Pocahontas is a young Indian princess who falls in love with a gallant English explorer named John Smith. After he's seemingly killed in an act of betrayal, she continues to try to bring peace between the settlers and her tribe and eventually travels to England to see the conflict from the other side.
As you've probably guessed, it was intended as a Mockbuster of a certain other film based on the Indian princess which also happened to be released the same year.
Pocahontas provides examples of the following tropes:
- Action Girl: Pocahontas is this, especially when she's in her canoe.
- Adapted Out: The real life Pocahontas and John Rolfe had a son named Thomas. In this film, they never have a child before his death.
- Animate Inanimate Object: As is often the case in a Golden Films production, there's an object which comes to life (Doug the dugout canoe, in this case) and no explanation is given.
- Braids, Beads and Buckskins: The Indians all dress like this.
- Broken Bird: After she's captured by Gains, Pocahontas loses the will to try and escape her captor and return home. That and she's depressed over John Smith returning to England after a tragic accident.
- The Chief's Daughter: Pocahontas, obviously.
- Cosmic Deadline: The ending comes up really quickly and abruptly, with everything resolved in a matter of minutes.
- Death by Adaptation: A variant. The real life John Rolfe outlived Pocahontas by decades, but in this film, she's the one who is widowed with his early death.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: John Rolfe dies pretty abruptly in a shipwreck, and the movie devotes hardly any time to the aftermath of his death, despite leaving the title character widowed.
- Gesundheit: When the eagle says he must help Pocahontas, Little Fluffy Wing reacts by saying "bless you," as though the eagle just sneezed.
- Indian Maiden: Pocahontas again. She's this to a tee.
- Informed Species: With his enormous beak and lurid yellow coloration, Little Fluffy Wing looks nothing like a real chickenhawk (nor even a fledgling of these species, assuming that his name suggests that he is an adolescent or very young adult form). If anything, he more closely resembles some kind of cartoon parrot.
- The Jailbait Wait: When Pocahontas confesses her feelings to John Smith, he turns her down by pointing out she is a child. Pocahontas asks if that means he has no love for her, which he admits isn't entirely true. Upon their reunion years later when she's an adult, they start a relationship.
- Karma Houdini: Mr. Gains receives no punishment for his actions.
- Lean and Mean: Gains is very thin.
- Living Prop: Unlike her father Chief Powhatan who plays an active role, Pocahontas' mother and siblings are only shown briefly for a few scenes and have no lines.
- Magical Native American: One explanation as to why the film's Native American characters can casually speak to birds and own a talking, ambulatory canoe.
- May–December Romance: Pocahontas falls in love with John Smith while she's still a young teenager. He apparently reciprocates, but does not act on his own feelings until years later when she's grown into an adult.
- Meaningful Name: Mr. Gains is a greedy sociopath.
- Mum Looks Like a Sister: Pocahontas' mother looks like she's around the same age as her daughter.
- Nobody Here but Us Statues: The canoe says when Pocahontas is looking for him: "Nobody here but us trees."
- Non-Mammal Mammaries: One animation error shows the eagle with nipples on his chest, which already looks much like a man's chest to begin with.
- Only Sane Man: For a while, the eagle acts like the voice of reason for the movie.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Pocahontas' mother is shown to still be alive. The real Pocahontas' mother died when she was a toddler.
- Talking Animal: Pocahontas' two bird sidekicks.
- True Blue Femininity: Pocahontas seems to wear a lot of blue in the movie.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: To the point of making the Disney film look like a documentary.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- Gains and his cronies disappear halfway through the movie.
- Pocahontas' first husband, whom we can assume was Pocahontas's real-life husband John Rolfe, is quickly forgotten about after he dies at sea. Instead, she just goes back to John Smith as if she hadn't even met her husband.
