A new trailer for Disney’s live-action “Snow White” just dropped, and it’s getting a lot of negative attention from fans. One of the biggest criticisms has to do with the computer-generated imagery (CGI) portrayal of the seven dwarfs.
Even overseas outlets are ripping on the trailer, with a writer from The Guardian calling it “hauntingly bad” and “the ugliest thing ever committed to screen.”
Most of those complaints revolve around the appearance of the CGI characters. “It treats the animals that Snow White finds in the woods with the same photorealistic CGI that was used in the most recent Lion King remake, which has the effect of transforming helpful woodland creatures into literal vermin. And then there are the dwarves. My God, the dwarves,” the writer continues.
“The new Snow White dwarves look like someone has snuck into Disneyland, grabbed the statues from Snow White’s Enchanted Wish and wrapped them in human flesh, as a serial killer would with a gift for their mother. They look like something a seaside caricaturist would draw of someone they openly hated. They look like animatronic figures that were struck by lightning and came to life before the fire was put out. They look like someone has shaved the Sonic the Hedgehog from that first Sonic the Hedgehog trailer that everyone hated,” The Guardian writer says, adding that they serve as “nightmare fuel.”
Reactions on social media are not much better.
“Are you honestly telling me that disney executives saw footage from the live action snow white movie and thought ‘yeah those dwarves look great, no notes’…Yikes,” one person shared on X.
“They look so fake to me,” another wrote.
“This is the CGI dwarves that Disney will have in the new adaptation of Snow White? This movie is going to bomb so hard that it will make the Hindenburg look like a small camp fire,” another agreed.
Rumor has it that live actors were originally cast as the dwarfs, but that plan was scrapped during filming when photos of the diverse group were leaked and mocked on social media. Actor Peter Dinklage, who has dwarfism, also denounced the film in the early stages.
“Literally no offense to anything, but I was sort of taken aback,” he said during a podcast interview in 2022. “They were very proud to cast a Latin[a] actress as Snow White, but you’re still telling the story of ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ Take a step back and look at what you’re doing there. It makes no sense to me. You’re progressive in one way, but you’re still making that f***ing backward story about seven dwarfs living in a cave together. Have I done nothing to advance the cause from my soapbox? I guess I’m not loud enough.”
