History Fridge / ThePrinceOfEgypt

** The first interpretation of the opening lines "So you think you've got friends in high places/With the power to put us on the run" initially seems to be a mocking allusion to the Hebrew God as a "friend in a high place" of Moses. However, it is actually very probable that the Priests were referring to ''Ramses''. In their intrigue-addled mind, they probably thought Moses was just as much of a faking hypocrite as them, and he was ''going after their job'', hoping to use his past relation to Ramses to upstage them and become the new High Priest of Egypt.

** Then again the fact that Moses was discovered in a basket that had been floating on the Nile Tuya was no doubt confident that Pharaoh wouldn’t dare harm Moses as even if he was Hebrew it would be seen as a clear sign to Horemheb that the infant was firmly the gods’ favor and that killing him would be a very bad idea.

* During the Plague of Boils, there is a shot of a young girl and her little brother clinging to each other and watching the infected women run through the streets, shrieking in terror. That girl was, most likely, later killed by the Plague of the Firstborn.

** Then again the fact that Moses was discovered in a basket that had been floating on the Nile Tuya was no doubt confident that Pharaoh wouldn’t dare harm the infant Moses as even if he was Hebrew it was clear that the gods favored him and Horsmheb would be very unwilling to court their wrath.

** Everything about the song and the two priests actions is made to look like a magician act; even the priests refer to themselves as magicians at one point. However magicians have no real magic- they use tricks and illusions to create the appearance of magic. We get to watch in detail as Moses' staff changes to a serpent before our eyes. By comparison the priests do a big distracting song and number with lights and smoke before creating a flash of light that causes everyone to look away before showing up holding snakes. This is almost exactly how a real life magician would go about doing such an illusion, distracting everyone with their music while everything was set up, force the audience to look away, then pull a snake out of a hidden location and pretend you just created them. The implication is that while God performed an indisputable miracle the priests [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane could easily have been powerless]] and just pulling of a good stage show.

!!FridgeBrilliance:

!!FridgeHorror

** The repeated chanting of "thus saith '''the Lord, thus saith''' the Lord" also sounds like "no longer safe, no longer safe," which is also perfectly appropriate in this situation. The Egyptians are no longer safe from God's wrath, and they are about to witness His wonders...and terrors.

* The ancient Egyptians revered the Nile as the divine source of all life and a godly figure in its own right. That means that when Moses "stabbed" the Nile and it began to "bleed" he wasn't just doing something grand and bizarre--he was attacking a deity and ''physically wounding it.''

** The repeated chanting of "thus saith '''the Lord, thus saith''' the Lord" also sounds like "no longer safe, no longer safe," which is also perfectly appropriate for what is happening. The Egyptians are no longer safe from God's wrath, and they are about to witness His wonders...and terrors.

** The repeated chanting of "thus saith '''the Lord, thus saith''' the Lord" also sounds like "no longer safe, no longer safe," which is also perfectly appropriate for what is happening. The Egyptians are no longer safe from God's wrath, and they are about to see His wonders...and terrors.

** One little known detail of the scene where Moses floats up in a basket that is lost on modern readers is as follows: not only would it have been the then-current pharaoh's daughter rather than his wife as noted above, but the "bathing" she was in the middle of doing wasn't run-of-the-mill cleaning of oneself; it was likely a fertility ritual for a just-reaching-puberty princess. "When the gods send you a blessing" indeed.

* The animations for the burning bush and an angel of death look completely out of place compared to the rest of the film... and that's because '''they are'''. All we see otherwise are humans and animals, compared to the otherworldly beings that are Jehovah and angels.

* Why was Moses, a foreigner travelling alone with his wife and not dressed very impressively, permitted to enter the palace and gain an audience with the Pharaoh in the first place? Presumably he was taught as a prince the proper procedures for requesting such an audience, and the palace staff assumed anyone who knew how to submit that request properly must be someone with the authority to make it. (Also, despite the changes to Moses' appearance, it's possible Rameses was not the only one to recognize him as the 'missing prince'.)

** Everything about the song and the two priests actions is made to look like a magician act; even the priests refer to themselves as magicians at one point. However magicians have no real magic, they use tricks and illusions to create the appearance of magic. We get to watch in detail as Moses' staff changes to a serpent before our eyes. By comparison the priests do a big distracting song and number with lights and smoke before creating a flash of light that causes everyone to look away before showing up holding snakes. This is almost exactly how a real life magician would go about doing such an illusion, distracting everyone with their music while everything was set up, force the audience to look away, then pull a snake out of a hidden location and pretend you just created them. The implication is that while God performed an indisputable miracle the priests [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane could easily have been powerless]] and just pulling of a good stage show.

** Everything about the song and the two priests actions is made to look like a magician act, even the priests refer to themselves as magicians at one point. However magicians have no real magic, they use tricks and illusions to create the appearance of magic. We get to watch in detail as Moses' staff changes to a serpent before our eyes. By comparison the priests do a big distracting song and number with lights and smoke before creating a flash of light that causes everyone to look away before showing up holding snakes. This is almost exactly how a real life magician would go about doing such an illusion, distracting everyone with their music while everything was set up, force the audience to look away, then pull a snake out of a hidden location and pretend you just created them. The implication is that while God performed an indisputable miracle the priests [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane could easily have been powerless]] and just pulling of a good stage show.

* Tzipporah was a SexSlave. It's unknown whether or not she was captured specifically for this reason, but it is apparent (given Hotep's description of her, and probably her outfit too) that this was why she was brought into the court. She's [[GenreSavvy aware of this,]] which explains both her rage/[[RightlySelfRighteous indignation]] and her [[AdultFear fear]] (see the OhCrap look she gives when she hears she's being sent to Moses' chambers).

* How did Moses's adoptive parents react after they found out that [[AdultFear their youngest son ran away in the desert right after killing an Egyptian worker]]?

** Given this is Rameses ''the Great'', he walked back to his shattered kingdom, pieced it back together, crushed the Lybian tribes and Kushite that tried to take advantage of Egypt's weakness, and then made the kingdom greater than ever while fathering other ''eighty-seven children'' from his ''many'' wives (in fact he ''already'' had other children from both Nefertari and the future queen Isetnofret), with his only real loss being his older sister (Seti's firstborn). Though this experience would explain why Rameses became such an overachiever, especially in the bed: he felt he had to compensate for what he caused to Egypt.

* The slaughter of the Hebrew babies is depicted on the Hieroglyphics. Imagine how the people who had to paint that felt. And if it was done by slaves, they had to illustrate a horrific event that happened to their own people. Worse still, if the slaves did do it, some of them could have been painting the murder of ''their own children.''

* During ''The Plagues'', we hear Moses singing to Rameses of letting his people go. Throughout the song, Moses references how Rameses was (and still, in a way, IS) his brother, and how by being so stubborn he's harming the people of Egypt, which was their home. We also see Moses' face during the sequence isn't just a grave look at seeing the en masse destruction— he looks downright anguished at seeing his old home in that state. In a sense, the people he is begging Rameses to free aren't just the slaves: it's also the Egyptians themselves. He's telling Rameses how he's pretty much ''enslaving'' his subjects to the punishment of God, which they didn't deserve. ''They too are Moses' people''. This makes the song that more haunting. It also doubles as a [[TearJerker Tear Jerker]] in a way.

* In the scene where Moses and Rameses are touring the construction site, just after Rameses has been made Prince Regent and Moses has found out about his true heritage, it seems like Moses and Rameses are on totally different pages. Rameses is excited and optimistic, planning a grandiose new building project. Moses is depressed and ashamed, focused on the suffering of the slaves surrounding them. But really, they’re focused on the same thing—the damage done by the chariot race (on one hand), and the heritage they have to live up to (on the other hand). They’re just coming at it from opposite angles: Rameses is work-focused, thinking about what he can contribute to the Pharaonic legacy, while Moses is people-focused, thinking about what he has contributed (harmfully) to his people’s well-being. It also demonstrates how, throughout the movie, Rameses is consistently self-focused, while Moses is consistently focused on others. To this troper, this one scene epitomizes how Moses and Rameses are polar opposite people with very different destinies despite both being leaders and both growing up together in the same context.

** Death of the Firstborn: Signifies God’s authority over the entire Egyptian pantheon, especially Osiris (Egyptian god of the afterlife), Horus (Deity closely associated with Pharaohs and life itself), Anubis (Egyptian god of the dead) and Pharaoh (the "highest authority" of Egypt).

* Doubles as Fridge Sadness. Tzipporah immediately goes to comfort her husband after he confronts Rameses for the very last time. This scene is actually quite brilliant, as well as heartbreaking because Tzipporah is the only one to truly understand Moses's pain: the loss of a family forever. Tzipporah understands why Moses is feeling such pain. Surely, during the years Moses has known her, he must have told her about the palace and his close brotherly relationship with Rameses. Here, Tzipporah doesn’t need to be told to know that the final confrontation with Pharaoh did not end on a peaceful note—the people are free, but Moses and Rameses’ relationship is broken, almost certainly for good. As for Moses, his adoptive family was all the family he had known for eighteen years, until he met Tzipporah and her sisters, and had a family again. Leaving Midian would have been really difficult for Tzipporah, as she knew she would likely not see her father or her sisters ever again, if not for a very long time. So she can empathize with Moses when he has lost all the adoptive family he had known and loved, possibly forever. On the other hand, Miriam and Aaron have lost their parents, but they had—and still have—each other, and now they have Tzipporah and Moses too. They have never known what it is to have to lose all the family you’ve known (whether adoptive or not). So Miriam is sympathetic, as she can tell how grieved Moses is, but does not understand the true agony of knowing you have lost someone you knew as your whole family likely for good. She can feel bad for Moses—and does feel bad for our favorite shepherd—but does not truly understand as Tzipporah does. Miriam loves her brother and tries to comfort him, but only Tzipporah, who knows she has likely said goodbye to her Midian family forever, truly understands what Moses is feeling at that moment.

* The ancient Egyptians revered the Nile as the divine source of all life and a godly figure in its own right. That means that when Moses "stabbed" the Nile and it began to "bleed" he wasn't just doing something grand and bizarre--he was literally attacking a deity and ''physically wounding it.''

* Moses refusing to dance. When Tzipporah's youngest sister ask him, he refused. He still was lost, depressed and thinking of himself as a stranger in a strange land. Time passed and he got used to living among the Midians so when Tzipporah literally dragged him to the dancing circle, he still fought back a little, but at the end gave in. Despite living with them for around ten years (I suppose), he still considers himself an outsider, despite being happier than before. Only when he got married to Tzipporah and officially entered her family, did he start to clumsily dance with her at his wedding. He was finally happy.

* As in Exodus, there is an uncomfortable moment in which God states that he will harden Pharaoh's heart, which seems like it would do nothing but seriously over-complicate things and needlessly draw out the destruction of Egypt. However, in the plagues, Rameses specifically says, "Let my heart be hardened, and never mind how high the cost may grow." Between God's omniscience and the Bible's recurring themes about free will, God did not ''force'' Rameses to become cold and senseless, he just allowed it.

* In Ancient Egypt, slaves were extremely rare and mostly composed of war prisoners or criminals, yet the Hebrews are shown as an entire ''people'' of slaves. Most people who know about Ancient Egypt would cringe...except the movie subtly provides a justification in Moses' nightmare, when God "signs" it with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aten disk of Aten:]] the Hebrews ''did'' commit a crime, namely keep their monotheistic religion when Egypt was busy wiping out Aten's monotheistic cult. This would also explain the extermination of the Hebrew children: a show of force to ''break'' the Hebrews when they were posing a perceived danger as the last massive holdout of monotheism. A rather successful show of force, given just how meek they are until the Plagues.

* That sequence of young Miriam watching her brother endure everything in the Nile, looking terrified as hell? At first glance, we may be used to it, because we've seen terrified characters before...but think about it. This is a terrified ''young girl'' who is watching helplessly as her infant brother narrowly misses getting eaten by crocodiles and hippos, being knocked around by oars, then raised onto a net before dropping back into the Nile.

* Seti I reigned for either eleven or fifteen years, depending on the dates one accept. This adds quite some horrors all around: If one accepts the longest dates and that Seti gave the order, the extermination of the firstborn Hebrews was literally ''Seti's first order as a pharaoh''. Alternatively (and more likely considering that Moses' adopted mother was supposed to be a princess), Seti didn't give the order, but it was either his father Ramses I or, considering how short his reign was, Horemheb of the previous dynasty. When Moses confronts him about the killing of the Hebrew newborns, Seti is trying to defend either his father or his father's predecessor...and confused on why Moses is blaming ''him''.

** Three Days of Darkness: Represents God’s supremacy over Ra, the Egyptian sun god. Possibly also demonstrates superiority over Aten (another solar deity) and maybe Thoth (deity of knowledge and the moon).

** What the priests needed to ([[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane maybe]]) turn their staffs into snakes: The staffs, invocations to dozens of Egyptian gods, an [[VillainSong elaborately-choreographed song-and-dance number]], an army of servants, each carrying a generously-portioned libation, lots of smoke and mirrors, and a flash of light to blind the audience (or at least cause them to look away), as the staffs turned into snakes. So, Moses accomplished with the power of one God what it took the priests dozens of their gods plus theatrics to do.