5 Biggest Changes In Disney’s Live-Action Remake

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.