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Hi ho, hi ho, it’s apparently off to revolutionary praxis we go. The first trailer for Disney’s live-action remake of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs — now officially called, just, Disney’s Snow White — has appeared online after being released theatrically to accompany Wicked last weekend, and it’s… not exactly the story you might remember from the animated version way back in the 1930s.

Sure, the basics are the same: Snow White is banished from the kingdom after the death of her father, by a stepmother who is wicked — but not, you know, Wicked — and jealous of her good looks. In exile, she is rescued by wildlife and runs across some curiously misshaped dwarfs. But the execution is shifted in such a way that it translates the story into something notably different… and arguably at odds with the feel of the original in many ways.

Some of those ways are visual: The muted color palette of the trailer is immediately noticeable — everything is either so brown or so blue! And the CGI elements disconcertingly jar with the live-action elements in almost every combination, especially when it comes to the ghoulish dwarfs, which was at some point deemed more acceptable than using actual human beings for some inexplicable reason. Perhaps more importantly, the story presented in this trailer feels larger than the animated original, with everything happening on a less personal, more societal scale… which changes the story considerably.

That change is obvious from the first dialogue in the trailer: “This was my father’s kingdom, a place of fairness — but the queen changed everything.” Similarly, later, Snow (Rachel Zegler) says with a self-importance only ever displayed by fictional characters, “The queen stole everything from all of us… I’m going to need your help. It’s time to restore our kingdom.” The end of the trailer has Snow standing in front of a crowd, saying “This is our kingdom, but now we’re here to take it back.” It’s unmistakable: this is not a story about a daughter reclaiming her birthright, or even about a girl finding her place in the world with the help of seven very short men anymore: this has become a tale of revolution.

Which is all well and good,  except… that’s not what most people expect from a Snow White story, is it? It’s possible that Disney has perfectly anticipated what audiences are looking for in this scenario, and what people really want is a story about a plucky young heroine overthrowing a powerful dictator who just happens to be her stepmother in a movie that looks not unlike Wicked or, for those with slightly longer memories, 2013’s Oz The Great and Powerful. With this kind of revisionist approach happening, the mind boggles when considering what to expect from the live-action Lilo and Stitch remake also headed our way from Disney shortly.

Again: maybe this is what audiences are looking for! We’ll have to wait until March 21, 2025 to find out for sure.

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