How did Pocahontas (1995) get away with it?

True Disney does kill some but not to the extent that happened in some of the real material there watered down stories are based on. Yeah that's true, kids don't care.

Would your pefer that Disney made their childrens movies as real/graphic as possible. They do have the resources.
 
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No I guess I just thought maybe Disney should stick to childrens stories for children, rather than taking adult stories, especially true adult stories, and watering them down. Feels kind of insensitive to do so, but maybe I'm just looking at it the wrong way.
 
Well we can turn this around. Why aren't Warner Bros making a realistic version non-carton version of the lionking?

Answer: It's different things.

Pocahontas as original has more of a story element to it and many parts are distorted in the book it self from reality. And in a film you want somewhat specific things. For kids an easy story with cute characters and some love story because that's what we wanna learn the kids.
Drama as most movies you mention aren't really what kids go for.
 
Pocahuntus is a love story- the war is just context.

That's like saying 'how did they get away with making Dear John a chick flick, given that it's set during the Iraq War?'

Obviously you've got to have some historical distance but if you took Jim Cameron's Titanic slimmed it down, cut out the slightly naughty and violent bits and turned it into a Disney cartoon, it'd fit in great. Rose is Belle, Jack is Aladdin (i'll be honest I don't know Disney very well), the mean guy is the Wicked Witch, Bernard Hill is the candlestick...etc.

Either this question came to you whilst you were having a very hot bath or you totally misunderstand the way audience demographics work.
 
Disney did not “get away” with anything.

The reason that company has not done an animated musical based on
the story of Titanic or the 9/11 tragedy or the battle of Normandy
or Rwanda or the Serra Leone civil war is because they would make
terrible animated musicals. Maybe “Titanic” would work - the
Broadway musical did okay.

The story of Pocahontas has other aspects to it than the people
killed. Binder, Grant and LaZebnik focused on the fictional
relationship between Pocahontas and Smith rather than on the
actual history. They used folklore and legend rather than history
of the time to tell an interesting story.

There is no double standard. To meet the criteria of a double
standard it must be the unjust application of different sets of
principles for similar situations. There is no different set of
principles here. By its very nature an animated musical has
different standards. While the story of United 93 is a story of
courage, there is no room in that story for dancing, singing and
cute animated (in the non-cartoon sense) characters. Same goes for
the other tragic stories mentioned.

There is room in story telling for many different methods. Not
every story of the Pocahontas character needs to be historically
accurate or focus on the war, murder and violence.

“Hunchback” is an excellent example. As would be “Mulan”. There
are other accepts to those stories that lend itself to the
animated musical.

You need to be more openminded when it comes to storytelling. It
is not a double standard to find a single aspect of a story and
tell that. Not every story - even “true” story - needs to be 100%
accurate and true to its source. It is not in any way insensitive to find
the romantic aspect of the Pocahontas story and write a musical.
Don't be so closed minded.
 
as an aside, lemmings do not actually run off of cliffs; that was a myth created by disney for one of their nature films. However, the metaphor still works. Anyone who says that people are behaving like lemmings is actually following common knowledge versus actual fact themselves. Therefore, anyone who says that, is in fact a demonstration of that.
 
Maybe you're right.. Maybe there's a massive untapped market for children's tragedies.

You should write an animated United 93 or Hotel Rwanda screenplay and pitch it to Disney. Don't stop there. If there's a market for children's tragedy maybe there should be children's horror too. Night of the Living Dead or maybe Texas Chainsaw Massacre with a younger, animated cast...
 
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