American History and Animation don't always seem to go together very well, . . . but somehow, Walt Disney Pictures chose to tackle one of the most legendary stories ever known: Pocahontas.

The film is set in the year 1607, back when Englishmen sailed across the sea to a new world that would soon give birth to America's first settlement in Jamestown, Virginia. Pocahontas, the daughter of her tribe's chief, is depicted here as a mischievous teenager with a rebellious wild spirit (just like her deceased mother . . . seriously, what is up with Disney "Princesses" and the whole thing with a lack of a maternal parent? This is just too much . . . and Pocahontas as a Princess? Yeah, I think everyone has considered her as a princess only because she's the chief's daughter, so I guess it counts, right?). Somehow, a sudden betrothal leads her to pondering about her own dreams and whether or not this path is the right one for her, despite her strange visions as she sleeps of a spinning arrow. At the same time, a ship carrying Englishmen looking for gold and wealth in this "New World," as well as Captain John Smith, an explorer of new lands and searcher for adventure. They are led by the Governor Radcliffe, a pompous gentleman who wants the wealth of Virginia all for himself (without actually doing any of the work, of course) and cares nothing for the Natives of the land that they choose to conquer. However, a chance meeting between the young exotic woman and the strong blond explorer will change everything , , ,

Um . . . predictable, much?

Naturally, Pocahontas and John Smith are compatible to one another - both have this sense of curiosity and adventure, as well as a pride for their people - so it's normal for two different yet similar characters to try and make a difference together. However, I also like the fact that Disney incorparates animals into this situation of differences - Meeko (Pocahontas' friendly raccoon) and Percy (Radcliffe's pet pug) have a hard time getting along, but eventually, they become friends and respect each other's differences. (Of course, the best part is that they do it without talking - they chatter in their own tongues and body language.) Also, Flit learns to trust John Smith as well - he doesn't get along with strangers, but for a hummingbird, he's rather protective of Pocahontas throughout the film.

But the main theme is clearly about hatred, prejudice and peace - a classic theme that trancends many classic tales and stories. The Englishmen want to get rid of the Natives, the Natives want to find a way to get the "white pale-faced men" off of their land, but somehow, Pocahontas and John Smith that together they can find a way to learn and help each other, despite their differences. There were lots of ways that this message was spread - through minor characters, through images, through music and song, through the fact that these two youngsters found each other and fell in love although it was forbidden and considered as betraying their own people. That was a major plus . . . .

But however classic this tale of forbidden love may be, it just feels more like a very tame, historical and rather light version of the "Romeo and Juliet" story to me. Two different people with different values meet and fall in love . . . but without all the death and such. (However, there is death . . . but you'll have to watch to see who dies. Bwa ha ha, I'm so evil.) The whole prejudice of each group only because of how different they are (in looks, in beliefs and cultures, in clothing and accessories . . .) is just one of those natural things that we all have to deal with in real life . . . so . . . yeah.

That is not all that gripes me - The Natives and the Englishmen . . . gah, I still can't understand how the language barrier was broken so quickly. Seriously, for a couple of lines (and the beginning of a song at the early beginning), the tribe speaks and sings in the Algonquin language . . . and then it quickly switches to all English. (it goes back and forth this way a couple of times during the film, but by the end it's all English for the natives) Even Pocahontas herself does this - when Smith first stops Pocahontas before she flees, she speaks a line in Algonquin before completely shocking him by speaking in perfect English. (But hey, wouldn't you be shocked too if a native people could somehow speak your own language? Yeah . . . it'd be oddly weird.)

Gah gah gahhhhh . . . that mainly got on my nerves.

The songs I rather liked, even the "never-released song" on the Anniversary Edition of the film called "If I Never Knew You" (it's hinted in the theatrical version of the film in the score near the film's dramatic climax), which was romantic and beautiful at the same time (I think they cut it out from the finished piece due to time or because the editors thought it was too boring for normal children. No offense, but I prefer the film with it.). Most of the other songs I didn't really care for . . . maybe except for "Colors of the Wind," which had that message of taking the chance to learn and respect others for their differences . . . but other than that, nah.

The animation was fluid and lovely, although not everything was historically accurate per se. (At least the original was a little more accurate than the sequel . . . oh, wait . . . never mind.) Some of the characters were unnecessary IMO, but the comic relief made it lightly an enjoyable film. Of course, the whole "tree-spirit-a-la-Grandmother-Willow" thing was completely unrealistic, but I felt that this bit of spiritual company was light-hearted and necessary for the film to move forward (She reminded me of the Friar's character is "Romeo and Juliet" - she understands their love for each other and believes that perhaps their union will lead to peace with their people.); although she is a tree spirit, she offers guidance to Pocahontas and speaks like a nature spirit would (I guess . . . I'll admit I've never actually talked to nature before.), but acts almost like a maternal figure to the young and confused native child.

In conclusion, it's very hard to make an animated film based on something so historical and romantic as the tale of Pocahontas and John Smith and still make it appealing to children. Disney somehow makes it work, although it is far from historically accurate. However, it is impossible to actually get it right and this was just their interpretation of the story . . . in Disney-style, you may say. (Remember how Disney's version of "Hunchback" was compared to its original source?) I was entertained by the action and comedy, moved by the climax and the romance, and swept away by this world that was of long ago.

I say, let your kids watch it. They may get scared by the end, but it speaks about a message that the whole family can understand. Heck, Disney fans should check out the 10th Anniversary DVD of the film for the extra disc and the Special Edition version (which I think is better than the original - it contains "If I Never Knew You") of the movie, as well as the original Theatrical Film. Definitely worth a watch . . . but try to keep an open mind throughout it, okay?

My Rating: 3 stars

Here is another underrated and also unappreciated classic from Disney, which became another favorite of mine. This film is first the Disney film to be based on a real historic character. The film was based on the known facts of the historical story of Pocahontas and the folklore and legend that surround Pocahontas. In particular, it presents a highly emotionally charged and dramatic account of the meeting between Pocahontas and John Smith (they're my favorite Disney couple), it goes to show that love has no boundaries whether racial or from another world; Though there are no suggestions in any of the historical records that Smith and Pocahontas were lovers. This romantic version of the story appears only in fictionalized versions of their relationship.

Admittedly speaking, I don't have a favorite scene,because I love the WHOLE film - from beginning to end; And you know something isn't it ironical that the gay servant actually knows why the natives attack the settlers.

After not seeing this movie for three or four years, I saw it again tonight. I must say that I have a different impression of it now then I did 3 or 4 years ago.

First, let's start out with the bad and get that out of the way:

1. All major historical inaccuracies aside, the story is not that well told. The pacing could've been better with less New Age spiritual "spirits will guide you" gobble-dee-gook.

2. The main characters, John Smith and Pocahontas are not very interesting. I liked supporting characters a lot better.

3. Minor nitpicks:
How do the Indians know perfect English and how are they able to communicate with the Englishmen? And why do all the other Englishmen except Smith speak with an English accent but Smith speaks 100 with a pure American accent?

4. It had the same problem Bother Bear and Atlantis had, it just wasn't that fun of a movie. It was just... boring and very slow considering it only runs at 81 minutes.

Now, the good:

1. The animation, as always for Disney, is marvelous and very beautiful to look at.

2. Meeko and Flik are fun comedy relief characters. They made me chuckle.

3. Wiggum, Ratcliff's assistant, is a funny character and he works well. He is voiced (surprisingly!) by the same actor as Ratcliff, David Ogden Steers, who we know as Cogsworth the clock in Beauty and the Beast (a much better film).

4. Ratcliff himself is a fun villain and very nicely animated and voice acted.

5. I liked Gradmother Willow as a character when she was not rambling on about "the spirits" and telling Pocahontas to "listen with her heart".

So, not the best Disney movie but it's far from the worst (I'd say that ticket goes to Atlantis). I give it a 2.5 for a plot with potential... but that could've been executed better.

What? I wasn't expecting these kinds of reviews!

Before I start let me state that this is not based off real events. If you really sit down to watch this film and expect some sort of documentury, then I think there is something wrong with you. This movie is based off the LEGEND of Pocahontas.

Well, the Characters and Story can get a bit preachy, with all the messages, but they are FANTASTIC messages! The animation is stunning! I absolutly loved it! The uses of pink and blue are used very nicely. The music is so beautiful, I especially loved the score. And then theres the songs, which have wonderful messages in them. "Colors of the Wind" of course is the most remembered, because its a beautiful song, but I especially liked "Just around the Riverbend." Its just a very nice song, and all the songs are very well animated to, also.

People may think I am crazy for rating this 4 stars, but honestly everything that bothers people about this film, doesn't bother me at all. When I sit down to watch this movie I expect to watch A DISNEY MOVIE, not a documentary. I really love this film and I just wouldn't feel right if I gave it a lower rating. 4 stars!

Jeez, has it really been almost 12 years since this film came out?
Anyway, I've always had trouble deciding on what I think of Pocahontas. The animation is decent, the songs are decent, but of course, there's the fact that Disney based this film on a true story, and turned it into something...well, Disney-ish. They turned Pocahontas into a beautiful, statuesque model of a Native American woman, when in fact the real Pocahontas was only about 12 when she met John Smith (who was considerably older than her). But if Disney had been that faithful to the actual story, the film would have raised more than a few eyebrows. Meeko, Flit, and Percy are cute, and stick around for some mild comic relief, and to give viewers a break from all the humans, but to me, are little more than an excuse to market oodles and doodles of stuffed animals and Happy Meal toys (even though Disney toys were sold through Burger King back then, but that's another thing, entirely...you get what I mean). As I stated earlier, the animation is decent. Not nearly as lush and vibrant as the animation seen in The Lion King, but it's alright. Other than Colours of the Wind, the songs aren't that great, though better than those heard in movies like Hercules or Mulan.
In my opinion, it's one of Disney's weaker films. A noble effort, but in falls flat when compared to some of its predecessors such as Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King, or later gems such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame or Tarzan. It's worth seeing at least once, mind you.

I'm in the minority--despite its glaring flaws of preachiness, extreme historical inaccuracy, Barbie-doll proportions (including the obligatory best friend with shorter hair, smaller bust, bigger nose, and less-revealing dress), and PC noble-savage-ness, I loved the movie. It has a more mature feel than the usual Disney fare.

Unlike most Disney cartoons, where the hero is a charming misfit embarked on a self-involved RudolphQuest to fit in and be allowed to join the reindeer games, Pocohontas must find the courage to stand up against her friends and tribal authority, and to work for peace.

The studio went for a more natural movement style for the humans, which might seem stiff after watching the less-realistic gyrations of, say, Aladdin, but still contains some remarkable movements...like Pocohontas' stalking John Smith through the shadows.

Not only are the movements more realistic, but many of the characters are as well. The inflexible attitudes of both sides are shown. Characters who would have been made much more broad and one-dimensional in other films remained very human. Even Ratcliffe, in the ORIGINALLY RELEASED VERSION of the film, was not wholly the stereotypical Disney villain. (They changed it after my first viewing, I swear. They added in extra little greedy leers to the end of every scene he had, and I think they cut a few of his less appalling lines. They must have been afraid it might not be 100% obvious that he was The Bad Guy. You may think it was not likely to have changed between the first time I saw it in the theater and the video release, but I know for an absolute fact that they changed at least three scenes in The Lion King between my first and second theater viewings!)

The songs in Pocohontas are delightful and memorable, and David Ogden Stiers plays a double role, voicing both Ratcliffe and his weedy servant Wiggin (my favorite character!) Goofy animal friends provide enough slapstick to keep children from becoming too bored with the more-adult tone of the story.

The landscape is gorgeously drawn, especially in the Colors of the Wind song, and the animation occasionally departs from the literal for some beautiful abstract effects. The reprise to the Savages song is a beautiful bit of animation.

Pocohontas is still a pretty good movie, warts and all!

Although the animation was nice, the story left something to be desired. Aside from the fact that Disney butchered the true story, the story they made up was pathetic.

The characters weren't all the interesting and downright flat. I found the character Mother Willow just bizarre. A couple of the songs' lyrics all reffered to the spirits in everything. Now I know what Balto 2 reminds me of, Pocahontas. Too much spirit stuff in this movie for my taste. The only redeeming characters were Meeko the Raccoon and Percy the Pug. They brought a little entertainment to the film.

The animation is rather nice, not as good as TLK, but better than most movies. I don't really remember the score since it's been a long time since I've watched this movie, but I remember it wasn't too terrible, just some of the songs were. I did enjoy a couple though, but that was about it.

If you haven't seen this one, you haven't missed much. I think this was one of Disney's biggest mistakes, next to the Black Cauldron.

When 'Pocahontas' was released in 1995, interest in Disney films was at an all-time high, coming off the stunning box-office success of 'Lion King'. These were the days when a new Disney movie was big news - when the press, the public waited with baited breath.

And that's the only reason I can think of for this movie making $200 million - only half as much as 'Lion King', but a fortune nonetheless, but more than 'Aladdin' and more, I think, than any Disney feature since.

It had been a long time since I'd seen 'Pocahontas'. I remembered it as being disappointing. I remembered that most of my friends thought the only good thing about it was Meeko, but I was ready to give it an impartial second or third look. Perhaps unfortunately for it though, I watched it coming off a run of three Miyazaki movies, and the difference in quality was, frankly, embarressing.

'Pocahontas' is probably the great stumble that started sinking the Disney ship. It's boring, dreary in appearance and emotionally listless, filled with characters you couldn't care less about, and cringingly embarressing in its attempts to be politically correct - attempts which of course it managed to fail in almost completely, which just makes it more of a disaster.

There are a few moments that save it from being truly wretched. Pocahontas' 'river song' near the start is a good sequence, Meeko is always entertaining, Billy Conolly does a good cameo, but really, that's about it. The rest of it is just dead, dead, dead. And to make it worse it's awfully dumbed down and preachy. And to add insult to injury, the post-Lion King publicity frenzy meant that this dud relegated Universal's brilliant 'Balto' to a footnote at the box office.

On imdb this movie gets the lowest average rating of any Disney animated feature. I wondered if that was fair. There are two or three that I might rate below this, but boy... what were they thinking.

The first and probably the worst of the run of dreary films which Disney wouldn't pull out of until 'Tarzan' five years later.

Give it a miss.

You gotta give this movie props for trying. Pocahontas is by far vastly more enjoyable than Peter Pan in its portrayal of Native Americans. Pocahontas also features two brilliantly strong lead characters, and the story surrounding them and how their relationship builds is nothing to shake a stick at. The messages hammer home and hammer strong. The musical score isn't nearly as impressive as in The Lion King, but the songs are many times more powerful. However one still can't shake the feeling that something went wrong in Disney's attempt to recapture the might of The Lion King. Compared to that classic, Pocahontas is a disappointment. The sense of scope is gone. The animation is brilliant on some levels, and weird on others. The movie obviously takes liberties with history, but that's just a minor quibble. The movie also has Disney's first non-happy ending since The Fox and the Hound, yet here it feels more tacked on and not as natural. Gone are also the fun sidekicks. While they're not as intrusive as the gargoyles in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, or Panic and Pain in Hercules, let's face it, Meeko and Flit are bland.

However, upon looking back at the film, standing on its own instead of being compared to The Lion King, it's not nearly so bad as it used to be. In fact in many ways it's an impressive and enjoyable movie, perhaps more enjoyable than even Hunchback.

At the time of its release, there was a lot of flack levelled at this movie for what the critics described as heaps of "historical inaccuracies." Disney's response to this criticism is that the movie is based on the Pocahontas legend and not on the events that actually inspired that legend. Setting all that aside, my biggest complaint about the movie's story is that it makes the claim of trying to express Native American spirituality and then cheapens it with funky coloured leaves and little glittery specks of light. It isn't quite as bad as little indians going "pow-wow" around a fire but it's pretty close and, if I were Native American, I'd be pretty insulted by it. The story's only saving grace is the sequences with Pocahontas' animal friends. It does, however, say something that these cute and fuzzy sequences are one of the few highlights of this film.

I also had serious problems with the animation of this film. I mean, take a real good look at Pocahontas there... is it just me or does her face look like a frying pan? In my mind, this isn't a "exotic primal beauty," this is just poor character design. Where is the poor woman's nose?? Not to mention John Smith who has a jaw so 'chiseled' you could break rocks with it. I get the impression that the animators were reaching for something that would encompass a 'Native American' style but somehow they fell yards short. The only animated sequence that stood out in the film for me was the one with Pocahontas and John Smith where John is tied up in the indian village. The scene is well staged and well animated, creating just the right mood to make it poignant and fulfilling.

Musically, the film also tries to capture a "Native American" sound but, once again, I feel that it falls short. It isn't that there is anything terribly wrong with any of the musical numbers, it's just there isn't anything that sparks me about them either.