Disney’s Live-Action Princess Movies Are Trapped in the 2010s

Photo: Walt Disney Studios/Everett Collection

The first proper industry headline about a new Snow White arrived in October 2016, a wild month in human history to plan anything nine years ahead. Since then, the U.S. has torn itself between progress and retrenchment, smash-cutting from a young Black president to the two oldest white ones. Meanwhile, the biggest studio in Hollywood steadily remade its most legendary animated successes with flesh-and-blood actors.

The new Snow White...