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{{work|wppage=Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film)}}
{{quote|
''Some day, we'll meet again,
''And away to his castle we'll go,
''To be happy forever I know...
''Some day, when spring is here,
''We'll find our love anew,
''And the birds will sing,
''And wedding bells will ring,
''Some day, when my dreams come true... }}
[[Walt Disney
Part of the reason ''Snow White'' was made was for the purpose of economics -- despite the ambitious art and extreme popularity of the [[Mickey Mouse]] and [[Silly Symphonies]] shorts, Walt came to realize that no matter how successful his shorts were, the profit came solely from the length of the shorts, not popularity. Realizing that venturing out into making a feature length animated film could not only net him more profit in the long run, but also progress the medium of animation as an art-form, he began work on his daring project. Around four years were spent by Disney trying to get this mammoth project off the ground
Another obstacle was getting the animation to be on par with a live-action film -- even the best Silly Symphonies and Mickey Mouse cartoons during the early 1930s were still rigid and crude in their motion. As a result, life-drawing classes and frame-by-frame studying of live-action film took place, in an ambitious attempt to get the most life-like animation possible. The Silly Symphonies began to be used as testing grounds for the work that would go into ''Snow White'' -- from advancements in story and character animation, to major special effects discoveries. The studio also had to expand considerably to complete the film -- from a measly few hundred to nearly 1000 staffers by the
As for the plot, we're not even going to bother summarizing it, since ''[[Seen It a Million Times|everybody]]'' knows about this film and its story by now.
[[Filmation]] made an unofficial sequel called ''[[Happily Ever After (
Also, you just know Disney did something right when a man like '''[[Adolf Hitler]]''' of all people considered this the greatest film ever made, to the point where he even acquired a personal copy of the film's print for himself, and possibly [http://boingboing.net/2008/02/23/adolf-hitler-disney.html drew fan art
The Snow White character herself was eventually used as a "Princess of Heart" in the ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' series, in which she is one of seven Princesses to have a pure heart, without an inkling of darkness inside them. Her world was shown in the 2010 game ''[[Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep]]'' as "Dwarf Woodlands". Some changes to the story have been made for the three protagonists, such as Terra taking the place of the Assassin, but mostly follows the story.
A version of Snow White appears as one of the principal characters of the ABC [[Urban Fantasy]] series ''[[Once Upon a Time (TV series)|Once Upon a Time]]'', both as her fairytale self and as her alter ego Mary Margaret Blanchard.
Snow White also appears as an "Oh My Disney" cast member in the 2018 animated film ''[[Ralph Breaks the Internet]]'' alongside the other [[Disney Princess]]es.
----
{{tropelist}}
* [[Accidental Truth]]: The Evil Queen, under disguise as an elderly apple peddler, convinces Snow White that the poisoned apple is a "wishing apple". The princess buys into the hag's deception, biting the apple after wishing for the prince to come to her, and is knocked out cold as a result. Turns out that the laced apple did lead her to the prince she so desired, but not in a way she expected.
* [[Adaptation Distillation]]: Sticks ''very'' close to the original story, but the things it cuts out (the two other ways Snow White was going to be murdered: by a poisoned comb and by being strangled from a tight corset) and the things it adds in (personalities for the dwarfs) usually work to the story's benefit. The failed assassination attempts were originally going to be there, but were cut for time and animation limitations.
* [[Adaptation Dye Job]]: Averted in the final film, since Snow White has hair "as black as ebony", as described by the Brothers Grimm (plus [[Brown Eyes]]), but surviving pre-production drawings show Snow with [[Blue Eyes]] and [[Hair of Gold|blonde hair]] or [[Redheaded Hero|red hair]]. Seems the animators had trouble choosing one color from [[Blonde, Brunette, Redhead|the typical hair color trifecta]].
** In the Brothers Grimm version, it is only: "A child as white as snow, as red as blood and as black as ebony". While the most common interpretation is
* [[Adult Child]]: Dopey.
* [[All
* [[All There in
* [[Ambiguously Human]]: The Dwarfs.
* [[Anti
* [[Art Shift]]: The book in the [[Book Ends]] is filmed in live-action.
* [[Badass Beard]]: All the dwarfs except Dopey have one.
* [[Beauty Equals Goodness]]: Technically played straight with Snow White, although Disney intentionally made her "cute" instead of ravishingly beautiful.
* [[Big Bad]]: The Evil Queen.
* [[Black and White Morality]]: Right down to the color of a character's clothes. The only real "grey area" here is the hunter.
* [[Book Ends]]: the movie opens with a shot of a book opening by itself to give out exposition and ends with the same book closing itself.▼
* [[Bob Haircut]]: While set in the distant past, Snow White's hairdo [http://www.frockflicks.com/disney-princess-historical-influences-snow-white-1937/ reflects the era] her film was released, as exemplified by the likes of Loretta Young and Vivien Leigh.
▲* [[Book Ends]]:
* [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]: When The Queen/Witch says that there may be an antidote to the Sleeping Death, it looks like she's talking to the audience.
* [[Buried Alive]]: The queen ''assumes'' the Dwarves will do this to Snow White, but it doesn't actually happen.
* [[By the Lights of Their Eyes]]: During Snow White's frightening run in the forest, a number of thousands evil glowing eyes seems to staring at her from the darkness.
* [[Call
* [[Cape Swish]]: The Queen manages [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QUf91j3XqI a particularly impressive one] when rushing down from the Mirror Room to her secret spell-chamber.
* [[The Complainer Is Always Wrong]]: Grumpy was ignored and even outright ridiculed for [[Properly Paranoid|displaying fears]] that Snow White will make the evil Queen target them.
** A bit subverted, since his peers are aware of out dangerous the Queen, but they also have the heart to just not throw out an innocent girl back into the wild and even in peril's way. - Even for their own sake and safety.
*** There's also that Grumpy has his own ways of [[Jerkass With a Heart of Gold|caring deep down]].
* [[Cool Crown]]: The queen wears a crown with spikes evoking the rays of the sun.
* [[Cut Song]]: "Music in Your Soup" was to be sung by the dwarfs during dinner, and "You're Never Too Old to be Young" was replaced by "The Silly Song". There were even more songs written for the film that never made it as far.
** Sneezy originally had a verse during [https://web.archive.org/web/20120105213927/http://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/a-lost-snow-white-lyric-found.html "The Silly Song".] It was cut for seeming too off-color.
* [[Cute Mute]]: Dopey
* [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]]: After indulging in typical [[Nothing Can Stop Us Now]] [[Evil Gloating]], the Queen suddenly stops mid-[[Evil Laugh]] to ponder, "But wait!" ''pause'' "There ''may'' be an [[Magic Antidote|antidote]]! Nothing must be overlooked!" Upon discovering its one remedy ("[[True
* [[Dark Is Not Evil]]: The Magic Mirror - he has a creepy face and a weird voice, but he's not evil and he's not a Queen's henchman, he just does his job answering questions. In other Disney material later on, it was shown that the mirror was now owned by Walt Disney, and only used for good purposes. On the other hand, Valentino's prequel novel heavily implies that it was the Magic Mirror (more specifically, the occupant, the ghost of her deceased and very much abusive father) that acted as the reason why she even went nuts in the first place.
* [[Dead Hand Shot]]: Complete with dropped apple. It's only "sleeping death".
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* [[Disneyfication]]: The first example, and (as stated by [[Adaptation Distillation]] above) not nearly as much as would become expected later.
* [[Disney Princess]]: The [[Trope Maker]].
* [[Disney Villain Death]]: {{spoiler|Replaced the [[Family
** Did we mention {{spoiler|she [[No Kill Like Overkill|falls off a cliff which got struck by lightning, gets crushed under a boulder, and gets eaten by vultures]]?}} Let's face it, {{spoiler|this is an instance where the original death is ''mild'' compared to the Disney version}}. However, {{spoiler|we only see how the Queen falls of a cliff and the boulder falls down after her}}, and so we are spared the full mess. More to the point, {{spoiler|since it was ''nature'' killing the Queen, none of the good guys had to}} -- which makes it more family-friendly ''that'' way.
** In what way is having your feet forced into red-hot metal shoes, all but burning them off, less friendly than a shot of the Queen falling off a cliff, and everything else implied rather than shown? True, [[Nothing Is Scarier|the unseen]] can be worse than showing everything, but they definitely made the right call here.
** Some comics subvert this, where it is shown that she survived her fall. In addition, Valentino's novel implies that not only had the Queen ''not'' been killed, but her spirit was [[And I Must Scream|doomed]] to be sealed within the mirror.
* [[Disproportionate Retribution]]: Snow White's the fairest in the land, so The Queen tries to kill her.
* [[Don't Go in The Woods]]: Well, no, you can. Unless you usually jump at shadows or you're scared enough to imagine things as hideous monsters, giant bats, logs
* [[Don't Touch It, You Idiot!|Don't Touch It, You Fools!]]: It might be poison!! See?! It's witch's brew!
** Grumpy has this reaction to {{spoiler|[[What Do You Mean
* [[Eerie Pale
* [[Epic Fail]]: The Queen's plan to kill Snow White and be the fairest one of all. Instead, she dies a horrible death as the ''ugliest'' person of all, and the "wishing apple" she gives Snow White really does end up granting Snow White's wish.
* [[Even Evil Has Standards]]: While
* [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"]]: See [[No Name Given]], below.
* [[Everything Trying to Kill You]]: The dark forest sequence where seems like everything
* [[Evil Tropes]]: So many for the Queen.
** [[Evil Eyebrows]]
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* [[Extremely Short Timespan]]: Everything except the very last scene takes place within two days.
* [[Failed Attempt At Drama]]: Grumpy storming out and walking straight into a door.
* [[Fan Art]]: The most notorious
* [[Follow the Leader]]: What with being the highest grossing film of all time upon release, it was only natural that [[Paramount Pictures]] would give [[Fleischer Studios]] the chance to make their own answer to ''Snow White'', that being their animated adaptation of ''[[Max
* [[Foreshadowing]]: This happens on a meta level when the dwarfs come home to an occupied house.
{{quote|
* [[Four
* [[Fourth Wall Psych]]: There are several moments in her evil monologue about her plan to poison Snow White where The Queen as a hag seems to be addressing the audience directly, but camera cuts show she's addressing her bird.
* [[Freudian Excuse]]: In Valentino's prequel novel
* [[Friend to All Living Things]]: Snow White.
* [[Full
* [[Gag Nose]]: Bashful, Grumpy and Sneezy, although Grumpy's nose is easily the largest out of all of them.
* [[Genre Savvy]]: The animals know the Queen-hag is up to no good. Could it have been the vultures following her?
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** Grumpy is the only dwarf who acknowledges the danger of taking in Snow White, thus incurring the Queen's wrath if/when their help is discovered.
* [[Getting Crap Past the Radar]]: During the "Wash Up" song.
{{quote|
* [[God Save Us From the Queen]]: Especially if they're all like this one...
* [[Grief Song]]: "Chorale For Snow White".
* [[Grumpy Bear]]: [[Meaningful Name| Grumpy]], of course.
* [[Hallucinations]]: Snow White's run in the forest where she imagines it's inhabited by monstrous tree creatures.
* [[Happily Ever After]]
* [[Have a Gay Old Time]]: Doc tries to say, "who are you and what are you doing?" and comes up with "what are you and [[Accidental Innuendo|who are you doing]]?"
* [[Hellish Pupils]]: The Queen in her hag form has a pair of green ones. Also the scary trees who scares Snow White (in her imagination).
* [[He
* [[Herbivores Are Friendly]]: Snow White has deer, rabbits, squirrels, and songbirds helping her work.
* [[High Collar of Doom]]: The Queen.
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* [[Hypocritical Humor]]: "Now I will be the fairest one of all!"...after transforming herself into a hag.
* [[Indirect Kiss]]: Snow White kisses a dove, who then flies down to kiss the prince.
* [[Ink Suit Actor]]: Snow White
* [[Instant Plastic Surgery]]: Played for horror. When the mirror reveals to the Queen that the Hunter faked Snow White's death and reveals her location, the Queen storms to her private potion chambers. She makes a potion that would give her a harmless peddler's appearance so that no one will recognize her as she goes to murder her stepdaughter personally. It requires a hag's cackle, mummy dust, black of night, a scream of fright, a blast of wind, and a thunderbolt. The resulting effects make her look terrifying, and the potion itself causes great pain to the queen. This plan is so complicated that a few viewers asked why not make a potion that would make her more beautiful than Snow White.
* [[Insubstantial Ingredients]]: The peddler disguise was
* [[Irony]]: The apple, in a way,
* [["I Want" Song]]: "I'm Wishing" and "Someday My Prince Will Come".
* [[Jerk
* [[Karmic Death]]: {{spoiler|The Queen.}}
* [[Karmic Transformation]]: The Queen gives us a rare case of a voluntarily self-inflicted version of this. A woman obsessed with beauty turns herself hideous as a disguise, but she spends the rest of the movie (and is most often remembered) that way.
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* [[Large Ham]]: Averted with the Queen, who is usually very controlled with her mannerisms, even when angry. But when she becomes The Witch, she throws all calmness right out the window, and begins right on [[Ham and Cheese|hamming it up]].
* [[Leitmotif]]: Dopey is accompanied by an odd little theme most of the time (it can be heard most easily in the soap scene).
* [[Little Miss Snarker]]: Despite her motherly and gentle nature, not having a mean bone in her body, Snow does possess a sense of sassiness and sarcasm, such as when she recognises Grumpy and announces it mockingly, "Oooh, you must be Grumpy" in a deep voice. Not buying the dwarfs' bluffs upon being asked whether they washed their hands for dinner, she sarcastically responds "Oh, recently". And after Grumpy bumps into a wall, Snow snarkily asks him, "Did you hurt yourself?"
** A [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7lk0B7HLNI deleted scene] of the dwarfs' bedroom argument scene has Snow intervene during a fight that ensues, later blackmailing the dwarfs into letting her stay much to Grumpy's chagrin.
* [[Long Title]]: The soundtrack to the film–the first of its kind–was released in 1938 under the full title ''Songs from Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (with the Same Characters and Sound Effects as in the Film of That Title)''.
* [[The Lost Woods]]: Snow White's imagination during her flee in the forest makes it look like it.
* [[Love At First Note]]
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* [[Make a Wish]]: Snow White starts out singing in a wishing well, hoping for a prince to come.
* [[Manly Tears]]: Grumpy when Snow White (apparently) dies.
* [[Meaningful Name
* [[Minion
* [[Misplaced Wildlife]]: While the story is supposed to be in medieval Europe, we see raccoons, California quails and turkey vultures.
* [[Mood Whiplash]]: Any time the film changes from a scene with Snow White and the Dwarfs to a scene with the Queen or vice versa, especially the transition from the Queen's transformation scene to the musical number "The Silly Song".
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* [[Natural Spotlight]]: Snow White in her glass coffin.
* [[Nightmare Face]]: The close up of the Queen the first time she reveals her old witch face (''a perfect disguise''). Also the gnarled faces on the trees Snow White imagines during the dark forest sequence.
* [[Nightmare Fuel
* [[Noble Demon]]: The Huntsman is portrayed as being extremely loyal to the Queen. Nevertheless he cannot bear to kill Snow White and ultimately defies the Queen so she may live. Interestingly, development notes in Disney books claim the Huntsman was initially to be a [[Complete Monster]] that Snow White merely escapes from.
** The extend of his loyalty isn't shown. His initially refuses to kill Snow White and only agrees when the Queen reminds him of the consequences if he doesn't (presumably death or torture). As far as we know he could be as much a slave of the Queen as Snow White is.
* [[No Name Given]]: If you happen to meet them at a [[Disney Theme Parks]], you'll find that the Queen and the Prince simply autograph their names as "The Queen" and "The Prince".
* [[No Song for
* [[Obviously Evil]]: The Queen in disguise isn't exactly the most subtle of all the beasts of the field.
* [[Odd Name Out]]: Doc (whose name, unlike the others', isn't an adjective describing his personality).
** Then again, he does seem to be the brains of the group.
** In many translations his name is altered to some variation of "Wise".
* [[Off
* [[Offstage Villainy]]: It's implied the Queen committed others horrendous crimes before trying to kill Snow White -- there are a lot of skeletons in her dungeon...
* [[Ominous Opera Cape]]: The Queen. She's actually wearing ''two'' capes, in that her sleeves are one wide piece of fabric connected across her back, under her main cape.
* [[Only Sane Man]]: Grumpy's response to Snow White suddenly becoming their disciplinarian is arguably the closest to reasonable.
** Grumpy's displeasure of having her around also stems from the fact that
* [[Opening Chorus]]
* [[Palette Swap]]: Both averted and played straight with the dwarfs. In the original story they were all essentially palette swaps of each other but Disney gave each of them a distinct personality and with that gave them
* [[Painful Transformation]]: The queen turning into the old woman is not shown as pleasant to her.
* [[Pimped
* [[Pragmatic Adaptation]]: Dropping the too-tight laces and poisoned comb murder attempts was done because Walt knew they would kill the momentum of the story. Indeed, while there is a good amount of [[Disneyfication]] in this film, the changes are arguably [[Adaptation Distillation|beneficial in terms of pacing and interest]].
* [[Princess Classic]]
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* [[Purple Is Powerful]]: The Queen's dress, although it's overshadowed by all the black.
* [[Rags to Royalty]]: [[Trope Maker]] and [[Trope Namer]] of the Type 2.
* [[Raven Hair, Ivory Skin]]: Snow White. "Lips red as the rose. Hair black as ebony. Skin white as snow."
* [[Real Life Writes the Plot]]: Dopey became [[The Speechless]] because a suitable voice actor couldn't be found.
** For that matter, the Prince got much less screen time than initially planned because he was the hardest character to animate.
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* [[Scenery Porn]]: Set a precedent for every animated Disney feature to come.
* [[Screen to Stage Adaptation]]: Several over the decades, most elaborately a 1979 production at Radio City Music Hall in New York City complete with [[Adaptation Expansion]] (several new songs, Snow White's ''father'' being a supporting character, etc.). That version was filmed and was an early Disney VHS release under the title ''Snow White Live''.
* [[Shallow Love Interest]]: The Prince. One of the video releases said that the original intent was for the Prince to be captured by the Queen while looking for Snow White and have scenes involving his imprisonment and breakout. They were dropped in favour of the climax focusing on the dwarfs. [[Sleeping Beauty (Disney film)|Prince Phillip]] later gets to do all these things though.
* [[Sidekick Song]]: "The Silly Song".
* [[Sleepyhead]]: Sleepy.
* [[Sneeze of Doom]]: Courtesy of [[Meaningful Name|Sneezy]]. Subverted when Snow White first meets the dwarfs.
* [[The Speechless]]: Dopey.
* [[Spell My Name
* [[Storybook Opening]]: The [[Trope
* [[Team Mom]]: Snow White to the dwarfs; scarcely have they agreed to let her stay than she starts taking charge of the place.
* [[There Is No Kill Like Overkill]]: {{spoiler|Let's see: First, the ledge the disguised queen is standing on in the climax gets struck by lightning, which sends her falling to her death...and if that wasn't enough, the boulder she was trying to dislodge (to kill the dwarfs who were chasing her) falls right in the direction of where she was falling, just in case...oh, and the implications of her body being devoured by the vultures that were following her.}}
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* [[Totem Pole Trench]]: During the party that the dwarfs throw for Snow White, Dopey gets on Sneezy's shoulders and puts on a long blue coat so that the two of them can provide Snow White with a height-appropriate dance partner.
* [[The Something Song]]: "The Silly Song".
* [[True
* [[True
* [[Tsundere]]: Grumpy, whose demeanor toward Snow White (after he starts to warm up to her) is encompassed by the phrase "I'm not doing this because I like you."
* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: The Queen suffers this, but initially a rare cold
* [[Villain Opening Scene]]
* [[Wham! Shot]]: When the Queen changes her appearance. She makes and drinks a potion that will turn her into a "peddler". You may get an inkling that this is not a nice spell when the Queen combines mummy dust, a hag's cackle, a scream of fright, thunder and wind. But then the transformation finishes, and we see her face. You can't blame the crow lurking in the dungeon for jumping in fright.
* [[What Happened to
** In the scene where the dwarfs wash up for supper, Dopey accidentally swallows a bar of soap, causing him to hiccup bubbles. This was eventually resolved... in the deleted soup scene, in which he also swallows a spoon.
** Also, whatever became of the huntsman who was supposed to kill Snow White?
** For that matter, what happens to the kingdom after the Queen's death? Snow White is supposedly dead, so she can't ascend to the throne. So who's in charge then? Does Snow White claim her throne after she's
** What
*** Solved in ''[[Kingdom
* [[What Measure Is a Non
* [[What Measure Is a Non
* [[When Trees Attack]]: Subverted, since it's just Snow White's imagination.
* [[Wicked Witch]]: Take a guess...
* [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]]: The Queen/Queen Grimhilde/The Witch is perhaps one of the darkest interpretations of the trope: Evidence from the book "Fairest of All" suggests that it isn't so much that she's murderously jealous of her stepdaughter being more beautiful than her as it is that she is simply incapable of letting herself not be the fairest of all, her mind and integrity just being too far gone thanks to years of emotional abuse from her own father for apparently not being beautiful
* [[Younger Than She Looks]]: [[Walt Disney]] was aiming to make her look to be around 14 years old, though she still seems a tad older than that.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Noteworthy Disney Staff]]▼
{{AFI's 100 Years 100 Heroes and Villains}}
[[Category:Roger Ebert Great Movies List]]▼
{{Best in Film: The Greatest Movies of Our Time}}
[[Category:Animated Films]]
[[Category:
▲[[Category:Disney Animated Canon]]
[[Category:Fairy Tale]]
[[Category:Fantasy Animated Films]]
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[[Category:The Golden Age of Animation]]
[[Category:The Great Depression]]
[[Category:National Film Registry]]
▲[[Category:Noteworthy Disney Staff]]
▲[[Category:Roger Ebert Great Movies List]]
[[Category:Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs]]
[[Category:Trope Makers]]
[[Category:
▲[[Category:Disney]]
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