“Snow White” Had Better Be the Fairest Film, Dammit

Permit me to echo io9’s causes for hope and causes for concern regarding the upcoming Snow White and the Huntsman.  Like them, I so desperately want it to prevail for its own sake and as a harbinger of more excellent dark fantasy to come.  I’ll add another way the movie may achieve cinematic excellence: symbolism.

If the trailers are any indication, director Rupert Sanders has fleshed out his fairy tale with lots of pregnant imagery: the camera looks to feature and linger on the images of the apple, crows, drops of blood, and of course the mirror.  Can I say enough how space awesome the extended mirror imagery looks to be?  I’m geeking out about the mirror on the wall flowing out of its frame, reminiscent of Terminator 2, and forming into a golden Nazgûl-figure.  I’m intrigued by the knights who, when struck, shatter into dark, reflective fragments.  And don’t get nerdy me started on the the monstrous, decimating flying shards!  Before long, you’ll be begging for sweet soul-sucked death by Charlize Theron.

I may not despair to quite that degree if the movie sucks, but, if it does, I am liable to walk despondently into a showing of Piranha 3DD and allow aesthetic nihilism to devour me.

Please be good, Snow White.  Pleeeeeaaaase!