool menu. The menu looks basic, but the animated magic mirror on the left side of the screen uses some of the latest Blu-ray tech to guide you through your “Snow White” experience. The magic mirror will keep track of where you have been, recommend what you might look at next, and basically talk to you as you navigate the menu. The best part? It does so in a very unobtrusive manner. Using the magic mirror was perfect for an interactive menu, especially one that has so many features to browse through.
When preparing to watch the film, one feature you may want to enable is DisneyView. With DisneyView, the film’s original aspect ratio is maintained, but Disney veteran background animator Toby Bluth adds new watercolor background art to fill up the screen. Otherwise, in non-DisneyView mode, you get the film in its original aspect ratio, but with a black border filling up the rest of your screen, which is fine, too. Having the option is really nice, and I think it’s great that Disney had one of their own take the time to make this possible.
Speaking of Toby Bluth and his involvement with the Diamond Edition, a feature known as “About Toby Bluth” puts him in front of the camera as he explains how “Snow White’s” watercolor backgrounds captivated and inspired him at a young age to become the skilled animator he is today.
The Blu-ray also includes audio commentary with Walt Disney, hosted by John Canemaker, an Academy award winning animation historian, amongst several other qualities. A special sneak peek at Disney’s newest animated feature, “The Princess And the Frog” is included too and runs about eight minutes. I don’t know how well it really fits with this release though; I would have personally preferred the Diamond Edition to solely be about the featured film, not some new Disney movie.
There are a ton of other features that I won’t list individually here, but there are still several other highlights I do want to explicitly mention first:
-Snow White Returns Featurette – A ten minute feature in HD that gives a very interesting look at some vintage storyboards that basically prove a sequel to “Snow White” was in the works but obviously never got finished.
-Where It All Began – This is part of a massive collection of features under the name ‘Hyperion Studios,’ which is split into four sections. Hyperion Studios was the name Walt Disney used before creating Walt Disney Studios. Anyway, this HD feature takes a look back at Walt and his team and how this most important film got started in the first place.
-Deleted Scenes – Two deleted scenes lasting about ten minutes, in HD of the Dwarfs.
There are some twenty or thirty other features including hundreds of still images, vintage animation, footage, interactive games, a music video, interviews, etc., on this set. I’ve never seen this many extras before and my only real qualm about them would be that most of the features are just really short, running only about one to five minutes. I don’t think these features need to be longer, just better grouped together.
Now as far as presentation, we’ve all seen older films on Blu-ray out perform newer films, but what Disney has done here is nothing short of incredible. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” may be over seventy years old, but you’d be hard pressed to tell it just from looking and listening to this Blu-ray that is as crisp and vibrant as anything I’ve seen. I honestly didn’t think film restoration of this magnitude of quality was possible, but Disney will blow you away with how perfect the 1080p image and 7.1 Surround audio are. While not as amazing as “Snow White” was to the industry seventy years ago, what Disney was able to do in this restoration is nothing short of incredible.
With that, let’s head to the summary…