Cheap Pocahontas (Disney Gold Classic Collection) (DVD) (Mel Gibson, Christian Bale, Linda Hunt) (Mike Gabriel, Eric Goldberg) Price

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Customer Reviews of Pocahontas (Disney Gold Classic Collection)

That said, Pocahontas is a surprisingly real story even if it's events are complete fiction. It's characters feel like real people, and the events are both tragic and inspiring, and, yes children, not all endings are happy.

What's wonderful about Disney is how they can make a heart-wrenching tale such as this and still include light moments that don't seem totally out of place. The cute animal antics are great and show that animals don't need to talk to be funny. Such constant prescenses and Grandmother Willow and Wiggins add comic relief to what would normally be only serious situations.

The story is classic and teaches a good lesson. Who cares if it's historically accurate? Leave that for the history books to tell! Disney's calling it historical merely indicates that it is BASED on history in the way that The Little Mermaid was BASED on a fairy tale. And I don't need to remind you that Ariel commited suicide in Anderson's original tale.

Anyhow, many people I know don't like this film cause it's too serious. Most of the guys I hang around with need a good fight scene or perhaps an explosion before they'll acknowledge a film's greatness. Also the humor is a lot more subtle in Pocahontas than in many Disney films. Others like the film but not the ending.

To me, Pocahontas is a masterpiece of artistic creativity. Sure it's historical balderdash, but it's a great story, has great characters, and has more depth than many live-action films today. While it is not my favorite of the recent Disney movies, it's a great one, and I love to see them trying different things!

5 for the film, 3 for the DVD
Sadly, people expect Pocahontas to be another Lion King, which it is not. It's a much more quiet, serious, magical, more adult love story and of the recent Disney films, the one that touches me the most. Unfortunately, the DVD transfer is terrible.

At least it's presented in widescreen, but on all other counts the DVD is sub-par. The image is washed out, grainy and the colors seem to bleed a bit. Plus the sound is a bit distant sounding at times. I have the deluxe laserdic edition wich was a perfect transfer. Why they didn't just use that for the DVD I'll never know. There are a few extras included like the stroy book mode which lets you read or have the story read to you, 2 music videos, a short and simple trivia game and the obligatory trailer.

Reading through these reviews I don't understand why people expect this film to be historically accurate. First of all this is Disney. They even revise all their stories so they are more to their liking. Secondly, it was said again and again in all of the offical information for Pocahontas that it was based on the LEGEND of Pocahontas. Besides, it could never be historically accurate because historians themselves disagree on the actual events. Does all this mean that we should be deprived of experiencing a marvolous film that teaches compassion and the evils of bigotry? I think not.

This film is Disney's first serious attempt at growing up and presenting deeper, more realistic emotions into it's films. It was a courageous step taken in the most beautiful way. The songs are wonderful and moving. You're sure to be singing them long after the film has ended. My girpes with the film are it should have been longer, even more adult and the touching love song, If I Never Knew You should never have been cut. But these quibbles are just that, taken as a whole, Pocahontas is an astonishing achievement for the new Disney, topped (posssibly) only by The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Disney needs to grow to survive and this was an excellent frist step. Do not let the naysayyers or the bad DVD transfer stop you from enjoying the greatest love story ever animated. Get it on VHS if not DVD, but don't miss this film. Enjoy!

Politically-correct racism
I wish my children had never seen this movie, but since I made the mistake of trusting Disney and since it reappears on TV frequently, I've used it as an opportunity to talk about the blatant (but politically-correct) racism woven through it. My point to my children: racism is wrong, no matter who it's directed at (a point that goes directly against the main theme of the movie).

In this movie, there is one and only one exception to the rule that all Native Americans are good and all English are bad. John Smith is the exception that proves the rule - other than him, all British are evil (and crude, dirty, greedy, etc.). The Native Americans aren't all quite perfect but all come around in the end, while the English are clearly rotten to the core, and the world would be a better place if they were all gone.

Get this movie for your children IF you want to teach them to use skin color as a way of predicting good versus evil. And don't worry, they won't get the wrong, racist lesson that dark skin is bad - they'll get the politically-correct lesson, that people with white skin are bad.