Rachel Zegler deserves better than this

Listen. I am a huge Disney fan. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a “Disney adult,” but I own a lot of Disney merchandise, I have many, many opinions about Disney animated movies, and yeah, okay, I get a little misty-eyed when I visit the Magic Kingdom.

However, every time Disney remakes one of its gorgeous classic animated movies into a flat, lifeless “live action” version, I die a little bit on the inside. Sure, there are some that aren’t so bad, like 2015’s Cinderella, or even the 2023 Little Mermaid, which worked by giving Eric a personality. But for the most part, they’re all overwhelmingly worse than the originals — and the big new trailer for Disney’s remake of Snow White just exemplifies everything wrong with this whole live-action remake machine.

This new Snow White stars The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ Rachel Zegler as the titular princess. While she does have the vocal chops to be a Disney leading lady, she also very frankly deserves much better than this Party City-core dress and that awful Lord Farquaad haircut. Gal Gadot is the Evil Queen, which means she gets a pretty cool crown and the chance to say absolutely stilted, wooden lines like “I look at you and I just want to be… the fairest of them all.”

And the less we say about the uncanny-valley horror of the seven dwarves, the better.

Actually, there is one thing about this trailer I kinda dig. Look at this tortoise!

I love him Image: Disney via YouTube

I’m trying not to totally judge a movie by its trailer. The new Snow White looks like it’s putting in more of a plot, likely one where our plucky heroine will stand up to her despotic tyrant of a stepmother in a YA dystopian plotline out of 2014. Maybe it’ll work, storywise! Visually, though, everything seems like it’s working on the same budget as ABC Family’s Once Upon a Time.

The original Snow White was groundbreaking. It was the first full-length theatrical animated feature, something that just had not been done before. Disney used to be known for innovation; and now it looks like the studio is just known for grasping at its glory days.

Well. Anyway!

Snow White hits theaters on March 21, 2025.