After two years of controversy surrounding Disney’s live action remake of “Snow White”… after all the bad press, all the reshoots and re-cuts, all the rumors and the pre-release critical horror shows, and all the publicity rakes the studio stepped on along the way… by the time I sat down, picked up the remote and began navigating over to the Disney+ app to finally watch “Snow White”, you’d better believe I had my shotgun across my lap and both barrels loaded.
Or, the two years of controversy (plus legal defeats dealt the Disney brand in Florida) that motivated panic, reshoots, edits, muzzling of the Snow-White-story-loathing star -- and isn't this the one that originally was going to have 7 non-dwarf dwarves? not sure what happened wrt that -- delivered an entirely different movie than would have been released (the one Disney *wanted* to make) had the uproar been slightly less. Presumably /that/ movie would have closely matched her destructive druthers.
So, ultimately, the pre-release re-make wasn't as bad as their original intentions. I mean, okay, woke loses when held up to the light, good. Regardless, it's a solid bet Disney will continue doing it in the dark. Good reason for audiences to continue starving the beast.
I guess. By the same token, we can't know what would have been the box office if Zeigler had never opened her mouth -- it was still going to be a Disney product, after all. The casting including nondwarf dwarves was Disney's bright idea, that's known. And if they already had this reasonably moderate flick in mind, seems a bit odd to 'panic' & then take two extra years to re-shoot & re-edit.
Watched it, with a bit of trepidation - which proved unnecessary. Simply a mostly live less than necessary remake which served to prove Hollywood hasn’t had a decent and entertaining new idea in years.
It's tough to do these kind of hypotheticals.... if Zegler hadn't made her comments then the movie would have come out 18 months ago, in a very different theatrical environment. Movies are working better in theaters this year than they were two years ago... even Disney products.
Both Snow White and Captain America were made in a very different environment and were released much later than they were intended because of all the reworking that needed to be done. There is a sense in which those two movies don't belong to 2025, and that's a big part of the reason why they bombed.
All of what you state above was in the news about it so the project became hopelessly tainted with the damning color of “woke”. The apple may not have been poisoned but the well already was; Disney has tried to cram a lot of woke crap down people’s throats over the past decade specifically. Their brand is well tarnished with that brush & audiences took note.
We’ve reached a point in films usually reserved for totalitarian societies where “the message” is more important than the storyline - which is second or even third (behind bipoc casting). This isn’t entertainment it’s propaganda.
yeah there’s no doubt that Disney laid the groundwork for what happened. What fascinates me though is the way Zegler seems to have embraced the modern young person’s belief that they must always be fighting the culture war, they must always be the one who is attacked, even when nothing is happening and the drama is all in their heads.
Good news for her-- she'll have plenty of free time to fight for the cause.
Ironically, Disney parks face real demographic challenges due to declining child birth rates and by aligning themselves with 'liberal' ideologies they risk alienating conservative families who are their best hope for replenishing their traditional customer base.
$$ quote: “What fascinates me though is the way Zegler seems to have embraced the modern young person’s belief that they must always be fighting the culture war, they must always be the one who is attacked, even when nothing is happening and the drama is all in their heads.”
This is what so-called “modern education” does to people; they’re taught that they’re constantly oppressed/misgendered/disrespected/brainwashed that they’re some sort of victim.
Remember when Jennifer Lawrence said that no one had ever put a woman in the lead role of an action movie before she made “Hunger Games”? How powerful does the propaganda have to be for someone at the top of the movie business to be convinced of that.
Lawrence later clarified those remarks and admitted she was wrong.
“That’s certainly not what I meant to say at all,” Lawrence said. “I know that I am not the only woman who has ever led an action film. What I meant to emphasize was how good it feels. And I meant that with Viola — to blow past these old myths that you hear about … about the chatter that you would hear around that kind of thing. But it was my blunder and it came out wrong. I had nerves talking to a living legend.”
There's the part where they reshot large swathes of the movie due to Zegker's idiotic comments and, presumably, the original shots being precisely what was feared and what she claimed was true. Did you see the original dwarves? My suspicion is that it is a bad movie that would have been a lot worse without Zeglers idiocy
I saw the photo of the characters who looked like they came from a Ren Faire... the problem is those weren't;t the original dwarves. That was a misunderstanding that online critics ran with. The dwarves were always meant to be CGI. Those Red Faire characters are in the film, and they have their own part to play. They are a band of revolutionaries who live in the forest and are scheming to depose the Queen. The boy Snow White falls in love with is one of them.
It still needed real dwarves. The opportunities are few and far between. I thought after the ghastly oompa lumpas in that horrible Johnny depp movie it was decided that real dwarves were fine. Guess I was wrong….
Yeah I don't know what Disney's calculus was there, but while the CGI wasn't great on the dwarves, it wasn't so bad that it should have been fatal to the movie. I've certainly seen worse in movies that did well.
For a proper forensic examination of how and why the young lady Zeiglerized herself, one would need to timeline her comments against the then-current state of the film, with the changes in all those reported reshoots making that a moving target. Obviously the evolutionary progress of the film is not public at this point, but it could make a fine examination in the future when the industry autobiographies come out.
It is entirely possible that her comments at each point in time accurately reflected the script at that point, with the panic rewriting and reshoots and reworking and rushed CGI making changes that mooted her prior inadvised opining. There was a noticable shift in her commentary over time, and studio pushback on some of the more egregious points thus raised, so it is reasonable to assume that those would also be also recipients of rework spending in the production.
Someday all will be clear. In the meantime we only have the bad movie and young Rachel’s shattered career.
I agree that would be a fascinating analysis and there’s no way to know what cut Zegler was reacting to nor what Disney did to address her comments.
I will say though that there’s only so much you can do with reshoots. On some level, the movie you shot is the one you’re stuck with.
The last Captain America went through the same cultural wringer and the final product felt cut all to hell. Snow White does not feel that way, for what it’s worth.
MFW is truly the fairest reviewer of them all.
Or, the two years of controversy (plus legal defeats dealt the Disney brand in Florida) that motivated panic, reshoots, edits, muzzling of the Snow-White-story-loathing star -- and isn't this the one that originally was going to have 7 non-dwarf dwarves? not sure what happened wrt that -- delivered an entirely different movie than would have been released (the one Disney *wanted* to make) had the uproar been slightly less. Presumably /that/ movie would have closely matched her destructive druthers.
So, ultimately, the pre-release re-make wasn't as bad as their original intentions. I mean, okay, woke loses when held up to the light, good. Regardless, it's a solid bet Disney will continue doing it in the dark. Good reason for audiences to continue starving the beast.
We can’t know any of that. We can only judge the movie as it was released.
I guess. By the same token, we can't know what would have been the box office if Zeigler had never opened her mouth -- it was still going to be a Disney product, after all. The casting including nondwarf dwarves was Disney's bright idea, that's known. And if they already had this reasonably moderate flick in mind, seems a bit odd to 'panic' & then take two extra years to re-shoot & re-edit.
Watched it, with a bit of trepidation - which proved unnecessary. Simply a mostly live less than necessary remake which served to prove Hollywood hasn’t had a decent and entertaining new idea in years.
It's tough to do these kind of hypotheticals.... if Zegler hadn't made her comments then the movie would have come out 18 months ago, in a very different theatrical environment. Movies are working better in theaters this year than they were two years ago... even Disney products.
Both Snow White and Captain America were made in a very different environment and were released much later than they were intended because of all the reworking that needed to be done. There is a sense in which those two movies don't belong to 2025, and that's a big part of the reason why they bombed.
Thanks! Great context and fair points.
Thanks! Appreciate the comments… always
All of what you state above was in the news about it so the project became hopelessly tainted with the damning color of “woke”. The apple may not have been poisoned but the well already was; Disney has tried to cram a lot of woke crap down people’s throats over the past decade specifically. Their brand is well tarnished with that brush & audiences took note.
We’ve reached a point in films usually reserved for totalitarian societies where “the message” is more important than the storyline - which is second or even third (behind bipoc casting). This isn’t entertainment it’s propaganda.
yeah there’s no doubt that Disney laid the groundwork for what happened. What fascinates me though is the way Zegler seems to have embraced the modern young person’s belief that they must always be fighting the culture war, they must always be the one who is attacked, even when nothing is happening and the drama is all in their heads.
Good news for her-- she'll have plenty of free time to fight for the cause.
Ironically, Disney parks face real demographic challenges due to declining child birth rates and by aligning themselves with 'liberal' ideologies they risk alienating conservative families who are their best hope for replenishing their traditional customer base.
indeed... in fact I have a partially completed essay on that very thing sitting in my "drafts" folder.
I've heard there's a demographic of adults who go to those theme parks without kids.
yep, that's partially what my unfinished draft is about
$$ quote: “What fascinates me though is the way Zegler seems to have embraced the modern young person’s belief that they must always be fighting the culture war, they must always be the one who is attacked, even when nothing is happening and the drama is all in their heads.”
This is what so-called “modern education” does to people; they’re taught that they’re constantly oppressed/misgendered/disrespected/brainwashed that they’re some sort of victim.
It’s all BS & always has been.
Remember when Jennifer Lawrence said that no one had ever put a woman in the lead role of an action movie before she made “Hunger Games”? How powerful does the propaganda have to be for someone at the top of the movie business to be convinced of that.
Guess she never saw “Aliens” or had heard of Sigourney Weaver.
The sheer depth of her ignorance suggests a certain determination to remain so
Lawrence later clarified those remarks and admitted she was wrong.
“That’s certainly not what I meant to say at all,” Lawrence said. “I know that I am not the only woman who has ever led an action film. What I meant to emphasize was how good it feels. And I meant that with Viola — to blow past these old myths that you hear about … about the chatter that you would hear around that kind of thing. But it was my blunder and it came out wrong. I had nerves talking to a living legend.”
Or Leia Organa. Or Scarlett O'Hara. I could go on.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thecontinentalcongress/p/hollywoods-strong-empowered-girlboss?r=g5dp0&utm_medium=ios
Huh. A balanced, well thought out take. On the internet. I'm not sure what to do with this, other than keep subscribing.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
There's the part where they reshot large swathes of the movie due to Zegker's idiotic comments and, presumably, the original shots being precisely what was feared and what she claimed was true. Did you see the original dwarves? My suspicion is that it is a bad movie that would have been a lot worse without Zeglers idiocy
I saw the photo of the characters who looked like they came from a Ren Faire... the problem is those weren't;t the original dwarves. That was a misunderstanding that online critics ran with. The dwarves were always meant to be CGI. Those Red Faire characters are in the film, and they have their own part to play. They are a band of revolutionaries who live in the forest and are scheming to depose the Queen. The boy Snow White falls in love with is one of them.
It still needed real dwarves. The opportunities are few and far between. I thought after the ghastly oompa lumpas in that horrible Johnny depp movie it was decided that real dwarves were fine. Guess I was wrong….
Yeah I don't know what Disney's calculus was there, but while the CGI wasn't great on the dwarves, it wasn't so bad that it should have been fatal to the movie. I've certainly seen worse in movies that did well.
Fine review.
For a proper forensic examination of how and why the young lady Zeiglerized herself, one would need to timeline her comments against the then-current state of the film, with the changes in all those reported reshoots making that a moving target. Obviously the evolutionary progress of the film is not public at this point, but it could make a fine examination in the future when the industry autobiographies come out.
It is entirely possible that her comments at each point in time accurately reflected the script at that point, with the panic rewriting and reshoots and reworking and rushed CGI making changes that mooted her prior inadvised opining. There was a noticable shift in her commentary over time, and studio pushback on some of the more egregious points thus raised, so it is reasonable to assume that those would also be also recipients of rework spending in the production.
Someday all will be clear. In the meantime we only have the bad movie and young Rachel’s shattered career.
Thanks for the kind words.
I agree that would be a fascinating analysis and there’s no way to know what cut Zegler was reacting to nor what Disney did to address her comments.
I will say though that there’s only so much you can do with reshoots. On some level, the movie you shot is the one you’re stuck with.
The last Captain America went through the same cultural wringer and the final product felt cut all to hell. Snow White does not feel that way, for what it’s worth.