The Snow Queen (Readers Digest)

This will be the first of two Snow Queen adaptations that I will review, though the second will take a little while to get to. I will start off though by first saying that the Snow Queen is probably one of my favorite stories from Hans Christian Andersen. This Readers Digest version is surprisingly faithful to the original story where it includes the talking flowers, the married ravens and of course the talking reindeer. The story of course is likely well known, an evil sprite one day creates a mirror that reflects the ugliness of the world, twisting and distorting things. One day the mirror shatters and two splinters enter the heart and eye of our main character, Kay. Kay soon is taken away by the Snow Queen who wants him to solve for her an impossible puzzle. Kay however has a good childhood friend named Gerda and she is quite set upon finding her friend even if it means travelling far and wide through the seasons to find the Snow Queens palace to rescue him. The movie falls just short of the hour mark and in a way I think this hampers it a bit since things can feel slightly rushed. The animation is fairly sub par, though it is still better than some of the old shorts I have been viewing as of late. The story itself is well told and I believe only deviates slightly from the story by excluding two lesser characters who help Gerda along her way as well as a small verse being dropped that the two children sing. The rest of it however seems fairly on track from what I can remember. Is it as good as the second version? Probably not, and most people under the target age range might not find a lot of entertainment in it.