As the Snow White drama rumbles on, Tim Rice saying it's unnecessary recently, I wanted to show a case where it was retold in a better way.
Been reading 'I’m the Stepmother, but my Daughter is too Cute' which is the 'reborn as the story's villianess' trope in a Snow White setting. Snow White (Princess Blanche in this) is around only 10 in this take and the focus is more on the family relationship side with the stepmother now trying to repair and rebuild a relationship with her stepdaughter and more insisting her father, the king, BE a father (spoiler, he despises all women as Blanche is a product of when he was raped to 'continue the bloodline' when he was 14 by the former Queen).
Now let's compare this story to Disney’s projected train wreck. It doesn't belittle the male characters (in fact it provides more depth behind them), it isn't recasting characters for 'diversity' and clearly markets itself as an alternate take on a classic than 'a modern interpretation' subtlety implying the past version is inferior.
A western version I would also add is the Snow White tale in Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes where it's a straight up parody and takes the piss in a very humorous way. Kinda expected when Red Riding Hood pulls out a gun from her knickers and caps the wolf to make a new fur coat. But this does the same thing as the previous story, it honours the original and then goes in it's own direction.
The modern issue we are having is that modern, Hollywood especially, writers have the hubris to assume they can supplant a story that was passed through multiple generations than just provide their own take. Maybe it was started as a disenfranchisement campaign but seeing how many of those same writers are on the street striking because AI looking really good right now, hasn't worked out that well for them.
Anyway, thought I'd show how to do an alternate take of an old story well and just how shit mainstream western writers are. Have you guys got any good retellings you can list compared to Disney trash?
That seemed familiar and looked it up, from the intro I immediately remembered this from MY childhood
This is in the same bracket for me as Muppets Christmas Carol in that it presents a classic story but to a younger audience which is perfectly fine. Compared to current Hollywood that says you HAVE to be the audience no matter how unappealing they make it or you're a bigot
I unfortunately agree that bad Hollywood retellings of classic stories is a feature, I'm not young enough I don't remember that Romeo and Juilet film with Leonardo DiCaprio, I couldn't stand that film even as a kid, favourite Shakespeare film is still Henry V with Kenneth Branagh. The key thing that needs to be watched if they use the words 'updating, modern, current times' as that usually means 'we hired shit writers that can't write in a time period not their own'
Oh, if anyone wants to watch Henry V, it's on YouTube in full along with Wishbone season 1 if you want to see a cute dog in stories.