History Trivia / Pocahontas

** Creator/JohnCandy had provided a large amount of voice work into a character named "Redfeather", a turkey as Pocahontas's sidekick. However, after Candy's death in 1994, the concept was scrapped.

* DuelingMovies: With ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory'', a movie that Disney just happened to be distributing at the time. It blew this movie out of the water and this particular duel spelled the beginning of the end of hand-drawn animation being the predominant form in feature films.

** Creator/SeanBean nearly was chosen to voice John Smith, but Disney opted to try to find a star that was well-known in American - and Creator/MelGibson was cast instead.

* AwesomeDearBoy: Russell Means called this "the finest feature film on American Indians Hollywood has turned out", and signed on in the hopes of creating a more sympathetic portrayal of Native Americans in mainstream film. The Native opinions on the film are [[LoveItOrHateIt split down the middle]], so YMMV with how well he succeeded.

* MagnumOpusDissonance: The studio had high hopes for the film, hoping it would gain an Oscar nomination as ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast'' had. This and ''Disney/TheLionKing'' were in production at the same time, and many animators opted to work on this as they and studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg saw it as the more prestigious project of the two (Ironically, Katzenberg was one of the creative leads on ''Lion King''). The latter became an insane success. And while this was a significant hit, it received LoveItOrHateIt reactions (Katzenberg was spared some of this backlash due to getting the boot from Disney after ''Lion King'' hit theaters the year prior; the "Reject the winner/embrace the somewhat runner-up" deal had happened to him before with ''Disney/OliverAndCompany'' and ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid'', and would happen to him at least once more with ''WesternAnimation/ThePrinceOfEgypt'' and ''WesternAnimation/{{Shrek}}'').

** The first pass of the story was going to be closer to the actual events (at least as close as [[ArtisticLicense a "fairy tale" version]] could get), with Pocahontas being twelve years old and speaking Powhatan for most of the film, gradually learning how to speak English. Jeff Katzenberg, desperate to earn the DisneyAnimatedCanon [[Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast another Academy Award nomination]], wanted the story to be sexier, both in tone and appearance, in the hopes of [[AnimationAgeGhetto appealing to the Academy Awards' standards of "maturity."]] It was his decision to age Pocahontas up and [[AdaptationalAttractiveness make John Smith more attractive]].

* Native reactions to this picture varied widely and [[http://www.kstrom.net/isk/poca/pocahont.html Native researcher Paula Giese provided a detailed analysis here]].

* InkSuitActor:
** Pocahontas was heavily modelled off the appearance of her voice actress Irene Bedard.
** Chief Powhatan was likewise inspired by his voice actor Russell Means.
** Christian Bale also said that the animators sketched him so they could model Thomas's movements off his.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen

** The first pass of the story was going to be closer to the actual events (at least as close as [[ArtisticLicense a "fairy tale" version]] could get), with Pocahontas being twelve years old and speaking Powhatan for most of the film, gradually learning how to speak English. Jeff Katzenberg wanted the story to be sexier, both in tone and appearance, in the hopes of [[AnimationAgeGhetto appealing to the Academy Awards' standards of "maturity."]] It was his decision to age Pocahontas up and [[AdaptationalAttractiveness make John Smith more attractive]].

* WhatCouldHaveBeen:

** Australian Creator/MelGibson as John Smith.

** Creator/BrianCox, Rupert Everett, Creator/StephenFry, and Creator/PatrickStewart were considered for Governor Ratcliffe.

** Ben was written as another English settler. However Billy Connolly struggled to do an English accent and they just made him Scottish instead.

** Australian Mel Gibson as John Smith.

** Borderline example with Christian Bale, who is Welsh, but had an English accent already. He uses his natural voice for Thomas. Ironically Bale says that Thomas was originally envisioned as Irish or Scottish.

* SoMyKidsCanWatch: Mel Gibson signed on to voice John Smith for this reason.

** Grandmother Willow was originally conceived as a character called Old Man River, who was to be voiced by Gregory Peck. When he read the treatment, Peck insisted that Pocahontas needed a maternal figure to turn to - and thus the character became female.

** Richard E Grant was going to voice Percy until the decision was made to mute the animals.

** Sean Bean nearly was chosen to voice John Smith, but Disney opted to try to find a star that was well-known in American - and Mel Gibson was cast instead.

* CutSong: "If I Never Knew You", later animated and restored for the 10th anniversary DVD. However, the 2-Movie Collection Blu-ray and DVD cut it out again.

* Native reactions to this picture varied widely and [[http://www.kstrom.net/isk/poca/pocahont.html Native researcher Paula Giese provided a detailed analysis here]].
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* Early copies of the original WaltDisneyHomeVideo/WaltDisneyMasterpieceCollection home version of ''Pocahontas'' replace the Masterpiece Collection logo that appears prior to the film with the 1989 Sorcerer Mickey WaltDisneyHomeVideo/WaltDisneyClassics logo (the Classics line was retired two years prior to this tape); this is the most recent appearance of the Sorcerer Mickey Classics logo in the United States as of 2016.

* CutSong: "If I Never Knew You", later animated and restored for the 10th anniversary DVD. However, the 2-Movie Collection Blu-Ray and DVD cut it out again.

* Early copies of the original ''WaltDisneyHomeVideo/WaltDisneyMasterpieceCollection'' home version of ''Pocahontas'' replace the ''Masterpiece Collection'' logo that appears prior to the film with the 1989 Sorcerer Mickey ''WaltDisneyHomeVideo/WaltDisneyClassics'' logo (the ''Classics'' line was retired two years prior to this tape); this is the most recent appearance of the Sorcerer Mickey ''Classics'' logo in the United States as of 2016.

** The deleted scenes from the Blu-Ray reveal that Wiggins was originally a lot more villainous, a lot less ditzy and eons more arrogant than the character we see today. He had a very condescending attitude toward the other settlers and displayed the personality of [[PsychopathicManchild an overexcited, childish rich boy]], dressing in full armor and grabbing guns from everywhere over the mere ''excitement'' of getting to shoot Indians.

* Early copies of the original ''Walt Disney Masterpiece Collection'' home version of ''Pocahontas'' replace the ''Masterpiece Collection'' logo that appears prior to the film with the 1989 Sorcerer Mickey ''Walt Disney Classics'' logo (the ''Classics'' line was retired two years prior to this tape); this is the most recent appearance of the Sorcerer Mickey ''Classics'' logo in the United States as of 2016.

* HeyItsThatVoice:
** [[Creator/ChristianBale The Goddamned Batman]] as Thomas.
** David Ogden Stiers (a.k.a. [[Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast Cogsworth]], [[Disney/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame The Archdeacon]], [[Disney/LiloAndStitch Dr. Jumba Jookiba]], and [[Series/{{Mash}} Charles Emerson Winchester III]]) as Governor Ratcliffe and his lackey, Wiggins.
** [[Film/{{Braveheart}} William]] [[Creator/MelGibson Wallace]][=/=][[Film/MadMax Mad]] [[Film/MadMax2TheRoadWarrior Max]] [[Film/MadMaxBeyondThunderdome Rockatansky]] as John Smith.
*** And his ''brother'' replaces him in the sequel.
** John Kassir ([[Series/TalesFromTheCrypt The Cryptkeeper]]) is Meeko.
** Billy Connolly as Ben, one of the settlers.
** [[Theatre/LesMiserables Judy Kuhn]] as Pocahontas (well, the singing voice).
** Grandmother Willow later becomes [[Series/NCISLosAngeles the leader of a team of federal agents]].
** In the Polish dub:
*** Pocahontas (speaking voice) is [[Anime/TekkamanBlade Star]].
*** John Smith is [[Film/TheMask Charlie]].
*** Thomas is [[Disney/TheHunchbackOfNotreDame Quasimodo]].
*** Ratcliffe is [[WesternAnimation/ThePrinceOfEgypt Jetro]].

* MagnumOpusDissonance: The studio had high hopes for the film, hoping it would gain an Oscar nomination as ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast'' had. This and ''Disney/TheLionKing'' were in production at the same time, and many animators opted to work on this as they and studio chief Jeffrey Katzenberg saw it as the more prestigious project of the two (Ironically, Katzenberg was one of the creative leads on ''Lion King''). The latter became an insane success. And while this was a significant hit, it received LoveItOrHateIt reactions (Katzenberg was spared some of this backlash due to getting the boot from Disney after ''Lion King'' hit theaters the year prior).

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** Lyricist Howard Ashman, who had worked on previous Disney animated classics such as ''Disney/TheLittleMermaid'' and ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast'', was supposed to write the songs for this film as well but died of AIDS prior to completing work on ''Disney/{{Aladdin}}'', and thus Creator/StephenSchwartz had to fill in for him.

* MagnumOpusDissonance: The studio had high hopes for the film, hoping it would gain an Oscar nomination as ''Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast'' had. This and ''Disney/TheLionKing'' were in production at the same time, and many animators opted to work on this as they saw it as the more prestigious project of the two. The latter became an insane success. And while this was a significant hit, it received LoveItOrHateIt reactions.

** David Ogden Stiers (a.k.a. [[Disney/BeautyAndTheBeast Cogsworth]], [[Disney/LiloAndStitch Dr. Jumba Jookiba]], and [[Series/{{Mash}} Charles Emerson Winchester III]]) as Governor Ratcliffe and his lackey, Wiggins.

** [[Film/{{Braveheart}} William]] [[Creator/MelGibson Wallace]] as John Smith.

** Creator/MelGibson as John Smith.

* CreatorsFavourite: Filmmakers were reluctant to create Grandmother Willow at first (see below), but when scripting her and Pocahontas's first scene, they fell in love with the character - and decided to greatly expand her role. She became an EnsembleDarkhorse for fans of the film.

* InkSuitActor: Pocahontas was heavily modelled off the appearance of her voice actress Irene Bedard.