Plot Details: This opinion reveals no details about the movie's plot.

This is one of the first movies has a kid, while I had seen others this is the one I remember seeing. It was during its 1987 one-millionth re-release of the movie. Anyway while down at my local wal-mart I spied this in the DVD section and hearing a lot of good things about it I decided to buy it. Here is what I thought about it.

Movie.
All right if you haven’t seen the movie then I won’t ruin one of the most memorable and the first feature length animated film that has come out during your 67 year coma. For those who haven’t seen it All I am going to give you this, the evil Queen is out to kill Snow white so Snow white hides out of the house of the 7 Dwarfs. You’re just going to have to watch it for yourself to find out more. For those of you haven’t seen it in a while I suggest renting it just to see how fresh it is and how unformulaic it is. It lacks a lot of the characteristics of the Disney formula.

The Disney formula. Here is a few key elements to the Disney formula that you will not see here.
Main character trying to prove themselves to there parent. Not so here, in fact Snow Whites step mother is out to kill her.

wacky mentor who runs into walls and does a lot of wise cracks nope not here, all right there’s Dopey but then it’s in his character to go around and do things like that.

Main character after a love interest in here for exactly 5 minutes at the beginning and not picked up till the very end.

hero/heroine tells a lie that there friends find out and abandon them, only to have them come back in when the main character is in trouble nope no real secrets here in less Dopey can talk that is.

Has you can see the most significant parts of the formula that has become modern Disney films is not present in this movie.

Animation.
The animation is to say the very least is dated. While it lacks the flash of the modern day Disney cartoon it does stand up in it’s own right. The animation is very smooth and everything from forest animal to water reflections has been done very well. To say there was a lot of hard work put into this is an understatement.

The voices.
The voices in the movie are great and fit the characters of the movie. Happy sounds like he’s a very happy fellow, Sneezy sounds stuff up, and Grumpy sounds very old and bitter. Has for Dopey well he doesn’t talk he just squeaks. The only complaint is that sometimes Snow Whites voice gets so high pitch that it sounds like she is hitting a shrill note.

The DVD.
Last week Disney released on DVD has part of there platinum series. It’s a two-disc DVD set and has everything from Disney’s vault except for Walt’s kitchen sink.

Menus.
Seeing how Disney knew this DVD would be viewed by either the elderly or by children, both groups can sometimes know little about DVD. So the menus are very tutorial bases with the Magic Mirror explaining each menu options and what it is containing. People who are new to DVD might enjoy listing to the mirror, people who know what their doing can still make there choices while the mirror is talking.

Video.
The Video transfer is pretty clean without any dirt or distortions thorough the entire thing.

Extras disc 1.
All right the extras for disc 1 are pretty much what you expect from a good DVD, however all the real extras are on disc 2.

Audio commentary.
Disney got a film historian and compiled a bunch of old clips of Walt Disney talking about the movie. While it is very interesting to Walt discuss the movie there is a problem. There is very little scene to scene information about the movie, and on top of that most of these interviews appear somewhere else on the two discs. However I will give Disney a break seeing how Walt’s been dead over 3 decades.

The making of Snow White.
In this hour-long feature you will hear from film historians and artiest that worked on the movie explain how they make it. Of course theirs video clips of Walt Disney explaining how he made things. In this you will hear about Disney’s greatest folly, how the artist went from a rather cartoonish animation to the more lifelike drawings in Snow white, and Walt’s financial problems during the making of it. Of course this is explain more thoroughly in Disc 2.

The goddes of spring.
This is a Disney Silly Symphony where they experimented with human motion. This is the Greek myth of Persphone and Hades, the tale tells how spring and winter come about. This is a good little short with some nice songs and some rather old animation. By only complaint is that I never in vision the Greek god Hades looking like Satan. (of course I never invision him looking like Jay Leno like he did on Hercules either)

Hi Ho it’s home from work we go
This is a karioke number done in one of Disney sing along song videos. The song of course is Hi Ho it’s home from work we go, the footage in the video is the same has the footage in the movie while they sing the song except they now have big cartoonish words to go along with the movie.

Dopey’s Mine Cart Game.
In this rather childish Trivia game you help Dopey go thorough the diamond mine do pick up the other dwarfs so they rescue Snow white. Getting answers correct will get you a dwarf, getting a wrong answer will lead you to a rather anger evil Queen. The questions on this are rather easy and are the same each time you go through it. This is fun to play once and then easily looked over.

Guided Tour.
Roy Disney and the Magic Mirror summon up Angela Lansbury to tell you about the special features in each disc. If your new to DVD then it might not be bad to go thorough this, if your pretty sure you know what your doing then you might want to skip it.

Some day by prince will come sung by Babra Striesand.
All right I saved the worse on disc 1 and probably the worse on both discs for the last of disc 1. Now I have heard DVD.IGN.COM review say that this ranks up there with Roseanne singing the national anthem has far has sure horror. Well it’s not that bad but to say it’s the worse out of the two discs is no fib. The song in the movie is done in a high pitch and rather good tempo (by no means fast tempo). Striesand sings it in a low pitch and a painfully slow tempo that it torturer to hear the whole thing, I guarantee watching this will bring a tear to your eye and I don’t mean in a good way. Oh well it could have been worse they could have had the back street boys do Hi Ho.

Disc 2
All right to explain all of Disc 2 would take about 10 more pages and a lot more time so I am just going to go thorough a few features that I think a lot of people should see.

Menu.
The menu is broken up into 5 parts. The queen’s dungeon, Snow whites wishing well, The queens Castle, The dwarfs mine, and the Dwarfs Cottage. Each place addresses something different, if you want a menu to see everything then you can click the apple at the begining of the main menu screen.

Deleted Scenes.
In these partially animated scenes that are cut out should not be missed. You should defiantly see the soup song, and the bed making scene.

Soup Song.
This scene happens after they all bath and start eating. Happy leads them in a song about eating there soup while they all gobble down there food like foods. Snow white comes in and tries to teach them to do it the polite way, only to have them not take it seriously. Then Dopey swallows his spoon and with the help of the other dwarfs he spits both the soap he swallowed in the previous bathing and the spoon out and they hit each other just like an arrow to a target. This is a pretty amusing scene to see Snow Whites face has she tries to teach them manners and then fails, and of course the Dwarfs cheering has Dopey spits out the spoon is pretty funny.

Bed making scene.
In another deleted scene called the lodge meeting the dwarfs decide to make another bed for Snow White. This is a continuos of that scene. The gags go from Sleepy carving a bed post when he tries to kill a fly that bothers him, to Dopey sneaking around cutting all the dwarfs underwear for stuffing for the mattress is pretty funny.

Disney thorough the ages.
In this part you will be given a brief 5-minute look at what happen to the Studio Company for each decade since 1937. You will also be given a trailer for the Snow White re-release of each decade. A very enjoyable look all though you might want to skip the trailers though cause it gets boring listing to the trailers the 5th time you hear one.

Abandon Concepts.
Not to be confused with deleted scenes these are ideas that haven’t even gotten off the drawing board. The most important one is the prince being taking captive by the queen in her dungeon. Do to the trouble they had animating the prince a lot of the ideas got dropped from the film.

orginal story
This is a text version of the original Grimm story book. It’s interesting to read it to find out just how much Disney changed in the story. It’s definitely worth one click thorough.

Restoration.
This is an interesting 3 minute documentary where they tell you how they restore the film for it’s 1993 release and compare the 2.

There are a lot of other interesting things that you should look at disc 2 including art galleries, scarp book, talk about the multiplane camera, radio broadcasts, scrap books and a lot more.

My recomendation.
Defintley the DVD to get if your a disney fan. I got it for 20 dollers and there is a 5 doller rebate for those who already own the VHS version. I have seen it for 30 dollers and if you can afford it, and can't find it at a cheapier price then I would get it if I could afford it. Anything above 30 dollers and your getting riped off.


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up to Age 4