YMMV / Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World

• Complete Monster: Governor John Ratcliffe is the cruel, greedy leader of the English settlers. Believing that the native Powhatan are hiding gold from him, Ratcliffe orders that anyone who even looks at a native without shooting them will be hanged. He later tries to lead his men into battle, planning to slaughter the whole community, even trying to shoot the Powhatan Chief despite both sides now wanting peace. After he is thwarted, Ratcliffe returns, obsessed with revenge. He attempts to kill John Smith and manipulates the King and Queen, planning to kickstart a bloody war solely to have vengeance on the Powhatan. Ratcliffe even has a bear tortured in front of Pocahontas so she could get riled up, and stand against the king, leading to her arrest with threat of execution.
• Contested Sequel: Some fans may like that this movie attempts to be historically accurate by pairing Pocahontas up with John Rolfe and having her go to England, as well as a fairly solid plot that is a cut above most of the Disney sequels. Others are of the opinion that, if the first movie was going to be historically accurate, it would never have paired Pocahontas and John Smith up in the first place, and that Disney should have left the shippers alone.
• Die for Our Ship: The Disney fanbase bashes John Rolfe for ending up with Pocahontas instead of Smith. Either that, or they act as if the sequel and/or the actual history doesn't exist and keep shipping John Smith/Pocahontas.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Never before has there been a Disney movie that's received more fan hate than the sequel, for obvious reasons. Disney has unfortunately made it harder for fans to disregard the sequel by releasing it and its predecessor on the same Blu-ray Disc.^note In 2016, Disney did release a Pocahontas BD that didn't include the sequel, but they sell it only through the Disney Movie Club. Although, since 2010 and Pocahontas's arrival in the Disney Princess line, the merchandising and everything else always depicts her with John Smith. Except in his own movie, Rolfe is pretty much unheard of now.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: As discussed above, one of the main reasons this film is given the Fanon Discontinuity treatment is because fans of the first film wanted Pocahontas to end up with John Smith rather than John Rolfe, even though her ending up with John Rolfe is historically accurate.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Pocahontas wearing powder on her face to make her skin lighter is uncomfortably reminiscent of the infamous redesigns of the Disney Princesses - where a lot of the skin tones on the darker princesses were lightened.
  • The scene where Pocahontas gets arrested became this after Irene Bedard was arrested twice in November 2020: the first was for alleged domestic violence, and the second was for alleged disorderly conduct. She also got arrested again two years later.
• Inferred Holocaust: The sequel does address this as there's now a proper British settlement in Virginia but tensions between the settlers and natives are still high. Not to mention Pocahontas has to attempt to stop an Armada led against her people.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Despite being subjected to Die for Our Ship in the original Pocahontas fandom, John Rolfe gets Crossover Shipped with practically every Disney main female and many of the males as well.
• Never Live It Down: Busting up Pocahontas' relationship with John Smith in favor of John Rolfe, whom the real-life Pocahontas did marry. Most fans did not see the sense in this given the first film's disregard for historical accuracy. Tellingly, most subsequent media related to the original film have ignored this and continues to treat John Smith and Pocahontas as the true main couple of the series.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The bear baiting scene. It probably would have been less freaky if they had sicced dogs on the bear.
  • Pocahontas getting taken away to the tower is quite intense as well. Seeing such a strong and usually fearless character being dragged away by guards, all the while calling for John Rolfe's help is very harrowing.
• Replacement Scrappy: John Rolfe for coming between John Smith and Pocahontas. Of course, historically, Rolfe does marry Pocahontas, but fans of the Disney version think she belongs with Smith. Even Disney does not consider the sequel or its Pocahontas/Rolfe relationship canon. Disney continues to reaffirm Pocahontas/Smith as an official couple via merchandising, the theme parks and all other media.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Divided as opinions on the movie are, many agree that Ratcliffe was a much more effective villain here than in the original. He makes attempts on John Smith's life that are not accidental, manages to use Pocahontas's Friend to All Living Things nature against her and nearly get her executed, and is generally more threatening because as an aristocrat, he's almost all-powerful in London, Pocahontas now being in his domain — and frighteningly can get away with it. Perhaps most importantly, he directly meets and interacts with Pocahontas this time, unlike the first movie.
  • Although Pocahontas as a character isn't hated, some like how she has to go through more character struggles in this film. In the first, she was more of a catalyst to prevent a war. In the sequel, she has to deal with being out of place in London where her culture clashes with the English.
• Tear Jerker:
  • "Where Do I Go from Here" ends with Pocahontas taking the compass John Smith gave her and burying it in the snow as an understated but moving tribute to him.
  • Nakoma's goodbye to Pocahontas. It's doubly sad if you don't take the film as fiction, as the real life Pocahontas died of smallpox while in London.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: As one of the themes of this movie is exploring the less well-known aspects of the real Pocahontas's life, some viewers felt that the movie could have made good use of her tribe's tradition of a public name and a private name that is shared only with immediate family. It is argued that having Pocahontas tell John Rolf her true name, Matoaka, could have served as an organic part of their developing relationship and demonstrated a level of trust that she never showed John Smith.

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