The sun is a yellow dwarf.
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It isn’t impossible to take the framework of the Snow White tale and rework it to give all the characters full personalities, backstories, and motivations; fantasy authors have managed it* where the original cartoon failed.
Disney could theoretically do the same, but none of us expect them to make more than a vague effort; they’re all about squeezing the maximum amount of money out of recycled intellectual property.
*I’m sure there are other examples, but one I’ve read is Rob Boley’s Scary Tales series, which mash up fairy tale characters, zombies, and horror movie characters past and present. Many of the dwarves’ names are an ironic reflection of struggles they’ve faced in their lives, and they’ve all suffered from racism at the hands of humanity. All of them are fully-fleshed out characters in their own right. (The series won’t be for everyone, as it’s very gory, very bleak, and it’s hard to buy some of the more ridiculous crossovers and prior interactions between characters… but for what it is, it’s well-done.)
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Even if they don’t make scads of cash, they’re still renewing copyright on “their” properties ad infinitum.
Also, if it wasn’t Snow White and the Seven Dwarves… “Snow White and the Seven um… Guys?” I feel that that’s been made before and is probably something I shouldn’t Google.
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That’s not really how copyright works though, even if Disney owned the rights to the original fairy tale (they don’t).
The original novel Winnie the Pooh is in public domain now even though other A.A. Milne books in the series and countless licensed Disney adaptations are still protected by copyright. Making subsequent works and remakes has no bearing on the copyright of older works.
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He signed the contract! He was the thirteenth!
And then there’s all the ancestral spoils from skirmishes with orcs and goblins…
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I always figured that Merry and Pippin were just a couple of layabout hustlers—kind of like a halfling version of Jay & Silent Bob—rather than members of some kind of Hobbit Aristocracy.
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“ Pippin was the only son and heir of Paladin Took II, the aristocratic and independent Thain of the Shire”
Merry was his cousin. Not that there was such a hoity toity leadership in the Shire. They were a counterpoint to all that. But they probably didn’t have to work for a living.
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I think of them more as members of the Hobbiton branch of The Drones Club.
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Oh, Ursula kicks ass as a villain.
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And while I am posting these…
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Not only that, but he was the heir of the Master of Buckland. So Pippin was the heir of of the sort-of head of state of the Shire and Merry was the heir of the ruler of Buckland. Of course by the time they inherited those offices famously the king had returned. And while it isn’t quite spelled out in the main narrative, Bilbo and Frodo after him were chiefs of the Baggins clan and implied to be landowners. When those Sackville-Baggins were after Bilbo’s inheritance it was not simply a matter of Bag End real estate. Oh, and of course as heirs of their families’ hereditary offices Merry and Pippin would end up being chiefs of their clans, too.
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Some of you are starting to sound like Stephen Colbert…
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Shirks?
Yeah but I’m having trouble putting that into context without a better understanding of how large the Shire is as a municipality. Is “Thain of the Shire” even a full-time gig or is it like one of those small towns where the Mayor also runs the local grocery?
If Merry & Pippin were so well-off they didn’t need to worry about income at all then one has to wonder why they were constantly stealing vegetables.
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For fun and profit?
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They had huge tracts of land!
Definitely small time. But you’re still the bosses son in a town of 5,000. Not that farmer Maggot wouldn’t have boxed their ears. But he was still named Maggot- while the title of The Took was one family name and Merry’s dad was the Master of Buckland.
They were able to go off on little adventures before the big one - and not tied together the land like the farmer - or Sam. Being country bumpkin lords of little to no importance was why they were allowed to be squire to Rohan and Guard of the Citadel. Sam never would have been so recognized.
They were gentlehobbits.
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I know, but I want the the Hobbit that I marry to have…
a certain, special… something! 
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Yeah, exactly, it’s about recognizing that the harm is entirely within the modern representations - using little people (or CG-altered images made to look like them) entirely in order to other them. It’s very much part of the same problem that Peter Dinklage’s character railed against in “Living In Oblivion.” (His scenes were always the one bit of the movie that stuck with me.)
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