Hello & welcome back to A Look at Disney and today, we continue our Return To The Theater with another Screen To Stage as we look at a stage adaption that predates Disney's theaterical department that played at Radio City Music Hall as we look Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs: The Musical also known as Snow White Live. This actually aired on TV back in the '80s on HBO and later, Disney Channel. And I am assuming what I watched was a TV edit as there are things that are mentioned in the plot description for this show that never happened in the version that I watched.
And let me just get this outta the way right now, this show is soooo boring. Is it bad? No, I didn't actively hate like say Toy Story: The Musical but there were times, when I found myself fast forwarding through bits of the show. And since there aren't many uploads of the song individually, I'll link you to the show. Let me put it this way, you may recall that in my Screen To Stage for Beauty and The Beast, I mentioned that some critics that was a little juvenile for Broadway, well... there's a reason that Disney probably played this at Radio City Music Hall as it's clear from the acting to the set designs and everything else that this was more clearly aimed at children than a wide audience Does that make this bad? No, as in a sense it knows it's audience and perhaps I shouldn't rag too hard on something for children being at Radio City Music Hall as I liked Barney as a kid and he did a show there.
But in the case of Barney, that's a different quality than something like Snow White. With you know going in to, expect it to be aimed squarely at children but when I see something from Disney involving a movie like Snow White, I thought that it'd be more accessible to all audiences. But that really didn't seem to be the case and I think that would be true, even if the version I watched wasn't so edited. With that outta the way, we will be looking at What's The Same, What's Different, New Music (though there isn't much there to talk about), and My Final Thoughts. With that outta the way, let's begin.
What's The Same
The basic story is kept the same and I'll give them that and the design even does seem to capture the look of the movie, even if the costume design for some of the characters, i.e. the Dwarfs leaves a lot to be desired.
Especially, Dopey. Just yikes. Those costumes are nightmare fuel. So yeah, the story stays true to the source material but there were things that took me out of the show such as the animal friends being costumed actors. Which I think would have worked better if they were puppets but that's just me.
What's Different
The two biggest differences come in the form of two characters that were added to the story. First up, the King, Snow White's father is alive in this story but appears to be oblivious to what is going on and where his daughter is until The Huntsman comes to tell him in the second act. And the other difference is that The Queen is given another lackey named Luna.
Yeah... no. This Luna is the Queen's personal lady-in-waiting and she is part of the Queen's scheme to get rid of Snow White after the Magic Mirror tells her that Snow White is the fairest of them all as she has Luna take Snow White to the ramshackle village as the Queen believes that hard work and labor will destroy Snow White.
Okay....? I know the Queen barely had a plan in the original movie but that doesn't make much sense and yeah, this doesn't work. So The Queen reverts back to her original plan. Now, here's a weird thing, according to the plot description on the Disney Wiki, when The King finds out about this, he has Luna thrown in the dungeon to rot but that never happened in the version I watched as Luna seemed to disappear after the original plan.
There are some other minor changes such as learning that the Queen is from the village of Shi-tan and The Huntsman running into the Prince and both of them telling The King that Snow White is staying with The Seven Dwarfs and finding out that The Seven Dwarfs are The King's personal miners.
New Music
There really only seemed to be maybe two or three new songs written for it and again, one of them seemed to be cut from the version that I watched.
Welcome To The Kingdom
This number gave me some hope in the beginning but then it just went on and never stopped. And I just wanted it to end. This kinda set the mood for what I was in for.
Will I Ever See Her Again?
Yeah, this is the song that was cut from the version that I watched and if the comments I read are correct, this isn't the full version but even then, this is easily better than anything that was in the version of the show that I watched.
Here's The Happy Ending
Just an okay song to send the kiddies out on a high note. Nothing more, nothing less.
My Final Thoughts
Yeah, this show was pretty boring. Again, it's not bad but I just found the entire dull and lackluster. Perhaps, it's not for me but I feel like this show was kid friendly but open to anyone else. I guess that's not a bad thing but I do wish that this had been better and that I seen a version that hadn't been so edited down. Because from what I saw, I just couldn't get into this.
A quick note, I was originally going to end Return To The Theater with my review of Into The Woods but I've decided to push that back as I've got a lot to say on that movie. You can still expect it sometime this week but I've decided to add two more reviews of movies that film adaptations of beloved musicals. Starting with the 1997 adaptation of...
Rodger and Hammerstein's Cinderella
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