I’d Lay Down My Life for You: Pocahontas (1995)

Most Romantic Moment #8

So it is time for our annual animated film. Every year I have picked at least one for my Valentine’s Day countdown. The previous years I have done Shrek 2, Anastasia, & Hercules /Up.

I know a lot of people don’t like Pocahontas because it is not accurate, is based on a story that might be a lie, the characters were not the right age, etc. Well I don’t care!

I think Pocahontas is not only one of Disney’s best films, one of the most beautifully animated films, but one of the most poignant race relations stories. In here we see the good and bad of two very different races; and how most of issues develop from miscommunication and fear.

Pocahontas is the chieftain’s daughter, but unlike how her father wishes; she has a bit of an unruly and unsettled spirit. Her father would like her to marry the best warrior, Kocoum, but Pocahontas wonders if that really is the best life for her.

Which way should I choose?

Everything changes when the English settle the colony of Jamestown, and Pocahontas befriends one of the sailors, John Smith. The two learn a lot about each other, and fall in love, but they must keep everything a secret.

When a Kocoum is killed on accident, John Smith takes the blame and is sentenced to die.

What can Pocahontas do?

Most Romantic Moment: No Greater Love to Lay Down One’s Life

This most romantic moment for me comes at the very end of the film. Dawn has come and John Smith has been brought out to be killed. As the  know this will mean war with the colonists they are prepared for the following battle. The colonists are lead by the evil Governor Ratcliffe who has been just waiting for an excuse to attack the Native Americans, they arrive at the execution site ready to slaughter the Natives with their guns.

Pocahontas will not let him die and runs to him; throwing herself on his body to protect him, and die alongside him if necessary.

Noooooooooo!!!!!!!

This is a huge act because Pocahontas has no idea how her father would react. She already has tried to speak to him, but he would not listen only thinking of revenge. She has no idea if her act will stop her father, or if he will be so bent on his path, and spurned on by his men, that he won’t hesitate and kill her.

Besides that, anytime a person is willing to die for one they love is truly amazing. Just the fact that she was willing to die for him, really shows her love and strength of character.

To start Romance is in the Air:Part IV from the beginning, go to I Can’t Pretend, I Have to Be: Casual Sex? (1988)

For the previous posts, go to It’s Not What You Buy, But the Reason Why That Matters: Playing Heart to Get, Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse (2013)

For more on Pocahontas, go to If I Never Knew You

For more Disney, go to Waiter, There’s Some Disney in My Jane Austen

For more Disney heroine’s, go to The Little Moreland

For more animated films, go to You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch

For more bible verses, go to A Cautionary Tale

The Little Moreland

So you all are aware I’m a Disney fan right? I mean after my 30 Days of Disney I think it’s pretty obvious.

So being female, I loved the Disney princesses, my favorite being Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty and Belle from The Beauty and the Beast.

Now in the past I have compared myself to Cinderella, Snow White, and Belle; but I never thought I would compare myself to Ariel.

Although now that I’m a redhead, I can see it.

In fact, I once took a quiz that said I was her, and I thought yeah right, that’s not me.

Go here to see which you belong in/are

But the other day I was full on The Little Mermaid. Although, truth be told it wasn’t really the Disney version, but the hardcore Hans Christian Anderson one.

You see in the original story The Little Mermaid was the youngest of six sisters. On her 15th birthday she is able to go up to the surface where she sees the prince and saves his life during a storm.

She visits him everyday at his palace at the seashore and falls in love.

So romantic!

She soons becomes heartbroken as she can’t be with him. Nothing makes her happy, all she wants is to be human.

The other mermaids tell her to be happy, she can live for over 300 years. But she won’t have it. She travels to the sea-witch who lives in a horrible area and is an awful crazy person. The sea-witch turns her into a human, for her voice. However, their are strong consequences. One, she can never, ever be a mermaid again. Two, every step will be agonizing pain. Three, if the prince marries another, the next morning she will die with no soul but turn into foam. The Little Mermaid agrees and her tongue is cut out.

She washes up on shore and the prince takes her into his house. He clothes her and cares for her, as if she was his little sister. He tells her of the girl that saved his life and that she will be the only one he will ever love.

Yay!

Well time comes when the prince has to marry. And the girl chosen is so beautiful he agrees. In fact, he asks the Little Mermaid to be in the ceremony.

She is in so much heartbreak as she is doomed to die while the man she loves is to be married to another.

Her five sisters come to see her. They have cut off all their hair and given it to the sea-witch. They give her a knife and tell her that if she kills the prince and sprinkles his blood on her feet then she will be a mermaid again. But she must do it before the sunrise. She goes into the room to kill him…but she can’t do it. She loves him too much.

So she dies.

Noooooooooo!!!!!!!

Yes she dies. But she doesn’t turn to foam. She instead is given an eternal soul because she sacrificed herself for another.

I always knew the books we read as kids strongly affect us.

But I didn’t know how much until now.

So you are probably wondering what this has to do with me? How am I like The Little Mermaid? Book or film, I’m pretty sure all of you are wanting me to get to the point.

Well for Halloween this year I decided to be Poison Ivy. She is my favorite villainess, as I think she is just amazing. I did a post on her that includes pics of the costume.

So anyways, this past summer I mentioned I was in Wyoming, and that is the land of meat + potatoes. Fruit and veggies are few and far between. So since that summer, I’ve been feeling large.

Yes I do, but I noticed I have put more weight on in the butt/thigh area, or at least that’s what it feels like. So I decided that it was time to get into shape. I started doing squats and did about 100.  I was feeling pretty good about it too.

The next day I was a bit sore, but still feeling good.

The next day that was radically different. I drove to an interview, wearing my two inch boots, preparing to change into my four-inch heels when I got there. When I reached the site, I had to park a bit away. After I parked I changed into my heels.

Now I love heels. If you remember from a previous post, I’m short. I’m only 5’3, so heels are great as they finally make me closer to my dream height. They make me feel powerful and awesome. The higher the better.

So walking in 3-5 inch heels is not unusual for me. However, this time was much different. It WAS SO PAINFUL.

No no no no no

I felt just like The Little Mermaid.

“It will feel like a sword were passing through your body…each step you take will feel like sharp knives piercing your feet. “

That’s how it felt with me. Each step was utter agony as my muscles just burned and were so inexplicably sore.

I had to take so many breaks. As soon as I could I went to my car and changed my shoes. I’ve decided to rest from squats. And heels. I’ll just have to accept my bod for what it is.

Or focus on a different exercise!

For more on The Little Mermaid, go to I’m Not Gonna Lose Her Again

For more on Hans Christian Anderson, go to Disney Lesson

For more on my fashion style, go to Fashionably Postworthy

For more on Disney, go to Who’s Afraid of Cory Wolf?

For more fairy tales, go to Happily Ever Aftermath

For more book-y posts, go to Conan the Librarian

For more of my favorite quotes, go to Part XI: A Movie Line List ‘s Excellent Adventure

For She Filled Their Lives With Sunshine

Day 30) Your Favorite Character of All-Time

So as I have mentioned in past posts, I love the film Sleeping Beauty. I loved the characters, (I wanted my own Prince Phillip); the music, the artistic style, the story;  everything.

In fact my very favorite character of all time was Aurora. I just loved her character so much. Now I know a lot of people don’t like her and think she is lame, but you know what she was actually pretty cool.

1) First of all she was separated from her parents and had to grow up with people who didn’t really know how to do normal things.

I joked that Merryweather probably made everything, but now that I think about it, Aurora was probably the one who had to do a lot of cooking. This means she was very level-headed, modest, and had a frugal mindset. She also was going to be an awesome ruler as she actually know what it is like to be a peasant and can help those in her kingdom.

2)She is very smart. When she meets Prince Phillip, he’s trying to hang out with her and she is like, “No, I don’t know you.” In fact what she does is very smart, she invites him to her house to meet her “aunts” right away. This way she won’t be off alone with him.

3) She accepts her reality pretty quickly. When she finds out that she is actually a princess and has to get married and rule the kingdom, she deals with the news pretty well. I mean she does cry, but she handles it much better than me. I mean she could’ve totslly pulled a Princess Mia and take off, but instead dutifully accepts her crown and role in life.

4) Plus I just love the story of her and Prince Phillip. Here she has been dreaming about a type of guy for-ever and it actually comes true. She meets the man of her dreams and the two dance the time away in the forest.

Yep, I just love how sweet the two are. 🙂

Plus:

In fact it was the last fairy tale produced by the studio until The Little Mermaid (1989). It took over ten years to get everything done and was the second-biggest grossing film of 1959, just behind Ben-Hur(1959).

Well, that’s it. This is the end of our 30 Days of Disney. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did and that it reawakened your love for Disney.

Go here to read all the posts from the beginning

For more on Princess Aurora, go to Once Upon a Dream

For more on Sleeping Beauty, go to You’re Just So Pretty to Look At

For more on Prince Phillip, go to Prince of a Man

For more on Merryweather, go to That Would Make Me Happy

For more Disney princesses, go to I Could Kiss You

For more on Walt Disney, go to And Away We Go

For more on Disney animated films, go to Second Star to the Right

For more on Disney, go to Redone Done Right

For more on dreamy men, go to My New BF

Redone Done Right

Day 29) Best Disney Remake

The Jungle Book (1994)

So I’m not a huge fan of the remake. You probably recall seeing this:

But there are a few films that I truly enjoy that are not the orginal. Such as The Shop Around the Corner and You’ve Got Mail. But this is probably by far, my favorite disney remake ever.

So this film came out in the ’90s and is based on The Jungle Book novel by Rudyard Kipling and the Disney film The Jungle Book (1967). It is similar to the cartoon except it is live action and tells the story of an older Mowgli. Actually, this is what Disney’s Tarzan was based on. While Tarzan is not an almost exact scene by scene ripoff,  like Atlantis is of the film Stargate, it is still extremely close.

Anyways, so the film starts off in the Victorian period with a group of English people going through India. They have many Indian guides helping them, one of which is Mowgli’s father Nathoo. Mowgli is one of the few children who is with the group, and his best friend is his wolf cub, Grey Brother. Mowgli soon meets one of the other kids there, Katherine “Kitty” Brydon, daughter of Colonel Geoffrey Brydon who is in charge of the trek and played by none other than the very handsome, Sam Neil.

What a handsome man

Mowgli gives Kitty a flower to show his interest in her and Kitty gives him her mother’s bracelet. But the two’s friendship gets cut short as Shere Khan ramapages throughout the jungle. In this version of the film, Shere Khan is king of the jungle (as Khan means leader/king), and he watches the jungle for balance. When he finds somene killing for fun instead of food he takes them out. As he is going after one specific person, others get in the way and die. He kills Nathoo, and in the shuffle to escape Mowgli amd his wolf get left behind.

Mowgli is befriended by the animals of the jungle as Bagheera, the panther, takes him to the wolves to be raised by them. He also befriends Baloo the bear and a variety of other animals.

Twenty years into the future, Mowgli is a man and runs with the different animals of the jungle. They are even able to comunicate with each other. In the story there are a group of monkeys, Rhesus macaque, who are the foot soldiers of the lord of all apes, King Louie (an orangutan). They are called the Bandar-log an they steal Kitty’s bracelet for King Louie’s treasury.  

Mowgli is enraged and follows them to get his bracelet back. He finds the city of the monkeys where King Louie rules. He goes in and demands his bracelet back. King Louie agrees to give him the bracelet back, if he can fight the snake Kaa and win. Mowgli pulls out a jeweled dagger and uses it to fight against Kaa. And wins the appreciation of all the apes

Meanwhile, Kitty is a woman now, back in India and engaged to Captain William Boone, played by the very sexy Cary Elwes.

Unfortunately, Boone, while being hot, is a cruel, sadistic, gold-digging, ladder climbing, hunter. 😦 Oh well. One day Kitty and co. are out in the jungle painting and hanging out when she runs right into you-know-who…Mowgli.

Mowgli is all dressed up, part of his trophies from winning against Kaa, and play-attacks/play-saves Kitty from Baloo. But she takes off.

Mowgli follows the group into the city, sneaking into Kitty’s room. Her screams rouse her bf and the guards, but before they come after him, she recognizes the bracelet he’s wearing as her own.  The guards chase Mowgli throughout the town and he ends up getting thrown in jail

Kitty frees Mowgli and she and Dr. Julius Plumford (John Cleese) try to help re-civilize him. (This scene is just like Tarzan, especially  the projection of images).

Mowgli begins to be able to talk amd act like those around him, but does not feel at home with the aristocrats, that is except for Kitty. He starts falling for her again, even though she is already spoken for. Mowgli also tells Kitty how he survived all these years and introduces her to all of his animal friends and tells her of the rules of the jungle.

Meanwhile Boone and his friends  are eager to find the famed City of Gold (Monkey city) but don’t know the way. Everyone who has ever tried to find it has never returned. Boone decides to get Mowgli to help him find it.

Boone convinces Kitty to give him a day to hang out with Mowgli, apologizing for having been so mean. He brings Mowgli to his hunting trophy room, but after Mowgli sees that he doesn’t keep the jungle law, he refuses to help him out at all.

There is a ball, and Mowgli is excited to be there with Kitty. Unfortunately, that is when he hears the announcement of their engagement and hears of the plans they have for India. Mowgli decides to leave the city as he could never belong there, and decides to spend the rest of his life in the jungle.

But unbeknowest to him, Boone has other plans for Mowgli. He and his minions try to capture him, but Mowgli is saved by Baloo. Unfortunately, Baloo’s intervention causes him to be shot. Mowgli rushes to the city to get Dr. Plumford, but finds out that he and recently unengaged Kitty are headed for England.

While Mowgli chases after them, Kitty, her father, and the doctor are ambushed by William’s men. Mowgli is able to save the Doctor and sends him to help Baloo, and continues after the Brydons. He agrees to help Boone if Boone will ensure the safety of the Brydons.

The next day, Mowgli is able to get rid of one henchman, by tricking him into some quicksand. He also sends Kitty’s dad to safety on an elephant.

The other henchman is disposed of by more of Mowgli’s knowledge of the jungle. Soon all that is left is Mowgli, Kitty, Boone, and Boone’s remaining minoin. However, as they have finally reached the Monkey City, his minoins accidentally sets off a booby trap and finds himself a goner.

Only Boone, Kitty, and Mowgli make it to the treasure. Boone and Mowgli fight, but Mowgli wins and takes off with Kitty. Boone starts filling his pockets and bags with gold, not realizing that he still has Kaa to deal with.

Shere Khan confronts Mowgli and Kitty as they exit. Khan still does not trust Mowgli, and the two stare at each other a long time before Khan is stared down and leaves in submission – the fulfillment of a dream Mowgli had where he, already a ‘half-tiger’ in spirit, would stare Shere Khan eye to eye and become a ‘whole tiger’.

Shere Khan recognizes that Mowgli another creature of the jungle and allows him to live. Mowgli and Kitty reunite with their friends and family, including Geoffrey and Baloo, both cured by Plumford. Kitty and Mowgli are now together (just like Tarzan and Jane)

I just love this movie and thought it was amazing. It is far better than the animated sequel as it doesn’t retell te orginal story too much, and still keeps all the elements of it when going in a new direction.

For more on both versions of The Jungle Book, go to Snakes on a Post

For more on Disney, go to Once upon a Dream

For more films based on books, go to Second Star to the Right

For more films based on cartoons, go to Disney Lesson

For more on Tarzan, go to Episode VI: Return of the Favorite Movie Lines List

For more on Sam Neil, go to No Force on Earth or Heaven, Could Get Me on That Island

Once Upon a Dream

 Day 28) Your Favorite Scene from Your Favorite Disney Movie

Once Upon a Dream from Sleeping Beauty

So as I have mentioned in past posts, I love the film Sleeping Beauty. I loved the characters, (I wanted my own Prince Phillip); the music, the artistic style, the story;  everything.

So one of my favorite scenes from this movie is when they sing and dance to Once Upon a Dream. I remember I used to act this scene out by myself and with my barbie dolls. It was the first song I have ever memorized extremely quickly.  I used to sing this song ALL THE TIME. Just couldn’t stop.

The thing I love about this song is that here is this girl who is just daydreaming about the type of guy she hopes to meet one day (you know how we all do). While she is just joking around he appears! The guy she is dreaming of actually comes into her life.

And she’s not some dummy, at first she is unsure about him, but then deems him okay and dances around with him.

I just love the scene; the art, the lyrics, the music, etc. 🙂

I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream I know you, the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam Yet I know it’s true that visions are seldom all they seem But if I know you, I know what you’ll do You’ll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream

But if I know you, I know what you do You love me at once The way you did once upon a dream

I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream I know you, the gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam And I know it’s true that visions are seldom all they seem But if I know you, I know what you’ll do You’ll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream 

For more on Sleeping Beauty, go to And Away We Go

For more on Prince Phillip, go to Prince of a Man

For more on Disney love songs, go to Diamond in the Rough

For more on Disney animated films, go to Second Star to the Right

For more on Disney, go to Friday Night Fun

For more on Disney princesses, go to I Could Kiss You

For more on Disney princes, go to Oh Oh De Lally

For more on art, go to You’re Just So Pretty to Look At

For more of my favorite songs, go to The Boys Are Back in Town