SNOW WHITE 2025

SNOW WHITE, Disney’s live action remake of its 1937 animated classic, SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS, changes the beginning, deletes two major songs and adds some characters, songs and details, but otherwise it follows the original movie’s story about a young princess who flees her evil stepmother and finds refuge among seven dwarfs in the woods. SNOW WHITE has a few storytelling hiccups. Also, there are two or three scenes that probably will scare older pre-teen children. However, it’s a delightful, funny, exciting, and wholesome movie with a strong moral, conservative worldview and Christian allusions supporting true love, doing the right thing, inner beauty, freedom, honesty, sincerity, sacrifice, and bravely standing up to tyranny.

First, let’s get the controversy out of the way. The new movie has been criticized for eliminating, in a nod to modern feminism, the song “Some Day My Prince Will Come” and replacing the Prince with a cynical hero who leads a small rebellion in the forest against the Queen. Second, in the original movie, Snow White gets her name because her skin is “white as snow.” Well, we can’t have that, especially since the new movie stars a young actress with an Hispanic mother from Colombia and a Polish American father. So, in the new movie, Snow White gets her name because she was born during a blizzard to a young king and queen. Furthermore, it didn’t help matters that Rachel Zegler, who plays Snow White in the new movie, was quoted in the news as condemning the song “Some Day My Prince Will Come” and describing the 1937 movie as “dated,” then telling Variety in 2022, “She’s [Snow White’s] not going to be saved by the prince, and she’s not going to be dreaming about true love; she’s going to be dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be” (as reported by The New York Post on March 18 in 2025]. However, the whole of her quote to Variety actually ends like this: “She’s [Snow White’s] going to be dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be, and the leader that her late father told her she could be if she was fearless, fair, brave, and true. It’s just a really incredible story for young people everywhere, to see themselves in.” So, although Zegler obviously saw the role as an empowering role for girls, she also saw it as an empowering role for boys as well. In addition, as she explained above, Snow White’s dream about becoming a leader was inspired by her father, who also encourages her to be “fearless, fair, brave, and true.”

As noted above, the movie opens with a narrator saying that, once upon a time in a peaceful kingdom, a Queen gave birth to girl during a blizzard. So, she and her husband, the King, named their baby Snow White to commemorate the girl’s birth.

The Kingdom is a peaceful and happy one, and the people sing about it. They call their Kingdom “a kingdom for the free and the fair” where “good things grow.” The King, the Queen and Snow White pick up the people’s song. Also, the King sings to Snow White that he sees her as “the seed of someone who will lead and make the good things grow.” He also advises her that, when she finds the kind of person she wishes to be, she needs to be “fearless, fair, brave, and true” (in the sense of being sincere, honest and genuine). Then, the royal couple and the people sing, “May goodness be our one true guide.” To reinforce the words of the song, the King tells Snow White that someday she will lead the Kingdom, and he gives her a locket engraved with a reminder to be fearless, fair, brave, and true.

However, the Queen becomes terribly ill and dies, and the King and Snow White mourn her passing. Then, a beautiful woman enters the palace. The King falls in love, and they get married.

At first, things are lovely, but the new Queen is evil and greedy. So, she convinces the King that his kingdom is facing threats from the south. So, he leaves to fight the threats, but he never returns. Thus, the Evil Queen becomes a tyrannical leader and turns Snow White into a scullery maid. She also turns farmers and other men in the Kingdom into soldiers, to do her bidding.

Snow White accepts her fate, but one day she finds a young man named Jonathan stealing food from the castle’s supplies. He tells her that he and his people in the forest are starving. Snow White remembers the bounty of her father’s days as King and is concerned. She tells Jonathan he better leave quickly with the food, lest he be caught by the soldiers. Jonathan does, but he’s captured.

Meanwhile, Snow White approaches the Evil Queen and encourages her to treat the people more kindly, to give them hope. However, the Queen mocks her. Then, the Queen orders Jonathan to be tied to the gates and starved, as a warning to others, but Snow White unties him, and he escapes.

The Evil Queen consults her magical Mirror on the Wall and is disturbed to hear that she’s no longer “the fairest of them all.” Snow White is! So, she decides to have Snow White killed. She orders the Royal Huntsman to take Snow White into the countryside to pick apples, but kill her, cut out her heart and place it in a jeweled box. However, when the Huntsman starts to carry out this terrible deed, he relents and tells Snow White to run far away, because the Queen will surely find another person to kill her.

Snow White runs into and through some scary woods. She finds a clearing and the kindly animals in the clearing lead her to a peaceful cottage. Snow White enters the cottage, cleans it up a little bit but falls asleep across three little beds.

Of course, the cottage happens to be the home of the seven dwarfs. Cut to the dwarfs singing, “Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to work we go,” while they enter their mine. A joyful montage of the dwarfs working in the mine plays, but when they return home, they find Snow White sleeping.

Startled, the dwarfs find out what Snow White’s doing in their cottage. They promise to help hide her from the Evil Queen. However, the Queen learns Snow White is still alive. So, she sends troops to scour the countryside so she can kill Snow White herself.

SNOW WHITE has a few storytelling hiccups and uneven moments. For example, as with many movies made today, SNOW WHITE is a little too long. The story could be tightened up by about 10 minutes here and there. Also, some of the acting in a few scenes is uneven, and the ending is not quite as spectacular and thrilling as it could have been. Finally, there are two or three scenes that probably will scare older pre-teenage children.

However, the new SNOW WHITE is delightful, funny, exciting, and wholesome. It’s very entertaining. Most of the new songs are lovely. The opening song, “Good Things Grow,” is really good. Also, as Snow White, Rachel Zegler has a great singing voice. She does a wonderful job with “Whistle While You Work” and there’s lots of chemistry between her and Andrew Bernap, who plays Jonathan, even when they sing a nice romantic duet. Not as much time is spent on the dwarfs as in the original, but the character of Dopey has been enhanced with a delightful character arc. Finally, Gal Godot does an excellent job as the Evil Queen. Her transition scene into the old hag is marvelous.

SNOW WHITE has done away with the song “Someday My Prince Will Come” and the song where Snow White wishes for the one she loves. It’s replaced that idea with the theme that Snow White needs to become a leader, and that’s eventually what happens in the final confrontation with the Evil Queen. Thus, the new movie actually has a new ending. However, the idea of becoming a leader comes from Snow White’s father, the Good King. Also, her father links that idea to his admonition to Snow White to be “fearless, fair, brave, and true.” Also, later, after the King has disappeared, the story has multiple references to him being the “One True King.” Finally, the movie still keeps the part in the original about “true love’s kiss,” despite getting rid of the song about the Prince.

Furthermore, the live action SNOW WHITE has many positive themes and messages. So, you can’t really analyze the whole movie using just some offhand comments from one of its stars about one aspect of the movie, even if the comments are partially true. Thus, SNOW WHITE has a strong moral, redemptive, conservative worldview with Christian allusions.

For example, the multiple references to the “One True King” are allusions to Jesus. Also, Snow White’s character in the new movie emulates Jesus. She dies but then comes alive again. After she comes alive again with “love’s true kiss,” she becomes a representative of her absent father and confronts the Evil Queen. Also, like a good Christian, she doesn’t use violence but confronts the Evil Queen in a manner that is “fearless, fair, brave, and true.”

SNOW WHITE has many other positive values. It supports doing the right thing, inner beauty, freedom, honesty, sincerity, sacrifice, and bravely standing up to tyranny. The first song even has the royal couple and the people singing, “May goodness be our one true guide.” Finally, The Evil Queen is a tyrant. So, the movie supports a conservative, pro-capitalist understanding of the social order that supports liberty and opposes tyranny. Instead of letting the people pursue happiness by working as farmers, artisans and businesspeople, the Queen conscripts them to serve her.

The new SNOW WHITE, despite some nods to feminism, doesn’t seem all that woke. It seems more conservative than woke, more pro-biblical than anti-biblical. As even Rachel Zegler mentioned to Variety, the movie’s version of the fairy tale heroine should inspire ALL young people, not just the females. In that light, it should be noted that the hero in the movie and the seven dwarfs are also admirable characters, as is Snow White’s father. Moreover, Snow White and the hero, Jonathan, do eventually fall in love. He may not be a real Prince, but’s he’s a good guy and a leader who cares for her. Like her, he has an inner beauty, an inner goodness, that should be admired.