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Western Animation / The Adventures of Pocahontas: Indian Princess

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The Adventures of Pocahontas: Indian Princess is a Direct to Video animated film produced by Jetlag Productions and GoodTimes Entertainment in 1994. It was originally released as simply Pocahontas, but, as you can tell, the title was later expanded.

The plot is much what you'd expect. Pocahontas is a kind-hearted Noble Savage. When English colonists show up, she is scared but curious. A young hothead named Tonkana insists they attack the "palefaces" right away, but Chief Powhatan says they should give peace a chance first. Meanwhile, Captain John Smith also wishes for peace, but his second-in-command, Mr. Barlow, doesn't understand why they should bother with such niceties when they can overwhelm the natives by force. Would you believe that Pocahontas brings peace? Perhaps by preventing the execution of one John Smith?

Compared to Disney's Pocahontas, this film sticks a little closer to history, albeit a very sanitized, fairy-tale version of it. If you want a taste of what the Disney version would have been like had Jeffrey Katzenberg not decided to turn it into Oscar Bait, this movie probably isn't too far off. Well, aside from the quality of the animation, of course.

Tropes:

  • Age Lift: Averted, for once. Pocahontas is accurately portrayed as being a girl of about ten or twelve. Consequently, there's no romance with John Smith in this version.
  • Anachronism Stew: The British flag is shown with the red saltire, which wasn't added until 1801.
  • Evil Colonialist: Mr. Barlow is a downplayed example, who is redeemed by the end anyway. Unlike, say, Ratcliffe in the Disney version, he doesn't want to wipe out the natives exactly. Instead, he has more of a "they better get used to us living here if they know what's good for them" attitude.
  • Feminine Women Can Cook: Pocahontas is noted for being a good cook in one scene.
  • Freudian Excuse: Towanaka hates all "palefaces" because his parents were killed by some white colonists in the past.note 
  • Friend to All Living Things: Who else but Pocahontas? In the opening, she rescues a baby bird who fell out of the nest. On the other hand, she also murders flowers in the same scene.
  • In Harmony with Nature: The opening song goes, "An unsullied land lies across the sea / Untouched by greed and poverty / Where streams run pure and wind blows free / And life is lived in simplicity / Land of Pocahoooooontas / Across the sea / Where man and nature liiiiiiiiive in / Harmony."
  • The Mockbuster: It may have been released a year earlier, but there's no mistaking that this was made to cash in on the then-upcoming Disney version.
  • The Mountains of Illinois: "The land where Chief Powhatan and his tribe lived was a land of mountains and lush valleys," says a narrator, revealing that GoodTimes and Jetlag failed Virginian geography along with Disney.
  • Tonto Talk: The Powhatans worry about the "palefaces" (white people) with their "firesticks" (guns).
  • Translation Convention: The Powhatans and the English just speak the same language without explanation.

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