Snow White: The 5 Biggest Changes In Disney's Live-Action Remake

Spoilers for "Snow White" (2025) ahead.

By this point, it almost feels as if Disney has already remade every one of its animated classics in live-action. It's a trend that started in the mid-1990s with the Mouse House's live-action redo of "101 Dalmatians," before really ramping up in 2010 with Tim Burton's 3D version of "Alice in Wonderland." Now, at long last, the studio has gone back to the movie that started it all. 

Both Disney's first feature film and feature-length animated movie, "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" was released in 1937. Its number is finally up, though, as Disney has gone and refashioned it as a blend of live-action and CGI, this time going under the title "Snow White." (You can read /Film's review of the film here.) With "West Side Story" and "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" alum Rachel Zegler playing the titular heroine and the DC Extended Universe's Wonder Woman (better known in real life as Gal Gadot) portraying the Evil Queen, "Snow White" also marks Disney's latest attempt to bring an old-fashioned fairy tale almost as old as time itself into the modern age.

What that means is, inevitably, this "Snow White" is a bit different than you may be expecting. (In marketing-speak, this isn't your grandmother's Snow White.) Though the broad outlines of the plot are very much the same and some of the songs from the original make a re-appearance in this remake, "Snow White," as directed by Marc Webb and credited to writer Erin Cressida Wilson, doesn't follow every single storytelling choice from the 1937 original beat for beat. In fact, though there are a number of smaller changes, even someone with a passing familiarity would undeniably spot five particularly big alterations between Disney's animated original and the 2025 iteration. Let's break them down, from least to most notable.

It is a fact that "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is an all-out movie musical that released well before many of the most memorable film musicals of all time, from "The Wizard of Oz" to "Oklahoma!". Not counting any reprises, the 83-minute animated film boasts eight songs, including "Heigh-Ho," "Someday My Prince Will Come," and "Whistle While You Work." And yet, even though the eponymous princess and her septet of little friends all get to perform a few big numbers, the Evil Queen doesn't sing a word in the original film. 

As noted above, the plot of the 2025 remake broadly follows the same structure as the animated film does. There is a kingdom overseen by Gadot's Evil Queen, and she locks up her stepdaughter Snow White to be her servant. The Evil Queen becomes indescribably jealous when she learns via her Magic Mirror that she is no longer the fairest in the land. When her Huntsman chooses to save Snow White instead of cutting out her heart, the heroine escapes into the forest, meets seven little people whose names helpfully describe their respective personalities, and falls in a love with a charming, handsome young man before eventually defeating the Queen and living happily ever after.

But before the Evil Queen can lose, this time around, she does get to have a musical number of her own. As composed by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (of "Dear Evan Hansen" and "La La Land" fame), with additional lyrics by Jack Feldman, the song at hand is "All is Fair." Aside from playing on the question that the Evil Queen continuously asks the Magic Mirror, "All is Fair" is meant to be a snide, sly, snarky villain tune in the vein of "Be Prepared" from "The Lion King" or "Poor Unfortunate Souls" from "The Little Mermaid." It is, in all fairness (pun intended), not on Gal Gadot that the lyrics to "All is Fair" are both jumbled and uninspired. The Evil Queen sings the song to the Huntsman after realizing he's attempted to dupe her into thinking Snow White is dead, reminding him that "all is fair when you wear the crown/to be the queen means you do as you please."

Nevertheless, Gadot's performance is also part of why the song stumbles. Unquestionably, she is playing the Evil Queen as one-dimensionally as the character was envisioned in the animated original. This is not the kind of film that tries to tell us we've misunderstood this famous villainess or that she has more depth to explain her selfish and vain choices (and honestly, good for this movie for not trying either of these things). But while Gadot is undoubtedly going big, she's swinging and missing each time, especially in what sounds like a heavily auto-tuned singing performance. A better singer may not have made this a perfect song, but Gadot seems woefully incapable of bringing delicious nastiness to the table when that's exactly what is needed.

In the animated original, the story begins with Snow White as a teenager who's already working as a maid under the thumb of the vain and jealous Evil Queen. Her parents, in that version, are no longer around and aren't mentioned at any length. While the new "Snow White" does eventually arrive at that same point, it only does so after a lengthy prologue that lets us understand what happened to Snow White's parents. Not only does the prologue clarify that the kindly King and Queen of this nameless kingdom named our heroine Snow White specifically because she was unexpectedly born during a snowstorm while they were stuck in a carriage; it also lets us meet that King and Queen as they teach Snow White to nurture the good in life, and that by doing so, she can help the people of her kingdom let the good things grow. ("Good Things Grow," perhaps naturally, serves as the title of the film's opening song, also written by Pasek and Paul.)

This extended opening, brought partially to life by a young male narrator (more on him soon), doesn't fall flat, per se, but does end up making it clear how similar the setups for both "Snow White" and "Cinderella" can be, at least as filtered by the House of Mouse. In both of Disney's versions, the eponymous heroine first loses her mother; when her father remarries, he does so without realizing that his new wife is selfish, cruel, and nasty, and ends up dead for his troubles. (In this film, there's a brief sense that Snow White's father may actually still be alive, until it's revealed that the Evil Queen had him murdered in the guise of fighting a war against an unnamed "southern kingdom".) It's undeniably a change from how "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" handles the title character's parentage, largely because that film doesn't attempt to do so at all. But in expanding Snow White's past, the remake doesn't differentiate itself too much from other Disney classics.

Because this is a Disney movie, it should come as no surprise that when the film ends, Snow White and her love interest (who we'll discuss shortly) live happily ever after, as do the seven dwarfs. Of course, that also means that the Evil Queen is defeated once and for all. Though those specific plot details end up the same, how the story gets there is much different this time around. Yes, in both films, the Evil Queen resorts to transforming herself into an older woman, allowing her to trick Snow White into eating a poisoned apple. And in both films, the only way for Snow White to be revived is through true love's kiss. Surprisingly, since this version tries to make Snow White a much more forthright, confident, and self-sufficient young woman, it's a bit odd that "Snow White" follows these same beats, along with the dwarfs failing to stop the Evil Queen in time. But in the original, after they see Snow White in (essentially) a coma, the dwarfs race after the Evil Queen, still in her old woman form, leading to the baddie's death during a torrential thunderstorm.

Here, the Evil Queen is successful in poisoning Snow White and is able to head back to her kingdom before anyone finds her. In fact, she even turns back into her normal self, leading to a third-act fake-out of a showdown. After that, Snow White is revived by her true love, a charming bandit named Jonathan (Andrew Burnap), and they work with the dwarves to return to the kingdom and convince its citizens to rebel against the Evil Queen. But that rebellion isn't violent at all. Snow White delivers a kind and impassioned speech, reminding people how they used to live before the Evil Queen was in their lives, and that convinces them to lay down arms against each other. The Evil Queen is infuriated and chooses to run back to her Magic Mirror (voiced by Patrick Page), which makes clear that Snow White will always be fairer than she. This undeniable truth essentially undoes the Queen and her sorcery, causing her to crumble into dust in front of Snow White.

On one hand, it makes sense that Snow White would be a more active participant in the climax of a story that is about her specifically. And it also would be a bit odd for Snow White or anyone else within this story to take up arms and go into some big battle scene (especially since this movie is very much like its forebear in that it wants to appeal to kids of all ages). But the Evil Queen dying in her older form is a fitting conclusion for the self-involved and nasty character, whereas the inexplicable way in which she dies here is a bit baffling. That the film chooses not to explain how the Queen's magic works is both good and bad; it's good because too much detail would be unnecessary and dramatically dull, but it's bad because it means her control over the citizenry being undone by someone just mentioning how life used to be feels awfully flimsy.

Fair is fair: not all of the plot changes in "Snow White" are bad. One of the changes felt inevitable as soon as the film was announced, and certainly as soon as Zegler made (very reasonable) criticisms of the original film. In that movie, Snow White meets her handsome Prince very early on as he walks by her at a wishing well. It's a very ridiculous case of love at first sight, wherein two blandly attractive characters see each other and fall head over heels simply because ... well, they're both there together. Snow White's Prince doesn't even have a name (and barely has a discernible face). The fact that "Snow White" wants to change things up for the heroine is in no way shocking. Though, as noted above, her true love does have to wake her from her poisoned-apple coma with a kiss on the lips, he's no prince. Snow White first meets Jonathan as he's broken into the kingdom to steal some food for himself and his troupe of ragtag actors/bandits, who purportedly fight in the name of the King but, if nothing else, seem like charming ruffians.

That description alone should make clear that the romantic angle of "Snow White" is vastly different from how things shake out in the original film. In "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," the Prince doesn't make an appearance after his initial connection with Snow White at the wishing well until the very end, when he rides into the forest and wake the young woman up with a chaste peck on the lips. Here, Snow White and Jonathan have a much more defined romantic connection. Anyone watching the new film will know where things are going with these two lovebirds, but thankfully, Zegler and Burnap have a mildly impressive chemistry. Their conversations aren't exactly sparkling, but it would be unfair to suggest this romance isn't a vast improvement on the one in the original. Of course, given how low the bar was in the 1937 film, it's not the most incredible achievement. Still, this film does do right by Snow White in that respect.

Seeing as the first production still for "Snow White" made it clear the seven dwarfs would be depicted via photorealistic CGI (see above), it may not come as a shock that their portrayal in the full film is pretty unsettling. The distinctly colorful designs of the hand-drawn animated dwarfs is long gone, and their overlapping dialogue can often make it hard to discern which dwarf is which. One of the exceptions is Martin Klebba, who voices Grumpy and thus gets to be recognizably annoyed throughout the film. 

Of course, there's another obvious exception: Dopey. Each of the dwarfs, even though they're not referred to as such in the new movie, has a name that explains who they are as people. Happy is ... well, happy; Bashful is shy; Sleepy is tired all the time; and so on. Dopey, as depicted in the animated film, is cheerfully silly and mute, and somehow seems (intentionally) even more cartoonish than the others. In this film, the photorealistic version of Dopey, who looks disturbingly like the MAD Magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman, seems more like a put-upon child who chooses not to talk. (This, in spite of the random detail that the dwarves have apparently been alive for nearly three centuries.)

As noted above, the film begins with a young male narrator, as voiced by Andrew Barth Feldman (the Jennifer Lawrence comedy "No Hard Feelings"). But that narrator does get identified by the film's end: it's Dopey. And even before the film makes clear that Dopey has been telling the story of Snow White to an adoring crowd within the kingdom, Dopey speaks onscreen. Snow White, at one point, grasps that Dopey can talk but avoids doing so because he's afraid of what may happen when he does so. Leaving aside the fact that there's no explanation for why he'd be that scared, her confidence essentially encourages him to be brave too. 

Hence, by the film's third act, Dopey is talking almost (but not quite) as much as his fellow dwarfs. This is a choice as inexplicable as it is obnoxious and infuriating. It's akin to the film deciding that this time around, Bashful is actually extremely arrogant and cocky and confident, and his moniker is an ironic little sobriquet. It's not just that none of the other dwarfs get to have some kind of connection with Snow White or that they change their personalities based on being inspired by her. It's that hearing Dopey speak is one of the most unnerving choices the film makes, because that's not what's supposed to happen. 

That the new "Snow White" has plenty of differences from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is far from shocking. The 1937 original is inarguably one of the most influential films of all time, but it's also more of a foundational template on which future animated movie would build. The original film is not perfect, and any remake should attempt to do things differently. But there are some aspects of the story that can be seen as untouchable; to change them isn't to skirt controversy, but to invite a negative response in an easy and unnecessary way. Can Dopey speak in the new version of this story? Sure. But why on Earth should he?

"Snow White" is now playing in theaters.