Pocahontas (Disney's Pretentious Oscar Bait Movie) (Part 2)

 

Welcome to part 2 of my ongoing saga of deconstruction of the pretentiousness and cynicism of Disney's 1995 film, Pocahontas. In part 1, we discovered Disney's purely cynical motives into making this film. Now we're going to cover how the cynicism really paid off.

Artistic License That's Not Really Artistic

Let me make one thing perfectly clear, I have nothing against Hollywood filmmakers taking creative liberties with historical events for entertainment and artistic purposes. Braveheart is one of the most historically inaccurate films ever made and I liked that film as a movie. I'm pretty sure there's historical inaccuracies in epics like Lawrence of Arabia, but I don't think those really matter because they were great films regardless. But the historical inaccuracies in Pocahontas do matter, because the film depicts Pocahontas and John Smith as star crossed lovers who are meant to be. I'm sorry to say this, but that's dumb. That's a stupid idea. It feels like a 5 year old came up with this movie. Like I said in part 1, if John Smith fell in love with Pocahontas in real life, then history will judge Smith as a sick child molester, since the the real Pocahontas was about 12 or 13 in 1607.

The Child Pandering Comedy Relief

Okay, so you try to make an animated film set in the 1607 Jamestown settlement in Virginia and you try to make a serious film about racism, exploitation of the foreign land, and colonialism. Here's the problem, if you're trying to make a serious film that takes these topic seriously, then why shoehorn comedic scenes where a racoon and a spoiled pug dog fight over food? Simple, to make desperate attempts of catering to little kids with its comedy relief and sell toys at your local Burger King. Now, there's nothing wrong with blending humor and drama in animated films, but when you put in comedic side kicks primarily to entertain the little kiddies, sell toys at McDonalds and Burger King, and contribute little or absolutely nothing to the film's story, then you're basically pandering to kids and disrupting the serious tone of the movie.  

One Dimensional Characters

After the morally grey characters from the previous films in The Disney Renaissance, we are left with cookie cutter characters because the film tells an overly simple, black and white story of good and evil set in actual events that are grey.

Let's start with our 2 lead characters, Pocahontas and John Smith. Creative liberties aside, the real problem is that there's really no depth to them. After the complex, yet believable relationship between Belle and The Beast, Pocahontas and John Smith are basically 2 bland goodie goods with barely any personality. There's really no arc to these characters, they just love each other regardless of different cultures and skin color. 

I already addressed the comedic side characters and I really don't want to repeat myself. 

But the most disappointing character in the film is Governor Radcliffe. Roger Ebert said in his mildly positive review of the film that it lacks an interesting villain and he's right. Disney has a long history of memorable and entertaining villains. But that's really not the case with Radcliffe. He's just a one-dimensional buffoon whose primary motive is greed. That's all there is to the character. 

This begs the question, if the filmmakers want to make a serious film that addresses serious subject matter, then what's the point of writing black and white characters to overly simply things for the kiddies? That's a good reason why Disney should not be making animated films based on historical events. 

The Animation

The animation and art style of the film is a mixed bag. The film has some striking colors and the backgrounds and locations are well detailed. But where the animation really falters is in the characters designs. 

 

The best place to start is the titular protagonist herself. Notice how attractive her physical appearance is. In fact, don't take my word for it. Reportedly, Jeffrey Katzenberg told Glen Keane, the character's supervising animator, that she has to look "sexy". So Keane partly took inspiration from supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss. Kind of weird that you're assigned to animate a female character and one of the first things you do is to objectify the opposite sex. Nice job setting an example when it comes to women Disney.

But other than that, most of the character designs either come off as stiff and even comes off as uncanny valley at times. Speaking of uncanny valley...

MOMMY, THERE'S A SCARY MONSTER!

Yeah, apparently Pocahontas takes words of wisdom from a talking tree named Grandmother Willow and she's scary as hell. I mean... just look at her.

The CGI work in this film doesn't really age well. After the majestic ballroom scene in Beauty and the Beast and the action packed stampede in The Lion King, the CGI looks really dated. But don't worry, because Pixar will later give us Toy Story a few months after Pocahontas and has better CG than this.

The Music

The musical score and songs were written and composed by Alan Menken, with lyrics written by Stephen Schwartz. Menken must have been struggling really hard after the death of Howard Ashman in 1991. I really like the musical score of this film, but the lyrics by Schwartz is a bit on the nose. The best example is in the villain song "Savages", when the English settlers and the Native American begin to attack (for example: "They're not like you and me, which means they must be evil"). The score is fine, but the songs are a bit on the nose.

Conclusion

Overall, Pocahontas is one of Disney's weakest animated features and the worst film in the Disney Renaissance era. I can see what the film is trying to do, but it doesn't make up for it's one dimensional characters, historical inaccuracies, beautiful looking yet stiff animation, on the nose songs, confused tone, and formulaic storyline. But the film's biggest crime is that it's nothing more than exploitative Oscar bait. Making a film to chase the Best Picture Oscar that Beauty and the Beast failed to win makes this film pretentious in my book. However, Pocahontas may very well be the only live action remake that I do want to see. Don't remake stuff like Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, remake films like Pocahontas. That would totally make up for many of the film's flaws. If the remake gets made, I'll be ready.  

Pocahontas (Disney's Pretentious Oscar Bait Movie) (Part 1)

In June 1995, Pocahontas was released to the big screen, during the era of The Disney Renaissance. After high hopes generated from The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King, the film finally premiered to mixed reviews from critics, harsh criticism from historians and Native American activists, and underwhelming box office scores. It was successful at the box office, but it didn't make as much money as The Lion King did the previous year. Today, while the film has it's fans, some consider it to be one of the weakest Disney animated features. So where did the disappointment really come from? Let's find out in this 2 part saga about the making of the film and how the problems resulted.

The Real Pocahontas

Before I talk about the movie, here's a brief summary about the real Pocahontas. Pocahontas was born sometime in the mid 1590's and is the daughter of her tribe's chief' Powhatan. In 1607, the English arrived in Virginia, where she lives, and settled in what is now called Jamestown, and that's pretty much the only thing the film got right. Because it's an animated film for "the whole family", Disney spares no expense into lying to little kids with its artistic license. The real Pocahontas, which was actually her nickname meaning "little brat" or "playful one", was actually about 12 or 13 when she encountered John Smith and they obviously didn't fall in love because that would make the real Smith a pedophile. She also didn't take words of wisdom from a talking tree that doesn't even exist, nor does she have a pet racoon who fights with a spoiled dog over food. And contrary to the film's happy ending, her real life ending didn't end on a high note. The real Pocahontas traveled to England, converted to Christianity, married English colonialist, John Rolfe, and died in 1617 in her early 20's. I'll address more of its historical inaccuracies in part 2, but so far, nice job lying to kids Disney.

Origins, Development, and Disney's Lust for Oscars

The origins of the film dates back shortly after The Rescuers Down Under hit theaters in late 1990. During a pitch meeting for future projects, director Mike Gabriel drew a poster of Tiger Lily from Peter Pan and wrote "Walt Disney's Pocahontas" on the top and pitched the idea in the back of the poster that reads "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." Meanwhile, Disney executive Peter Schneider was developing an animated version of Romeo and Juliet and when he noticed the similarities between his idea and Gabriel pitch, the project was quickly green lit.

In 1991, Beauty and the Beast opened to glowing reviews from critics, made so much money at the box office, and became the first animated film to be nominated for Best Picture. But when the Oscar ceremony took place in March 1992, Beauty and the Beast lost to The Silence of the Lambs. But no worries, because when Pocahontas was put into production, Disney's then chairman and head of the film division, Jeffery Katzenberg, had so much high hopes for this film, that he hoped that it would be the first animated film to win an Oscar for Best Picture. The studio's top animators choose to work on Pocahontas because they feel that it would be more prestigious, commercially viable, and more mainstream than the "B" film that was in production at the same time. Yeah, what was that "B" film?

Whoops!

Yes, apparently, Disney viewed The Lion King as just an experiment and they really weren't sure that people are going to see the film. Probably to test the waters, The Lion King opened first in June 1994. Little did they know that The Lion King has turned out to be one of the most critically and commercially successful animated films of all time, creating a cultural phenomenon despite allegations of plagiarism of the Japanese anime series Kimba The White Lion and an infamous, controversial negative review of the film on YouTube. But those are stories for another time. Sadly, The Lion King also marked the end of Jeffery Katzenberg's tenure at Disney, as he clashed with CEO Michael Eisner over the president's job after a helicopter crash killed Disney executive Frank Wells in April 1994. Frustrated with Eisner, Katzenberg left Disney in the fall of 1994 and co founded DreamWorks along with Steven Spielberg and music producer David Geffen. 

Release, High Expectations, and Disappointment

 

Following The Lion King's marketing strategy, Disney began to hype the movie by using the "Colors of the Wind" sequence as the film's teaser trailer. This tactic was so clever that the teaser even appeared on the original video version of The Lion King. Expectations and hype has just gotten bigger.

On June 10, 1995, the film premiered at Central Park in New York City, with 100,000 people attending the screening. The film also had tie ins from Burger King, Nestle, dolls from Mattel, and even video games for the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. When the film finally opened nationwide 13 days later, it opened with mixed reviews. There was praise for the animation and songs, but they expressed disappointment with it's story and characters. Even Roger Ebert, who gave it 3 stars out of 4, didn't even like the film's villain. 

There was also criticism from historians and Native American groups for Disney's interpretation of history. As far as the box office returns goes, it was successful, but it made less than The Lion King, grossing $141 million domestically while The Lion King made over $1 billion worldwide. Despite the film's shortcomings, it won 2 Oscars for Best Original Song and Best Original Score.

Stay tuned for part 2, where I convey my thoughts on the film.