Here's How You Can Watch Disney's Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs In 4K
Heigh-ho! Before Disney yet again tarnishes the beautiful animated memories of the classics that built the studio with a live-action remake, the studio is continuing its 100th-anniversary celebrations with a 4K restoration of the 1937 classic "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," their very first feature-length film. The restoration comes to Disney+ on October 16, 2023, and it's also available on 4K UHD, including a special Disney 100 SteelBook, starting October 10.
This news comes after Disney released a 4K restoration of "Cinderella" earlier this year, which restored the original colors and the grandeur of the film and helped preserve it for new generations. For this new 4K restoration, the studio tapped the Walt Disney Studios Restoration and Preservation team as well as artists from Walt Disney Animation Studios, the same team who worked on the "Cinderella" restoration, which included artist Michael Giaimo (now the production designer for "Wish"), as well as legendary animator/director Eric Goldberg (who led the hand-drawn animation team for the spectacular upcoming short "Once Upon a Studio" and also co-directed "Pocahontas" and the best segment of "Fantasia 2000").
"As the very first Walt Disney feature, Mike Giaimo and I felt we owed a debt to history to get it looking as beautiful, and as accurate to the original colors, as we could," said Goldberg in a press statement. "The muted palette and the delicate watercolor backgrounds evoke the illustrated fairy tales that Walt so loved, and the story and characters continue to resonate to this day. I hope our work inspires future generations of animation artists to fully appreciate the masterful talent and care that has gone into this landmark film."
Kevin Schaeffer, director of Restoration for Walt Disney Studios, added, "We are incredibly excited to go back to Walt's original negative and use current state-of-the-art technology to restore this stunning classic to its original beauty."
The house that Snow White built
"Snow White" is often called the very first animated feature film. That is not entirely true, as there were other feature films released before Disney's. While most are lost, the fact remains that films like "The Adventures of Prince Achmed" were released years prior. The main difference, however, is that films like these were made using other animation techniques such as cutout animation (think "South Park" but taking much longer to make). Walt Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" is the first feature-length film to use cel animation, what we now consider traditional animation.
At the time, it was a huge financial gamble. Disney was making not just an art film, but a four-quadrant blockbuster animated movie longer than any the studio had done before, and it paid off. The film changed how we view animation, and the Disney style came to dominate American animation for decades to come, in terms of visuals, use of music, the type of fairy tales, and the way to adapt them we'd see over time.
Above you can see an image comparing the version of "Snow White" currently available to watch at home, and the new 4K release, showing the vibrant colors finally restored.
With Disney no longer doing theatrical re-releases of their classic movies like they used to, and with the Disney Vault and home video re-releases not being as much of a thing in the time of streaming, these restorations (as well as their placement/promotion on Disney+) are essential to the discovery of these classics by young generations.