Why was Pocahontas considered better then the Lion King...?

[Lavenderpaw]

The first one has an Indian woman with the singing voice of the gal from The Sound of Music; she talks to animals, trees, rocks, dirt, etc and pretty much just gives heavy-handed songs of how we can commune with nature too by leaping off waterfalls and petting wild eagles who would rather let us release them majestically from our arms then peck our eyes out. Oh, did I mention she learns English through magic and that John Smith is actually a blonde Edward Cullen. :eek:

While Lion King... has lions, and great songs, and a climatic death (two actually) and a love song that people today still remember, and two successful sequeals... oh, and characters you actually care about. How can they think that Brits and Pagans can win out against lions and more freakin' lions? :shrug::confused::shrug::confused:

[bat313]

Who on earth thinks Pocahontas is better than the Lion King?

I'm pretty sure it was a box office bomb that started the downward spiral of Disney feature length movies.

[Peter Paltridge]

I think what he's talking about is that when both were in development at Disney, Pocahontas was considered the "surefire hit" and Lion King was the "eh, maybe it'll catch on if we're lucky."

[Six Year Man]

Well, this is news to me.

[Monterey Jack]

I'm pretty sure it was a box office bomb that started the downward spiral of Disney feature length movies.

$150+ million circa 1995 was hardly a bomb. Pocahontas was a very profitable film for Disney, but just because it made less than half of what The Lion King pulled in, that unfairly pegged it as a "failure" for the studio. :shrug:

Personally, I feel the movie is underrated and stunningly animated. And, of course, Pokey is pretty easy on the eyes. ;)

[Shawn Hopkins]

Pocahontas rewrites history with well-meaning but misguided racism, smoothing over important conflicts, smudging and fudging things to the point where the final Pocahontas barely even looks Native American because they've made her conform to Disney's standards of attractiveness, and portraying Native Americans as magical Disney creatures instead of human beings. It must have been the bane of elementary school history teachers for a while.

Lion King marries the power of the wilderness with the epic drama of Shakespeare.

Which one did you think was supposed to be better?

[GatorMan92]

How The Mouse House considered Pocahontas a more likely success that The Lion King could have been in the marketing. On The Lion King DVD, the former Pres. of Disney said it may have been that most toy companies were under the impression that products with people sold better than products with animals.

Another possible theory is that during TLK's production, the people involved themselves were unsure of whether the film would work or not, while no problems like that were reported to have occured during Pocahontas's production.

Though it does beg the question: How different would the landscape be if Pocahontas had the success The Lion King had?

[KPTitan]

The first one has an Indian woman with the singing voice of the gal from The Sound of Music

Were you refering to Julie Andrews? Because both the acting voice (Irene Bedard) and the singing voice (Judy Kuhn) of Pocahontas didn't have any roles in The Sound of Music.

[Light Lucario]

Yeah, I enjoy watching Pocahontas, despite all of the flaws in its logic, completely rewriting unhappy history to become a tragic kind of love story and having Native American stereotypes, but I don't recall a lot of people considering it to be better than the Lion King. I think I read somewhere else that Disney thought that Pocahontas would be more successful than it actually turned out to be and they were hoping that they could use it to ride on the success of the Lion King.

I would actually be surprised if a large majority of people felt that way though. Not to be disrespectful to people who do feel that way about these movies, but I think that the Lion King has a better storyline, better character development, more catchy music, more touching emotional scenes and a more interesting villain. Pocahontas does have some nice songs, mainly "Just Around the Riverbed" and "Colors of the Wind," but it still has the problems of altering a pretty unhappy bit of history and using Native American stereotypes, such as the whole talking to trees and animal bit, that gives an odd feeling when you watch it now. I didn't really mind it too much when I first saw the movie, which was at about nine or ten, but after learning more about that history and writing a paper on those historical errors in the seventh grade, it doesn't feel the same to watch it now. The designs for Pocahontas and John Smith don't really help either.

[Romperstoomper]

Princess based disney movies will never get better then Lion King. My own internal "rating system" says so.

[Dr.Pepper]

I heard that the best Disney animators worked on Pocohantas while the newer people worked on Lion King. I also heard that The Lion King was just something they threw out there and they were hoping that Pocohontas would be the next Best Picture award nominee just like Beauty and the Beast

[Lavenderpaw]

Well, I guess it's like comparing Coke to Pepsi. Both are popular but which has gotten the best reception?

[Mia]

Are we talking about the production? In what I've seen and read is that the "better" animation teams and the "better" writers were working on the other films, Pocahontas and Aladdin as well, the Lion King team was the 'b' team.

If that's what we're talking about then I assume because it had the talent behind it, from what I remember from my special DVD they were just told to make a movie about Lions and it spiraled from that.

[Lavenderpaw]

Are we talking about the production? In what I've seen and read is that the "better" animation teams and the "better" writers were working on the other films, Pocahontas and Aladdin as well, the Lion King team was the 'b' team.

If that's what we're talking about then I assume because it had the talent behind it, from what I remember from my special DVD they were just told to make a movie about Lions and it spiraled from that.

It spiraled right into success, yes! :D

[Neo Ultra Mike]

Originally posted by Shawn Hopkins
It must have been the bane of elementary school history teachers for a while.

Yeah it was as Pochohants came out when I was in Elementary school. I also remember having toa actually remember the lyrics of most of the songs as they were part of the school's choir picks that year due to the hype the movie was getting.


As others have pointed out not only was the "A Team" of Disney Animation working on Pocohantas but it was also being promoted as the next Little Mermaid or Beauty And The Beast. I mean they fully expected Pochohants to at least win the Academy Award for best song like Beauty and the Beast did. Not to mention that like Mermaid and Beauty, they were expecting huge numbers because of the focus of the romantic relationship and on Pochohantas being a well remembered female lead like Ariel and Belle. Let's not also forget that Pochohants's front lead male John Smith was voiced by the Mel Gibson who before people ragged on him for obsencity filled calls he made to his wife, was an increidlbey huge movie star at the time. So attaching his name to the project was also a reason that this was suppose to be a bigger movie then Lion King, even if that didn't end up happening.

[Six Year Man]

The OP is probably just supprised at how The Lion King did better despite being made by Team B.

Was anyone in the TLK cast big back then?
Probably not as big as Mel, but just wondering if that had an effect.

[Lavenderpaw]

Well, what I just can't believe is that Disney wasn't willing to promote Lion King as something new and different... which it was. The relationship between our two lead lovers is so rushed and flat it makes one scratch their heads. While the Lion King opened up with an older, deeply devoted couple and ended with the new heirs who were the best of friends turned loving spouses. John and Pocahontas do not even end up together and John is so single-expressioned that he makes the Ken Doll from Toy Story 3 look like an emotionally compelling actor.

And, hello, The Circle of Life opening anyone? :p

[Dr.Pepper]

Was anyone in the TLK cast big back then?
James Earl Jones, Whoopi Goldberg, and that kid from Home Improvement were a bunch of nobodys in 1994

Nah, I'm just kidding :p

[Lavenderpaw]

It sure couldn't have hurt their careers. ;)

[DisneyBoy]

I think on the Pocahontas DVD they explain that the film was considered preferable in the eyes of the animators because it was harkening back to a more graphic visual style like Sleeping Beauty, and the content was certainly more daring than that of Lion King.