MovieChat Forums > Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998) Discussion > Ratcliffe: IMO the worst inaccuracy of a...

Ratcliffe: IMO the worst inaccuracy of all for this film


What's he doing still alive when Pocahontas journeys to England in 1613? In real life, in 1609, shortly after John Smith was taken back to England (from injuring himself in a gunpowder explosion, not from heroically shielding Powhatan from Ratcliffe's shot, which never happened, just like there never was a love affair between Smith and Pocahontas), Ratcliffe was killed in an ambush from the Powhatan Indians. The following section (the details of how exactly he was killed) is rather graphic:
<NIGHTMARE FUEL BEGINS HERE, SOME MIGHT WANT TO SKIP>
Ratcliffe (who in real life was as corrupt, greedy and despicable as in the Disney films, and John Smith was no better except that the latter made better decisions) led an expedition of 50 armed men to forcibly bargain with Powhatan for food, even capturing Powhatan's son and daughter in order to achieve their goal. A fight broke out after Ratcliffe insulted Powhatan, and in the end all but 16 of the colonists were killed, and Ratcliffe was tied naked onto a tree either with his feet in the fire, or near a fire, I've read both, while the Powhatan women used mussel or oyster shells to slowly scrape his skin off, and threw the scraped off bits into the fire, also taking out his organs and throwing them into the fire, all while he was still alive.
<END OF NIGHTMARE FUEL>
But in the Disney universe, apparently Ratcliffe is the main villain who leads the British Royal Armada to once again attack Virginia so he can get the gold he is craving for, and it ends with him being arrested when King James realizes his treachery, all while in real life he had been dead for several years at that point.

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well, maybe Disney didn't think the scraping of the skin would be child friendly? Relax, it's just an animated movie and on top of that a Disney sequel (and those are never close to being good).

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No, I do not believe they should have included that in the Disney movies. They could have just made John Ratcliffe not at all appear in Pocahontas II, and if alluding to his real life fate at all, just maybe mention in passing that he was killed during a fight with the Indians, but best just not to even mention him at all.

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the return of a villain is always an easy plot for a new movie, it also puts away the effort of creating an entirely new villain. I actually didn't mind Ratcliffe returning (he also had the best song of the movie).

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I would agree with Ratcliffe's song being a good song. While both movies have taken liberties from real life, though, I sort of just thought that, while many Disney sequels do involve the return of an old villain, those were fictional characters, whereas the historical inaccuracy to that degree with Ratcliffe returning is a bit too much. Not only is it inaccurate to real life, but how did King James fall for his lies, while every colonist from Pocahontas and John Smith were living witnesses who could prove otherwise? That I don't mind as much as I do with the real life fate of John Ratcliffe though.

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Ratcliffe is (or at least was) rich, so he was of higher "ranks" than the crew of the ship. It is possible that the king would rather believe Ratcliffe's story than the one of some poor shipmates. I'm just guessing here :p

I never expect any movie to be historical accurate, so that's why I look the stories up after seeing the movies (never did so with the Disney films to be honest).

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