Snow White (Animated) (Christmas Special) (DVD)

...event every Christmas morning. "A Snow White Christmas" was another one of those films which we stumbled upon by accident and watched for many years, at the time we only had it on VHS and eventually the tape couldn't hold out, it has been years since I sat down with my sisters and watched it but now things have changed, much like my discovery of the animated Grinch movie, I stumbled upon the film on DVD in Wilkinsons, I had not been looking ...
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"A Snow White Christmas"
Picking up years after the traditional fairy tale of Snow White we see Snow White and her handsome prince all grown up as a king and queen with their beautiful young daughter, also called Snow White. Young Snow White loves Christmas and her parents are having a grand celebration in honour of the season called "the ice festival" all the folk on the kingdom are involved in the celebrations.
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My family is big on tradition at Christmas whether it be the way we make Christmas lunch, lay out our stockings or hand out boxing day presents. Some of the stranger traditions involve cartoons or films that we watch, one of those being the incredibly strange "Elmchanted Forest" which we watched by accident one Christmas morning only to find it being showed again the following year, from then on it became a regular event every Christmas morning. "A Snow White Christmas" was another one of those films which we stumbled upon by accident and watched for many years, at the time we only had it on VHS and eventually the tape couldn't hold out, it has been years since I sat down with my sisters and watched it but now things have changed, much like my discovery of the animated Grinch movie, I stumbled upon the film on DVD in Wilkinsons, I had not been looking for it and almost passed it by, instead I picked up 3 copies, one for me and one each for my sisters, it can become our tradition once again.

"A Snow White Christmas"
Picking up years after the traditional fairy tale of Snow White we see Snow White and her handsome prince all grown up as a king and queen with their beautiful young daughter, also called Snow White. Young Snow White loves Christmas and her parents are having a grand celebration in honour of the season called "the ice festival" all the folk on the kingdom are involved in the celebrations.

The wicked queen that so hated Snow White in the original fairy tale has returned, released from her frozen imprisonment, and is furious when she finds out that now she is less fair then not only Snow White but also her daughter. Determined to ruin Christmas and get rid of the Snow Whites the wicked queen sends a magic spell, a terrible storm of frost to freeze the kingdom, Snow White junior manages to just escape the frost with her friend Grunyon but the king, queen and the rest of the kingdom are frozen.

After escaping the queens frost Snow White and Grunyon find themselves in a strange and mysterious place, everything around them is huge, giant tomatoes, giant vegetables even giant fly swats! The pair have stumbled upon the home of the seven friendly giants and with the help try to free Snow Whites home of the evil queens spell.

Naturally the evil queen sets out to stop Snow and her new friends in much the same way as she dealt with Snows mother, but who will wake Snow White junior from her slumber? You'll have to watch to find out

Cast-
The cast of this movie are all voice actors naturally. The film is not related or connected to the Disney adaptation of Snow White so none of the voices will be familiar or connected to the movie.

Erika Schiemer provides the voice for the young Snow White and is typical in the OTT, slightly annoying and whiney sense. Still she's bearable to listen to and delivers the lines well. Arte Johnson provides the voice for Brawny, one of the giants, and has just the right amount of gruffness and macho man attitude to match his character. Melendy Britt provides the voice for the wicked queen and does a good job giving the queen the smooth, rich voice you expect from a woman so beautiful but with the right level of sinister and evil in her tones. None of the voices stand out particularly above the others although a few are quite annoying including Snow White junior, Grunyon and Weeper the giant who cant stop crying.

Price & Availabilty
My 3 copies only cost me £2.99 each which is a complete bargain and I was more than happy to pay, for £3 each I am able to provide an extra little Christmas gift that will bring back some fond memories for my sisters. My copies, as mentioned earlier, were from Wilkinsons and I have not seen them in any other store however it can be found online Shop.com has it for £4.99, as does Play.com

The DVD-
The DVD has very basic functions of the "play and go" variety, because it's one of those, low budget, made for TV cartoons there are no special features or interactive areas, you are blessed with a scene selection menu but that's as fancy as it gets.

The film is certificated U, with an approximate run time of 46 min's, my copy is in region 2 with Dolby Digital sound (although only English Mono for musical soundtrack) It has no subtitle options although there is a section at the beginning of the DVD advertising other titles which, annoyingly, cannot be skipped.

My Opinion-
The plot in the film is almost identical to the standard Snow White fairy tale with the wicked queen determined to be rid of Snow White and her friends, she employs many similar methods to kill the young princess and all because she wants to be "the fairest of them all" the main difference is that the years have passed and now we see her dealing with Snow White junior who is being helped by 7 fellows of a different height problem, instead of dwarves they're giants.

The music of the film is typically cheesy in a 1980's fashion, very much reminiscent of the soundtrack for "The never ending story" the animation too is typically 80's brightly coloured and not too detailed it is much like the early Care Bears and My Little Pony episodes. The film lacks the finesse that the Disney version of the original fairy tale has and it is important to remember that when sitting down to watch this film, it

One of my favourite characters is the house proud and exceptionally camp Finicky the giant, clad in bright pink and busying himself with his duster and broom. He's one of the more original character concepts for the giants who also consist of one called Tiny who is actually the largest, one called Thinker who's very smart and the country bumpkin farmer Corny.

I love this movie despite it's daftness and was so pleased to find it on DVD, I'd not seen it in years so when I got the first chance to pop in the DVD I took advantage and sat down to watch it. At first Christopher wasn't keen for me to put it on, he was after all watching Lazy Town at the time and took great offence to my suggestion of switching it off, after 5 minutes of the annoying, un-skipable advert and the start of the movie, he was happily sat watching the movie and laughing at the giants as they clapped and sang to Snow White and Grunyon. He thoroughly enjoyed the DVD and followed the storyline well, even though he's only 3, he knew the wicked queen was naughty and loved the giant Tiny. The movie is just long enough to keep him entertained, not dragging out leaving him bored or distracted and, after all his initial fussing he happily declared "I like that mummy, I like the princess!" and told me all about the story he had just seen.

There seems little in the way of educational value in the movie, short of not opening the door to strangers and accepting differences in people, still it is enjoyable in its basic form, a Christmassy childs cartoon that can be sat and enjoyed by a family, just try not to expect too much from it, there's no comparison to the work of Disney.

This may not be the best, most brilliantly animated movie but I enjoy it, it brings back great memories and it seems to be passing onto the next generation as my little boy really enjoys it too. I can't wait to see my sisters faces when they unwrap their copies on Christmas day. 

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