Pocahontas

Pocahontas is a Disney princess story animated in 1995. The story starts off in London, England around 1607. There a crew of sailors including John Smith and Governor Ratcliffe boarded a ship to leave for the new world in hopes of finding gold and riches. John Smith is a courageous man which is emphasized when he saves a young sailor who is through overboard in a storm. Governor Ratcliffe is introduced in the story when he comes out of the basement of the ship, after the storm has passed, that had taken every ship member (besides him and his assistant) and gives a pep talk to the crew talking about what the awaits them in the new world. Before the screen changes to Pocahontas, the writers uses foreshadowing with John Smith when he says "I've seen plenty of new worlds what could possibly be different with this one" to convey to the viewer that this new world they are going to is going to be different and nothing any of them are expecting.

Pocahontas is a young Native American who is the daughter of the Chief Powhatan. In the movie, she looks to be around 18 and suppose to married Kocoum a warrior in the tribe. She goes to an old willow tree and talks to grandmother willow, who is a spirit in the tree. There Pocahontas is told of the Englishmen arrival. 

Once the crew lands on the new world they start to look for gold. While the sailor's start to destroy the land that they landed in, John Smith goes off and explores the land; finding Pocahontas in the water. They form a quick bond and start to see each other more and more. However, her sister finds out about their relationship and is worried for Pocahontas and tells Kocoum that Pocahontas is seeing an Englishman who had become their enemy. 

Kocoum runs to find Pocahontas and attacks John when he sees him. At the same time, the Englishman that John Smith had saved in the storm had followed John and shoots a Kocoum killing him instantly. John Smith is blamed for the kill and taken and sentenced to death by the Native Americans.

Before John can be killed and the English go to war against the Indians, Pocahontas declares her love for Smith and her father sees that if he kills John Smith the Englishman will retaliate and they would have to go to war against each other. Chief Powhatan decides to patrons John from death. However, due to Governor Ratcliffe greed he shoots at the Chief. Smith seeing this jumps in front of the bulletin takes it in his stomach. The Englishman gang up on Radcliffe and in prison him. Smith is forced to go back to England for medical care. When he is about to leave he asks Pocahontas if she will come with him. She tells him that she has to stay and take care of her native people. 

Many historical inaccuracies took places during the movie. For one the weeping willow tree is a kind of tree that would not be introduced into the new world in till much later. The Union Jack is shown in the movie a few times as well. But the time this story takes places the Union Jack would not have been made for another 200 years. A geography mistake in the move is that there are many cliffs near Jamestown but in fact, the land in Virginia near Jamestown is flat. A timing mistake in the movie is that Pocahontas dives from a cliff for 8.5 seconds. This time would make the high very high and would cause Pocahontas to be going very fast when she reaches the water. The water would not have been able to move fast enough killing her. 

This movie did not have any underlying message in it. It is a classic Disney love story where the women falls fast in love with the boy. On the other hand, Disney did illuminate the history of the English and Indian integration for the first time through the story of a real historical figure. But Disney stuck to their core values of women in destress and made her more of a love story then the significant historical figure that she was. 

This movie did a good job on getting the historical cultural of the time. If you look closer into the movie it is easy to spot problems, but both English and the Native American's hold stereotypes of their time period in this movie. 

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