When a group of English fortune seekers land on the shores of pre-colonial Virginia, tempers flare and problems are caused between the settlers and the Native Americans of the area.  Ignorant of the problems, John Smith, one of the settlers, meets Pocahontas, the daughter of the local chief.  They fall in love, and when John Smith is accused of the death of Kokoum, one of the braves, it is up to Pocahontas to try and stop the violence.

Availability:
VHS:  Pan and Scan
Laserdisc

Cast/Crew:
Mel Gibson                        John Smith
    Mad Max films
    Bird on a Wire
    Conspiracy Theory
    Leathal Weapon films
    The Man Without a Face
    Forever Young

David Ogden Stiers                Gov. Ratcliffe
    M*A*S*H (television)
    Beauty and the Beast
    The Hunchback of Notre Dame
    Better Off Dead
    Pocahontas 2:  Journey to a New World

Miscellaneous:
There was a sequence left out of the final film which was shown when Pocahontas aired on ABC in the winter of 1998.  The sequence was from a song entitled "If I Never Knew You," which can still be heard, sung by Jon Secada and Shanice.  The original version had Pocahontas and John Smith singing to each other after he had been captured by the Indians.  Only a small part of animation was finished, and there was a lot of storyboard and pencil tests replacing what had not been animated.
A sequel was released in 1998 -- Pocahontas: Journey to a New World.

MPAA Rating:
G -- Some animated violence

My Rating:
A good effort by Disney, but there was a lack of something.  I at first did not like the animation style, but it has grown on me, and I think it was one of the lushest peices of stylized work Disney had done since Sleeping Beauty.  But the thing that killed it for me was the story.  It is extremely difficult to transform a true story to an animated film (which Disney did quite well with on Mulan) but there was something in the transformation of the story that does not sit well with me.
***
J-R
Night at the Movies