David Hand
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Enchanted (2007)
Directed by Kevin Lima
influenced by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Themes Plot Visuals
Director Kevin Lima ("102 Dalmations") and screenwriter Bill Kelly reference half the Disney canon in "Enchanted," from "Sleeping Beauty" to "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."
It's a clever, high-spirited romp spoofing fairy tales and the animated, musical versions of them that have been around since 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
From "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," it borrows the helpful woodland creatures and a poisoned apple.
The film begins with 12 minutes of 2-D animation, the classic Disney cartoon style of Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
It mocks such sacred masterpieces as "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "Cinderella," while spinning a lovable fable of its own.
For not only do these Sean Penn-mimicking sea turtles slowly slip into a stronger story about paternal love and overcoming fear, but Finding Nemo also connects with these awfully dark themes that are strangely reminiscent of Walt's great classics like Bambi and Dumbo.
The death of Nemo's mother, which occurs early in the film (and is offscreen - no blood or overt violence to speak of) recalls a similar event from the classic Bambi.
The opener, in which clownfish Marlin (voiced by Albert Brooks) loses his wife and most of their eggs in a barracuda attack, ranks right up there with “Bambi.”
The movie's opening sequence depicts a traumatic loss that brings to mind old-school Disney pics such as Bambi; granted, it's handled in a way that probably won't sink your kids into the slough of despond, but the scene is pretty powerful.
Right off the bat Stanton pulls a "Bambi," when a fishy mom disappears after a scary barracuda attack.
Cartoony character design notwithstanding, Finding Nemo has a love for the natural world that’s a credit to the tradition of Bambi and The Lion King .
The Lion King (1994)
Directed by Roger Allers
influenced by Bambi (1942), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Plot Visuals Themes
With an emphasis on character development over plot, the film isn't quite as accessible as some of Disney's more recent efforts; kids raised on plot and gag heavy productions such as Aladdin and The Lion King will likely express confusion at Bambi's relatively docile vibe.
A host of living animals were brought into the studio for this reason, leading some of the animators to complain that it was becoming a bit zoo-like, but the effect is breathtaking: the subtleties of movement and musculature are as close to perfection as imaginable (Disney wouldn't even attempt to create animals this realistic again until The Lion King , more than 50 years later), and the film vies only with Pinocchio as the most technically accomplished work of animation to come from the studio's Golden Age.
Fans of "The Lion King" will recognize similar elements in "Bambi."
In a plot twist unfamiliar to this era of family-values emphasis, the screenplay draws on the same tragic theme expressed in Disney’s 1942 feature “Bambi”: the death of a parent.
Its pitch was simple, and rather peculiar: " Bambi plus Hamlet", and here I was thinking that I was all sorts of clever for spotting a really insane number of parallels between that deer movie and The Lion King, before doing my research for this review.
The death of a parent as a plot device brings to mind Bambi, but mostly this is a film in keeping with the Disney renaissance of the 90s: slick and action-packed, with vain attempts to be seen as 'with it'.
Additionally, there are sing-alongs for "The Unbirthday Song" and "All in the Golden Afternoon" plus the trivia challenge "Adventure in Wonderland," an approximation of a newly unearthed theme for the Cheshire Cat, "I'm Odd," performed--unless mine ears deceiveth me--by Jim Cummings, the company's current stand-in for Sterling Holloway, and the 1936 Mickey Mouse short Thru the Mirror (also available as part of the Walt Disney Treasures collection "Mickey Mouse in Living Color"), wherein Mickey falls asleep reading Through the Looking Glass and dreams of a room beyond his vanity mirror full of anthropomorphized furniture.
Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
Directed by Rupert Sanders
influenced by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Plot
It’s neither the kid-friendly take of 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or the two-month-old Mirror Mirror , nor the R-rated horror version offered by 1997’s Snow White: A Tale of Terror .
'Snow White' — Disney's 1937 animated account of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is based on Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm's violent folk tale.
Years, nay decades, have gone by without a film being made about the Grimm's fairy tale, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, after Walt Disney introduced it in his classic 1937 cartoon.
Because this is, indeed, a take-off on "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"most indelibly made into Disney's 1937 animated classicscreenwriters Hossein Amini (2011's "…
Or maybe it’s Walt Disney, working his juju from beyond the grave, determined that no future film ever upstage his iconic, first full-length cel animated feature, the 1937 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
We are all familiar with the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney’s 75-year-old masterpiece.
Suspiria (1977)
Directed by Dario Argento
influenced by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Visuals Themes
This visuals for this film were inspired by the Technicolor process (it should be noted that the actually film stock used on this film was Kodak) and fairy tale films like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs .
Less real-world influences came from Argento's partner Daria Nicolodi, who had become attracted to various fairy-tale sources, from Alice in Wonderland and Bluebeard to Pinocchio and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Interestingly, Argento tasked Tovoli with viewing Walt Disney’s Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs (1937) so that he could emulate the film’s color scheme.
The first in a supposed trilogy (the second film, Inferno, was completed, but the third film is still unproduced), Argento was influenced by Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, but Suspiria has proved just as influential on both Italian and American cinema (John Carpenter has stolen from this movie on multiple occasions).
Aladdin (1992)
Directed by John Musker
influenced by Thru the Mirror (1936), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Visuals
Maybe it's just because of the pleasant nature of so many of the jokes, rather than the calculated snarkiness of a DreamWorks film: playful references to other Disney characters (I think it has more cameos than any other Disney film), and a gag in the "Friend Like Me" number stretching all the way back to the 1936 Mickey short "Thru the Mirror" for its winking reference.
It has been a constant fact in Disney's features ever since Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs that some characters are essentially realistic representations of the human form, while others are unabashed cartoons; the degree to which this is true changes from film to film, but at any rate I cannot quickly think of a Disney feature previous to this, the studio's 31st, in which no character stands out as especially realistic or especially caricatured.
Encanto (2021)
Directed by Byron Howard
influenced by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Visuals Themes
The lineage of Disney castles goes all the way back to Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs — but there’s never been one like La Casa Madrigal in Encanto .
84 years and 59 films since Walt Disney Animation Studios first changed the very landscape of cinema with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , the studio deftly proves the magic is still alive and well in the house that Mickey built.
From Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs to Raya And The Last Dragon , Walt Disney Animation Studios has spent the past eight decades perfecting its signature riff on the classic hero’s journey.
Obviously 1967’s animated The Jungle Book is the main inspiration for this Disney extravaganza, but its creative forebearer is actually 1942’s Bambi .
The Jungle Book has its moments of darkness and it fits in perfectly with Disney’s brutal tradition of shedding parents and parental figures; you can hear the gun shot from Bambi still ringing throughout The Jungle Book .
The film starts with a scary chase, fills out its middle with a couple of killings, throws in a catastrophe or two and ends with a wildfire to rival the one in "Bambi."
The handling of patriarchal authority here has some queasy echoes of Leni Riefenstahl's treatment of Nazi officials in Triumph of the Will, reminding one that Disney was the only Hollywood figure to befriend Riefenstahl when she visited in the 30s; but the adroit mixture of pantheism and sentimentality continues to be sufficiently "timeless" to allow Disney's heirs to recycle this picture endlessly (1942).
Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Directed by Bill Condon
influenced by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Characters Visuals
After discovering that audiences will reach deep into their pockets for any remake of an animated favourite, Disney has put into production adaptations of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, The Jungle Book, The Lion King, Mulan, The Little Mermaid and Aladdin.
I hope that I’m wrong, and that children rear back from this ogre as their grandparents did from the witch in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
The form was invented by Disney eighty years ago, with “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937), a film I still think has never been surpassed, and when you watch something as transporting as “Snow White” — or “Bambi,” or “Toy Story,” or “Beauty and the Beast” — every gesture and background and choreographed flourish, from the facial expressions to the drip-drop of water, flows together with a poetic unity.
Brave (2012)
Directed by Mark Andrews
influenced by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Plot Themes
The story — of a rebellious princess who battles an imperious queen and is beset by magic spells — is a twist for Pixar but as familiar to its parent company Disney as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Beauty and the Beast and The Princess and the Frog.
For more than half a century and starting back in 1938 with "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," Disney quickly became known as and then maintained its reputation for being the studio most associated with quality, family friendly animated films, and later solely resurrected the movie musical genre, albeit in animated form.
Animated films, like many fairy tales, rarely do much with birth mothers other than kill them off (for more on this, see Finding Nemo or Bambi or Cinderella or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs — the list is endless).
Basically, it's a passable combination of Bambi , The Borrowers and Avatar (which plays in my memory as an animated picture).
Tangled (2010)
Directed by Nathan Greno
influenced by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Visuals
It’s also difficult to recall a computer-generated animated film that has so successfully managed to evoke the feel of hand-drawn animation without sacrificing the eye-popping visuals that CGI has become known for, which ensures that Tangled instantly joins the ranks of such beloved animation classics as The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The final confrontation between her and Rapunzel is quite breathtaking - visually and with Menken's score - and reminiscent of the Queen's demise in Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs .
One supposes that a sense of rising to an occasion, of wanting/trying to make the 50th animated feature in its way as exciting and engaging and groundbreaking as its first (that would have been a little thing called " Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs " back in 1937) also occurred to the production team at one point.
Move over, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," "Sleeping Beauty," "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," and "The Lion King."
Mulan (2020)
Directed by Niki Caro
influenced by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Themes Characters
Disney’s beloved Princess tales are no stranger to classic mythology, and everything from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” to “The Princess and the Frog” have pulled liberally from existing material to craft family-friendly animated outings centered on inspirational women.
I’m almost certain one of Mulan’s fellow recruits—the doughy, comical Cricket—shares some strands of DNA with Dopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs .
Moana is being released as we approach the 80th anniversary of Disney’s first full-length animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and comes only a couple of years after the mammoth success of another Disney princess film, Frozen.
That’s a stereotype Disney itself has helped create since 1937’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” but the studio has been steadily updating its attitude for the gender-equal 21st century.
Had it happened back in the 1930s, it would have become the world’s first animated feature prior to Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” in 1937.
Walt Disney himself considered a 'toon based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' books, years before Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The scene is played for laughs, and although the inspiration is clearly Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the optics are queasy—especially for a movie mired in controversy over an entire cut scene involving an actor whom Munn rightly outed to the director and the studio as a convicted sex offender.
Inside Out (2015)
Directed by Pete Docter
influenced by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Themes
But there’s an enormous conceptual gulf between Disney films of the “classic” mode, from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and “Dumbo” right through “Pocahontas” and “The Little Mermaid,” and the consistently elegiac and nostalgic childhood’s-end fables of the Pixar era.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
Directed by J.J. Abrams
influenced by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
Themes
Like the original could be compared to the likes of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Sleeping Beauty , this film could be equated to films like Beauty and the Beast and Frozen .