Disney, retrospectively

Pocahontas (1995)

This is the only Disney renaissance film that we didn't much care for as kids, apart from the music. Remember what we said about Aladdin being slightly racially tone-deaf? Yeah, Pocahontas takes the prize home. It's so much worse. In addition, it commits the ultimate crime for a children's movie - it's boring. For both kids and adults. We don't have a lot of nice things to say about this one. Sorry, all you Pocahontas lovers. 




















Characters
Pocahontas: she has the same fundamental flaw that each of the film's speaking characters have; she's boring. And it wouldn't be a Disney movie unless they were trying to recycle previous storylines. Pocahontas has exactly the same initial conflict as Belle, being a contrarian in a conformist culture. Also, her obsession with destiny really rubs us the wrong way. It doesn't have anything to do with native beliefs, instead it's more similar to what our Western culture thinks about destiny and supernatural things. She's not an authentic native character. Sure, her design is cool (aside from missing a nose).
John Smith: even Eric has more personality, and we call him Eric the generic! Like what does he learn from his dealings with native Americans? Nothing, he just has the hots for Pocahontas and wants some hanky-panky. 
Ratcliffe: there's nothing to say really. He's hands down the worst villain of the renaissance. Even Mulan has a better villain. His motives are so cliché because they have no bearing in the actual story. He has no connection to either of the main characters, and thus is redundant. But the most gross offence is that he embodies all the evils of colonialism. He's the principal evil person - with the other white colonialists/settlers it's just a misunderstanding, folks! 
Minor characters: the scenes with the animals make this movie bearable, which is a little ironic since their existence brings tonal dissonance to this exasperatingly serious story. Still, they are definitely the best thing about this film. The relationship between the raccoon and the pug is more believable and enjoyable than the love story with Pocahontas and John Smith.



 
                                              










Story
We came to the conclusion that Twilight must have taken some inspiration from Pocahontas. Where else could you get such wooden characters and "fate brought us together" love story. Despite Aladdin's insensitivity to other cultures, it at least has memorable characters who actually learn some lessons from their journey. No matter how dumb Aladdin got, we still liked him. Can't say the same here. Last but not least, this film wastes the opportunity to go into environmentalism. All you have is a pretty little song from Pocahontas about respecting the nature but not a peep about it afterwards. It's a shame because there aren't really any kids' movies that delve deeply into the conflict between environmentalism and industrialism. This is why the villain is so weak, because he's not believable. It's ridiculous that disposing of one person would somehow result in natives and settlers living in harmony or resolve centuries of exploitation and injustice.  That's just too naive, even for Disney. 

Miscellaneous
Obviously the music's good, the best part of this fiasco. Disney managed much better with Moana in relation to depicting a non-Western culture. We can't say for sure how accurate it was as we don't know that much about Polynesian cultures, but it definitely felt more sincere.

Best Austen adaptations

A while ago we did a list of the worst Austen adaptations and so, here is it's counterpart. We've rated them according to how faithful they are to the source material and also how well they have transferred the novel to the screen.  You might think that this list is very monotonous but we are, after all, Austen puritans - which should be obvious since we didn't include Mansfield Park (1999). It's a good movie, but not an adaptation of any Austen novel we've read. Like last time, these are period adaptations, not modernized versions.



1. Pride & Prejudice (1995). DUHH!!!! Did anyone really think we would have anything else as #1? We feel we've talked about this show so much that everyone's feeling sick already. So we'll keep it short and state that this is as close to perfection an adaptation can get. The flaws it has are incredibly minor compared to what it got right. It is the only version where the characters go through the transformations they do in the book.

2. Sense & Sensibility (2008). First of all, the novel is our second favourite from Austen (with Persuasion), so it's quite natural that the series would place higher than the film. You always have more time to explore the themes and represent the characters better than a much shorter movie. Also, since this is a BBC produced series written by Andrew Davies, needless to say it's expertly made. And let's face it - the choice between Dan Stevens and Hugh Grant is an easy one.

3. Emma (2009). Again, this is a mini-series, so obviously there's more time to develop the characters and story and to keep it more faithful to the book. Those who have read the book only once and remember the more light-hearted movie, might have been disappointed by this version since there's more drama than straight-out humour here than one would expect. We, on the other hand, were delighted to finally have the version of Emma onscreen that we know from the novel.

4. Sense & Sensibility (1995). This is as close to perfection as one can get with Austen - on film. Emma Thompson did a superb job of fitting this piece of complex drama to just under two hours. And amazingly, without losing much of the nuance of the book. Also, this rendition has our favourite versions of Colonel Brandon and Willoughby. 

5. Emma (1996). This is an example of an adaptation where one has captured the spirit and humour of Austen's work while not necessarily being entirely faithful to its source. For us, the positives outweigh the negatives though, and unlike in Mansfield Park, in Emma the characters and the story remain somewhat similar to the novel. Plus, we have some serious nostalgia for this movie, so that may very well affect our judgement.

   












6. Love & Friendship (2016). Ok, we have to admit - this film surprised us. The dialogue is so authentically Austen it almost made us weep for joy. Lady Susan, the novella this movie is based on, we thought would be difficult to transfer to screen as it's written in the form of letters. But the screenplay is absolutely brilliant - its sharp wit and dry humour is something one would expect from Austen.

7. Northanger Abbey (2007). This movie is the one that teeters at the border of faithful adaptation and oh-my-god-how-drunk-was-davies-when-he-wrote-this. The biggest problem this film has is that it's produced by ITV - and they are nowhere near as classy as BBC. However, it does not butcher the source material the same way that other ITV Austen productions have done. The main players retain their essential characteristics and the story follows the novel quite closely. There was still room to make Mr. Thorpe creepier, though.

We are well aware that we don't have any version of Persuasion here - but we're waiting for Michael Fassbender to be cast as Captain Wentworth.