All Animation Is Disney: A frequent victim of this perception, more so than DreamWorks Animation' other 2-D animated features; though this might have to do with the fact that it was originally pitched at Disney. In fact, some of the animators used to work at Disney as well.
How much does Seti regret killing the Hebrew infants? He notes that "sacrifices must be made", but his tone and expression suggest he is haunted by this fact. Later, he tried to comfort Moses by saying "they were only slaves." Is this because he feels their lives had no value or because he believes this will comfort Moses? Or is he trying to reassure himself that he did what he thought he had to? Answered more firmly in the stage musical; Seti says it "scar[red] his soul" to order the massacre and he makes no apology for it other than that it was necessary for Egypt. And to add to this, this was not when Moses left Egypt or his adoptive family, only doing so when Moses personally killed a slave overseer, suggesting that Moses may have still had some sympathies with his family or willing to give them another chance.
During "the Plagues" Moses sings about all the innocent Egyptians who suffer due to Rameses' stubbornness. The Egyptian children undeniably aside, one might argue that none of them were innocent due to all of them relying on the Hebrew slaves (as well as non-Hebrew slaves, if we're getting historical). Though some were more guilty than others considering that this was what they were born into and couldn't change it even if someone had the unusual desire to, and we see quite a few farmers and peasant families suffering along with the Egyptian nobility.
Miriam and Aaron. While Miriam's speeches about hope and Aaron's cowardice are hilarious as kids, as many people have noted in the fridge sections, Aaron probably had to constantly apologize or make excuses for his sister in order to save her life. This puts things in a different light, as one could interpret them as Miriam constantly acting out or fighting against the Egyptians, despite Aaron constantly having to humiliate himself with cowardice and make excuses for her and telling her not to do the stuff that, you know, would probably get her killed.
God, by sheer virtue of the fact that He's the Abrahamic God and famously ineffable, but also because He's simply an unreadable character in the context of this film. Is He a benevolent parental figure, outright evil, beyond either of these things, or some mix of all of the above? The movie, for its part, does not discourage this question.
The Egyptian gods, as well. Are they malevolent? Nonexistent? Less powerful than the Abrahamic God? Or simply refusing to help, either as a means of punishment for the Egyptians' crimes or for some different reason that's all their own? This one, at least, is somewhat encouraged by the film itself as a question and left largely up to the viewer to interpret.
The Biblical account usually states that "God hardened Pharoah's heart", a line that has been the subject of much scholarly debate given that God usually makes a point of not impinging on free will in the Bible. Conclusions lie on a gradient of "God forcibly changed Rameses' mind in an Out of Character moment" to "God waited for Rameses to make a choice and then prevented him from reneging on it, whatever that choice was"note by some accounts, Rameses could be indecisive to a translation of "God suffered Rameses' heart to be hardened, accepting that Rameses was going to keep making the wrong decision". (Hebrew is a notoriously difficult language to translate.) The film goes with the third version; Moses attributes Rameses' actions to stubbornness, Rameses says "let my heart be hardened", and God responds by making the plagues worse.
Moses' killing of the overseer is here unambiguously portrayed as an accident. While the Biblical account doesn't make it impossible to read it that way, nothing in the text suggests it, and the reaction of the other Jews generally treats Moses' actions as at least alarming, with one questioning, during an argument, whether Moses will kill him the way he killed the overseer.
Just before the last plague Moses goes once again to ask Rameses to free his people and is greeted with Rameses throwing a cup with a red liquid in it. Is this liquid wine and it would indicate how he's trying to drink his problems away? Or is it blood water from the first plague and it shows how fed up he is that he hasn't even had a decent drink of water in quite some time.
Does God spare Rameses to punish him by forcing him to live with the consequences of his actions? Because He needed him alive for His own purposes? Or did He recognize that Rameses still had the potential to change for the better and decide to give him a chance to redeem himself? And if that's the case, why didn't God also spare the soldiers Just Following Orders?
Angst Aversion: A rare animated film example because, aside from most of the songs and a few moments of comic relief, it shows a surprisingly dark depiction of Moses' life.
Award Snub: The film was nominated for five Annie Awards in 1999, including Best Animation and Best Animated Movie. It won none of them, losing all five categories to The Iron Giant.
Awesome Art: The visuals in this movie are absolutely BREATHTAKING, from sweeping desert dunes, to towering pyramids to glittering Egyptian palaces. Even the designs of the characters themselves call to mind Egyptian hieroglyphics, and much consideration was given to making the Hebrews, Egyptians and Nubians look visually accurate.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: "Playing With The Big Boys Now" is an overblown musical number with an anticlimatic ending, as God's snake eats the priests' snakes in a fraction of the time the whole song takes. Could be taken as an example of how the Egyptian gods were mostly show compared to Moses with the backing of God.
The movie ends with Moses returning to the children of Israel with the Ten Commandments in hand. Anyone familiar with the story of Moses (or at the very least, the Charlton Heston version) knows what happens next. He smashes the tablets in anger at seeing the Israelites having built a golden calf idol to worship, and sends the Levites to kill 3000 people. Unless you believe it was the second time around, which is happier (and suggested in the storybook/coloring book which posits the scene as taking place "Years later") but still pretty bitter. This isn't even the half of it. The group of Hebrews being led out of slavery toward the hope of the Promised Land? Apart from Joshua, none of them will be allowed entry into it. Their pride, stubbornness, and lack of faith results in them being sentenced to wander in the desert for forty years until that generation dies out. Even Moses will never get to enter it while he's alive, although his remains are eventually buried there. One can only hope that this movie's version of the story, with its liberties taken, would have things go better overall...
On the historical side of things, Rameses' thirteenth son and successor Merneptah will claim to have destroyed Canaan, including Israel, decades after on the famous Merneptah Stele.
God murders Aaron's sons, Moses' nephews, and forbids the man to even grieve for his boys consumed by fire. He's not even allowed to mourn. Suddenly his cynicism in the movie becomes Harsher in Hindsight.
Evil Is Cool: Admit it, you thought the Egyptians' architecture and gods looked pretty awesome too, didn't you?
Fanon: Moses finds the burning bush when searching for a sheep that he delivered earlier in "Through Heaven's Eyes". The sheep in question is a white lamb, which many people have interpreted as a subtle clue that it was sent by God Himself to lead Moses to the bush.
Fan-Preferred Cut Content: A semi-example. Ramses was originally supposed to have a pair of cats and historically minded fans note that, besides being an avid cat-lover that had many imported to Egypt, the historical Ramses II had a pet lion named Slayer of His Foes, who even fought alongside him at Kadesh. With some fine-tuning, the pair of cats could have been melded into a single feline companion for Ramses, that companion being Slayer of His Foes, a cub during Seti's reign, and a full-grown lion when Moses returns. It is not so much that they like what was put forward, but admit that combined with historical evidence that it had potential.
In the Bible, Moses is adopted by Pharaoh's daughter. Here it's Tuya, Seti's wife... Because Seti wasn't pharaoh yet: Seti I ruled for either eleven or fourteen years, so the ruling pharaoh when Tuya adopted Moses was either Rameses I, Seti's father and founder of the 19th Dinasty, or Horemheb, last pharaoh of the 18th dinasty who had designated Rameses I as successor because he lacked descendants while Rameses was a capable administrator with a son and multiple grandsons. Either way, Tuya was pharaoh's daughter, either as daughter-in-law of the ruling pharaoh or the one of the designated successor.
This also adds to Seti's reaction when Moses confronts him about the killing of the Hebrew children and all but blames him: Seti, alongside Tuya, was actually the one who defied the Pharaoh and saved one Hebrew child, even if just by arguing the gods had protected that particular child, hence his confusion.
This is contradicted however by the fact that when Tuya finds baby Moses, she says "Come, Rameses. We will show Pharaoh your new brother, Moses", indicating that Seti was already Pharaoh at that point. The mural of the Hebrew babies being killed also pretty clearly depicts Seti, and when Moses says "Father, tell me you didn't do this", Seti doesn't take the clear opportunity to deny it, but just doubles down on justifications.
In that early scene, Tuya never says that the current Pharaoh is Rameses' father. In fact, if he were, she would have said something more like "we will show your father your new baby brother." That line actually seems to confirm that Seti was not pharaoh at the time when Moses was discovered.
The nightmare that reveals Moses the truth on his heritage, represented by moving carvings on the wall, ends with Moses' carving in an image of a sun disk with rays ending in hands. That particular sun disk is the symbol of Aten, that, in one short-lived Egyptian religion, was the One True God, Creator and Bringer of Life. His similarities with the Hebrew Yahweh have not gone unnoticed by historians, several of them even speculating some of the worship of Aten might have crossed over to them.note This is mostly a fringe theory, though, because, the chronology is off, as Atenism wasn't a thing until mid-1300s BC. By then, the Hebrews were long gone... if they were there in the first place, as the Exodus is not exactly backed by evidence either.
Miriam being portrayed as knowing God's plan to make Moses the deliverer of the Hebrews when he's still a baby, while not strictly in the Biblenote Exodus only states that his sister followed him down the river, but doesn't mention her name or her believing he'd deliverer of the Hebrews. While it's generally agreed that the sister who followed him is the same sister Miriam who was a prophetess of God and played her tambourine after crossing the Red Sea, there is some debate, is a popular interpretation of Miriam's character in Jewish tradition. A very popular Jewish belief/story is that Miriam was the sister who followed Moses down the river, and since Exodus states that she was a prophetess in her own right, it's believed that, as a little girl, she knew that God had chosen him to be the deliverer of her people.
During the opening Crowd Song, the Hebrew slaves pray, "Elohim, God on High / Can you hear your people cry?" "God on high" has the same number of syllables as and rhymes with "Adonai" (Ah-doh-nye). "Elohim" and "Adonai" are not only both Hebrew names for God, but are frequently invoked side-by-side in ancient Hebrew prayers and songs.
The Hebrew song the children sing during "When You Believe" are lyrics from "Mi Chamocha," a song rejoicing God that Miriam and the Hebrews sing in Exodus, and which Jewish synagogues still sing (especially during Passover) to this day.
Casting Jeff Goldblum, a Jewish actor famous for his affected stutter, as Aaron—who in the Bible spoke for Moses... because Moses had a stutter. (Goldblum also narrated the read-along-book-and-tape tie-in.)
This applies more to the Bible story itself than to the movie in particular, but any Old Testament Biblical scholar will tell you that the Egyptian peasants would've seen each of the ten plagues as a personal challenge by YHWH to one of their own gods. For example the plague of boils would be seen as a challenge to Sobek, the god of medicine, and the three days of darkness a challenge to Ra, god of sunlight. The fact that none of their many gods were able/willing to undo what the Hebrews' single God had wrought would've sent a very clear message to them.
The big creature that swims past when Moses parts the sea isn't a whale, going by the shape and movement of its tail. It's a whale shark, a filter-feeding species found (among other places) in the Red Sea.
Tzipporah's verse in "When You Believe" includes the line "hope seemed like the summer birds/too swiftly flown away." "Tzipporah" literally means "bird".
The Angel of Death is implied to target Egypt's adult firstborn too, since it's shown chasing after a palace guard, but Rameses isn't directly hurt by it. This may seem odd, but the historical Rameses II had an older sister named Tia, meaning he wasn't a firstborn child.
Jerkass Woobie: Rameses. He may have some good sides, but his ego and actions against the Israelites outweigh the pros, and the great suffering he endures is brought on himself by his fatal flaws.
Magnificent Bastard: God, having heard His people's cries for deliverance from their horrid slavery in Egypt, comes to Moses in the form of a burning bush with the man's own voice to turn him into God's emissary to Egypt. Using Moses to plead with Pharaoh Rameses for the freedom of the Hebrews, God responds to Pharaoh's refusal by sending the Plagues upon Egypt, increasing in their severity until God takes the life of every firstborn in the land, punishment for Pharaoh threatening infanticide on the Hebrews. When Pharaoh releases the Hebrews only to go back on his word and try to wipe them out, God parts the Red Sea to give the Hebrews an escape, then lures Pharaoh's armies into the same path to wipe them all out, saving the Hebrews for good and paying Pharaoh back for his genocidal intentions.
Moses slowly backing away from Seti in horror has become a very popular reaction gif. In applicable moments, fans have also been known to reverse it so that Moses walks into Seti's embrace, shaking his head in disgust all the while.
'All I Ever Wanted' - listen to the song after the release of Thor and The Avengers and given the subsequent Lokification of the internet, and you'll realize that if you replace the word 'Egypt' with 'Asgard', the whole song could be about Loki. The fans noticed. Boy, did they notice.
With a mix of black comedy, many will joke about a "sequel" to the movie being Moses smashing the Ten Commandment tablets in anger upon coming back to seeing the Hebrews worshiping the Golden Calf.
“Enough! I will hear no more of this Hebrew nonsense.” note Ramses’s dismissal of the plagues affecting his kingdom has seen applied usage to cases surrounding antisemitism and Jewish concerns, as well as more benign cases such as people trying and failing to understand Hebrew speakers.
Misaimed Merchandising: The trailers and tie-in media try to present it as a generic Biblical film, more "epic" than anything else, when it is actually darker and more intense than the norm. Indeed, the actual texts of the tie-in books, even the coloring book, don't spare the darker elements. (The coloring book was created to double as a storybook, with Novelization-style text alternating with pictures on facing pages, and resembles the adult coloring books that took off in The New '10s more than the standard.) Upon its original theatrical release, though, the tie-in products were effectively limited to the soundtrack albums and book-based media to avoid this trope.
Seti crosses this when he tries to rationalize slaughtering all the Hebrew babies, starting off with the line: "Oh, my son, they were only slaves." It's this that causes Moses (and the audience) to lose any possible respect for him. The worst part is he actually thought it would make Moses feel better.
Rameses sees the deaths of the firstborns as this for Moses, though it was hardly his doing, as it isn't until after the 10th plague that he actually attacks the Hebrews. That being said, it is left open for interpretation whether God himself crosses the line, as the children (and most of the Egyptian populace) have no control over the decisions Rameses and his ancestors made. It is worth noting that while Rameses' subjects suffer the most, Rameses himself is spared, despite him being the one responsible. There's a reason why this is one of the most difficult things theologians try to reconcile with: God will punish the powerful by slaughtering the powerless.
It could be argued that Rameses himself crosses it when he declares genocide on the Hebrews during the ninth plague:
And if he didn't cross it then, he certainly does when he actually attempts to carry out this genocide at the Red Sea during the film's climax. There are hundreds upon hundreds of innocent men, women and children among the Hebrews, and Rameses' command to his soldiers is "Kill them! KILL THEM ALL!" To be fair to him, he's in the middle of a massive Villainous Breakdown and Revenge Before Reasonafter the death of his son.
Near the end of Moses' nightmare (which is genuinely terrifying), when he sees Yocheved watching his basket float down the river, she puts her head in her hand. It's supposed to show her grieving, but it looks more like she's doing a facepalm.
Coupled with the dramatic music from that part of "Deliver Us", young Miriam's expression as she wades further out into the river as Moses' cradle drifts towards an Egyptian barge is rather silly.
"Playing With the Big Boys Now" was originally conceived as a Vegas-style showpiece. Then the music was changed to be much darker... but not the lyrics, resulting in some serious Lyrical Dissonance.
Narm Charm: "Playing With the Big Boys Now" is still an intimidating and dark Villain Song, with plenty of impressive visuals.
Nausea Fuel: The hordes of insects and frogs during "The Plagues", particularly the shots of dozens of tiny bugs coming out of a loaf of bread, swarming from a goblet that Hotep was about to drink from, and crawling all over one unfortunate Egyptian in his sleep.
This wasn't the first adaptation of the Exodus to portray the Egyptians and Hebrews as looking Middle Eastern, nor the first to have Moses and the Pharaoh of the Exodus be childhood friends. Both of those go to the Moses episode of Testament: The Bible in Animation. The portrayal of Seti with his "They were only slaves" line draws comparisons to the episode's portrayal of Rameses as the Pharaoh of the Oppression, where he asserts that a Pharaoh must be just to Egyptians only.
Having the Priests be fakes was previously seen in the 1995 film Moses, celebrated at the time as the most faithful screen adaptation of the Exodus, where, just for one example, a priest throws down a staff and another kicks over a basket containing a cobra that is near the staff.
This is hardly the first time "Prince of Egypt" has been used as the title for an adaptation of the Exodus. In 1949 Dorothy Clarke Wilson wrote "Prince of Egypt", which would become one of the base stories for The Ten Commandments, and in 1958 Spartacus author Howard Fast wrote "Moses, Prince of Egypt".
A textbook case, starting off as quite successful, then largely vanishing off the face of the Earth. Between its appearance on Netflix, and a more positive reevaluation of DreamWorks animation following films like How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and Kung Fu Panda, its fanbase seems to grow every day.
Several positive reviews/mentions by The Nostalgia Critic have also done wonders in helping people [re]discover this movie.
The playful chariot race between Moses and Rameses, which establishes right away how different the brotherly relationship is going to be in this film compared to how it was portrayed in The Ten Commandments. The marketing for the film shows it off so much that you could almost swear it was hyping up a movie revolving around chariot racing.
The Parting of the Red Sea, which elicited goosebumps even with non-religious viewers.
Signature Song: "When You Believe" is the most well-known soundtrack from the movie, to the point that many who haven't watch the film would likely have heard the song, whether in the radio or even parties and concerts.
"The Plagues" is also becoming well known as the most poignant and powerful song of the movie, capturing the tragedy and pain of both male leads.
Values Resonance: A major reason for the film's continued popularity. Compared to most other depictions of the life of Moses, The Prince of Egypt places noticeable emphasis on the political and moral aspects of his struggle to free the Hebrews from slavery, portraying him as a man who takes up a crusade against social injustice after being awoken to his own privilege and forced to confront his nation's past crimes. For obvious reasons, many young people find his story very relatable, seeing parallels with a variety of social causes in the modern world.
The Tenth Plague, despite freeing the Hebrews, is not depicted as a good thing. The film purposely leaves the audience to decide whether God was justified in killing the firstborns, rather than trying to justify it within the film itself. Moses breaks down in tears once the weight of this massacre hits him, clearly showing regret. After the actions of Hamas during October 7th, 2023, the idea that innocent civilians could be punished for the actions of their government is something that is much harder to swallow, making Moses' reaction all the more poiniant.
Visual Effects of Awesome: The Pillar of Fire and the parting of the Red Sea easily rival anything seen in live-action films, and God, in the form of the Burning Bush, still looks amazing.
Watched It for the Representation: The film has gained praise from audiences for accurately portraying the characters as visibly Middle Eastern/African, unlike a few other film interpretations, which have gotten in hot water over it. On the other hand, the voice actors are mainly white Americans or Europeans but this was less controversial at the time.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: It's an animated take on the story of Exodus, including the slaying of the firstborn Egyptians. You don't see that often in a movie intended for all ages. At the time, its PG rating was unusual for a Western animated feature that wasn't clearly intended for adults only. Even The Hunchback of Notre Dame went out with a G.
Older Than They Think: Portraying the Pharaoh's firstborn son as a baby originates with Moses the Lawgiver and was replicated in the 1995 film Moses, but there the pharaoh had been Merneptah, thirteenth son and successor to Rameses.
, a filter-feeding species found (among other places) in the Red Sea.