Very well executed

Better than most people think

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

It's 1607 London. Governor Ratcliffe leads an expedition looking to find a mountain of gold in exploiting the new world. Swashbuckling ship captain John Smith (Mel Gibson) encounters native princess Pocahontas and they fall in love. The two sides are on a collision course to war and only the two lovers can stop it.History as Disney princess drama can be dangerous territories. This one papers over some stuff leaving a questionable rendering from a kiddie history book. Ratcliffe is imbued with all the cartoon villainy. John Smith is the square jawed soldier with limited charisma and Pocahontas is the perfect heroine. The English side is not that compelling. It's too broad and too Disney. I find the native side much more compelling. It would serve the movie well to concentrate more on their point of view. It doesn't need the scenes from the English side. This does have the great song Colors of the Wind by Vanessa Williams as is in the Disney tradition. This is more Disney than history lesson. That's the only concern I have with this movie. Kids wouldn't understand the liberties taken with facts and adult wouldn't find this that compelling.

Do you remember, when you were little, how you sat with your family on a boring night and watched Pocahontas together? Pocahontas is a 1995 Disney animation that heavily relied on Native American history and culture to entertain the American children. Pocahontas is one of those movies in which you enjoy watching when you were little, but the only reason you would re-watch it is for nostalgia. However, besides providing us with childhood memories, Pocahontas also provided us with a schema that models our concepts of Native Americans culture and values, which we refer to growing up. In addition, it is a movie that emphasized on romance rather than the Native American culture.First of all, although the movie is based on a historical event, there are several significant historical inaccuracies. In the Disney adaptation, Pocahontas is a young adult while in reality she was only eleven or twelve when she met John Smith. This brings into question the primary conflict that Pocahontas faces in the movie: the forbidden love between her and John Smith. The real age difference between Pocahontas and Smith, along with several historical speculations, suggests that there was never any real romantic relationships between the two. In addition, one obstacle that stood in between the love of Pocahontas and Smith is her arranged marriage with Kocoum. Historically, there are mentions of her marrying Kocoum (although not proved), but it happened during her story with John Rolfe and not with Smith. Furthermore, even the famous story of how Pocahontas saved John Smith from death may be partially false. Some historical accounts suggest that Pocahontas saving Smith was part of a ritual Native Americans perform to welcome a stranger as family.These historical inaccuracies show how the Disney film does not place much emphasis on being historically accurate, but more on developing a romanticized plot that the American audience and children desires. Actually, one of the first pitch for the idea behind Pocahontas is "an Indian princess who is torn between her father's wishes to destroy the English settlers and her wishes to help them—a girl caught between her father and her people, and her love for the enemy." This is shown towards the end of the film where the Native Americans and English settlers were about to wage war with each other. The entire mise-en-scène (the effect of the details in the setting), in which the color of the skies turned from a calm blue to a violent red, shows Pocahontas's dilemma between her tribe and her love. Another technique that the producers used to emphasize the romance between Pocahontas and Smith is to develop the character of Smith as a lovable hero. Before he met Pocahontas, he is just another Englishman that likes adventures and is willing to kill "Injuns." For example, the scene was low key (lighting is dimmed to show shadows and darkness) just when he was about to shoot Pocahontas, which emphasizes the dark and suspicious side of Smith that is willing to kill Native Americans. However, after he met Pocahontas, Smith is suddenly developed into a kind character that is absolutely in touch with the Native American culture (for instance when he could see Grandmother Willow). This "fated" transformation of the "hero" in the script allows the audience to disregard unethical actions of Smith's past (and any other Englishmen for the matter) and focus solely on the development of the romance throughout the movie. In the end, this movie never truly teaches about the Native American history and culture, but is just another Western romanticized film adaptation of the Native American culture. Because the purpose of the film is to be more "socially responsible" than "historically accurate," as supervising animator Glen Keane explains, there are several instances where they misrepresented the Native American culture in the film (despite hiring Native American consultants and doing other research on their own). For example, the physical appearances of the Native Americans in the film were not representative of the actual Powhatan people (Pocahontas's tribe). One of the most popular representation of Native American in Western film and media is the use of headdresses (or war bonnets) and feather headbands. Pocahontas is not an exception to this misrepresentation: it is seen that chief Powhatan wears a headdress and Kocoum wears a feather headband. In reality, however, headdresses and feather headbands were only worn by a small number of tribes that were West and North of the Powhatan tribes. Despite this, one thing that Disney and their consultants did get right is the clothing style of the Native Americans: shirtless with breechclouts and leggings for men, and one-piece dresses for women. Finally, Pocahontas is a well-made animation in 1995 for a movie about Native Americans in 1995. The producers went through extensive research on the culture of the Native Americans to make sure that they are using the most historically accurate information (such as for the clothing of the Native Americans). However, their true intentions were never to be historically accurate, but to produce a likable American film, which means that there are several places where historical accuracy is sacrificed.

I haven't watched Pocahontas in maybe ten years, but I was feeling nostalgic one day and popped it in. I could not believe how truly BEAUTIFUL this movie is, in every aspect. STORY: Dramatic (with it's humorous moments of course), romantic, and it carries a very important message of peace, maturity, and fighting against ignorance and prejudice from BOTH sides. This is possibly the Disney movie with the greatest message for kids.ANIMATION: Drop. Dead. Gorgeous. Every single frame is such wonderful eye candy, and the camera work serves the sweeping story line extremely well.MUSIC: Aside from the songs everyone knows (Just Around the River Bend and Colors of the Wind) every single other song in the film is wonderful, with soaring harmonies and Broadway quality singing. Everything was masterfully written and executed. The music alone is reason enough for this to be adapted into a full out Broadway musical, but don't worry...the music is brilliant but it doesn't scream "MUSICAL!" like Hairspray or Mamma Mia.HISTORIC ACCURACY: Yes, Disney changed the true story quite a bit, but if you look to Disney for accurate re-telling's of historical events you have a serious PROBLEM. This movie is more 'Inspired by' than 'Based on' and since the true story is about a 13-14 year old falling in love with 30-40 year I think we can all appreciate that they took some liberties with a KIDS' MOVIE.All in all, I really don't get why this isn't revered as a classic right along with The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast.

I guess to really review the Pocahontas film we must first start at the origin of its creation. In 1992 the film was in production. When Disney decided on the making of this movie they explained that the film would be based on the legends and folktales surrounding Pocahontas. Based on my research it seems that not even historians agree on all the facts of the original story. What this means is that Disney chose (in a sense) the more colorful version of the Pocahontas story, no pun intended. Since Disney knew they would be going out on a ledge with this story they claimed that their main focus was sentiment when it came to portraying American Indians. So they sought the help of American Indian Activists. This was done in an effort to cover their "you know what," and to prevent an uproar within the American Indian community. To understand the differences between the historical event of John Smith's voyage to Jamestown and Disney's interpretation of it we must first take a look at how the character's compare. The first character we will look at is Pocahontas. In the Disney version, Pocahontas is a spirited, good-natured, fearless creature. She is full of curiosity and loves everything around her, even the trees that she has no problem talking to every morning. She is the cherished daughter of chief Powhatan, and her poised stance on the edge of the cliff is evidence of her wisdom beyond her years. In the original story, Pocahontas was also known as "Matoaka." She was still the beloved daughter of Chief Powatan, and like the movie she was still lively and playful. But one distinctive difference based on historical research is the physical appearance of Pocahontas. Historical research suggests that unlike the tall, slim, new age model type appearance that Pocahontas has in the Disney film, her figure was quite different. This makes one wonder why Disney would ignore or alter the historical knowledge that they had about the appearance of Native American women. In 1607 "hero" John Smith traveled on an extensive voyage to to Virginia, and the movie does a good job making it clear that the journey's main purpose was gold. But that is about the only thing that comes close to the actual events in Jamestown in 1607.This brings me to my next point that this story is a drastically inaccurate depiction of the actual historical event at Jamestown. For one, Pocahontas did fall in love but not with a man named John Smith. The guy that she married and conceived a child with was named John Rowe. Now as unimportant as that may sound, it's actually misleading to children when confronted with the details of an important time in our history. The inaccuracies stretch even to the clothes that they wore— that being said I highly doubt Native American women ran around in mini-skirts. So what was Disney's angle? I'm still not sure! Grant it that it is a Disney film, and Disney movies more often than not miss the mark when it comes to historical facts, but this movie was more like a misfire. It seems that even though they had the help of Native American activists, Disney still couldn't avoid the stereotypes. Though the film shows John Smith as a "Hero," I gave Disney a pass on this one because the young viewers do need a character with morals that they can aspire to be like. But historically Smith was manipulative, and his only interest was money, power and fame. In thinking about this movie I had a talk with a friend  and he brought up a good point. How the marriage between Pocahontas and Smith could have been a modern-day tabloid to distract from the horrid events that happened during this time in history. I think you can even take it a step further to say to make this movie a romantic tragedy with their wedding is added injury to insult.But damn, sorry for the rant I actually love Disney movies in all its glory. Yes, even Pocahontas, aside from the violence, the young viewers are exposed to characters with morals and strong constitutions. It teaches them about the greater good and the power of love. If I had to change something about the story, though, I would change the moral of it. I would change it from love conquers all to, people can change. This way the marriage wouldn't be the corner stone of the film, the fact that two different nations with two different languages can find a common ground would be the conclusion to this tragic tale.