Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 4K Restoration Set for Disney+

Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho, to Disney+ it goes!

By Cameron Bonomolo

Someday, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs will come to Disney+ in 4K. Disney today announced that "someday" is Monday, October 16th, as part of The Walt Disney Company's 100th-anniversary celebrations. The new 4K restoration of Walt Disney's original 1937 classic — which is available to own on 4K UHD Blu-ray starting October 10th — hails from the Walt Disney Studios Restoration and Preservation team, working closely with key artists from Walt Disney Animation Studios. Both teams recently restored Cinderella, Disney's 1950 classic that premiered its 4K "ultimate restoration" version on Disney+ over the summer. 

Disney Animation artists Michael Giaimo (production designer for the studio's upcoming Wish, and Frozen and Frozen II) and veteran animator/director Eric Goldberg (Aladdin, Pocahontas, head of hand-drawn animation for Disney Animation's Once Upon a Studio 100-year anniversary short) supervised the 4K restoration. Disney released a side-by-side comparison of the original and restored versions of Snow White, which you can see below.

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(Photo: Disney)

"The opportunity to help restore Snow White was both an honor and a challenge," said Goldberg. "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. 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."

Added Kevin Schaeffer, director of Restoration for Walt Disney Studios, "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."

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Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the first full-length cel animated feature in the history of film, and Walt Disney's first full-length feature production. The film — which stars Adriana Caselotti as Snow White, Lucille La Verne as the Evil Queen / the Witch, Harry Stockwell as the Prince, Moroni Olsen as the Magic Mirror, and Roy Atwell, Pinto Colvig, Eddie Collins, Billy Gilbert, Stuart Buchanan, Scotty Mattraw, and Otis Harlan as the dwarfs — released in 1937 and was recognized at the Oscars with a special honorary Academy Award accompanied by seven smaller Oscars.

Snow White is available to stream now on Disney+; the 4K remaster is available to own October 10th and debuts on Disney+ on October 16th. Sign up for Disney+ here.

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