Here’s a story the likes of which I bet most of you have lived through by now. When I was about six years old and still living in Washington State, I remember when my family and I went to the nearest movie theater and saw the poster for The Prince of Egypt next to those of other animated movies like Mulan and Quest for Camelot. Judging from what the posters showed, I looked at them thinking the film would’ve been the grandest, most epic animated thing ever to hit the silver screen. Of course, we didn’t watch it on the big screen, but I did see it many times over on VHS throughout my childhood.
Looking at it more closely, it seemed like one of the most unusual animated films imaginable. It retold the story of Moses as he was born a Hebrew, raised an Egyptian prince, and destined to lead his people out of Egypt and away from the grasp of the overbearing Pharoah.
However, this is also one of the most stunning, beautiful, and sorely underrated animated films ever made.
Here’s what’s going down, just so I can get you up to speed on the story. First, a baby was laid in a woven basket and sent away by his mother, Yocheved, to the Nile, to keep him out of harms’ way from the Pharaoh’s guards. So, the baby drifted into the presence of the Pharaoh’s wife, Tuya, who took a liking to the child, took him in, and named him Moses.
Since then, Moses grew up in Egyptian royalty while becoming anything but a fastidious role model for someone like his best friend, his adoptive brother Rameses. Later, Moses stumbled into a group of poor people, who were his biological brother, Aaron, and sister, Miriam, who watched him drift down the river and be adopted by Tuya when he was little. This fateful encounter tested Moses from all angles, challenging his beliefs in his origins, upbringing, identity, family, everything. Then, after accidentally sending one of the Egyptian guards to his death, Moses fled despite Rameses’ pleas and soon settled in the land of Midian, where he soon married the slave girl he saw back in the palace but allowed to escape, Tziporrah. While he was out sheep herding, he stumbled into the Burning Bush, whose flames exhibited the voice of God. God told Moses of his destiny to lead his people out of Egypt and into a land flowing with milk and honey. After much hesitation from Moses, he ventured back to Egypt with Tzipporah and reunited with his brother, Rameses, who had just become the next Pharaoh of Egypt. Both Moses and Rameses caught on to the purpose of Moses’ return, and soon, Moses’ continual pleas and Rameses’ arrogance continually pitted them against one another. Their once-abundant friendship became more strained, and the stakes between them made even higher, as Rameses continued to ignore the requests demanded upon him by Moses and God.
If you were unfamiliar with the rivalry between Disney and DreamWorks, you might this origin fascinating. During the mid-1990s, Jeffrey Katzenberg was increasingly disappointed with the management at Disney. So, after some hostility, Jeffrey Katzenberg left Disney to form the studio DreamWorks with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. With it, he established its animation branch with the expertise he acquired from Disney. And The Prince of Egypt was its first major foray into this medium.
I found this movie unique, and I feel it’s because it’s a 2D hand-drawn animated film based on a story from the Bible. This is not something you would see every day with animated films. Most other times, whenever you hear of a 2D hand-drawn animated feature film, they usually adapted stories that started as fairy tales or classical books. But interestingly, The Prince of Egypt is also a family film, so the movie had elements scattered to please both children and adults. Even though it was the general basics of an animated film, the idea that such treatment was given to the story of Moses, and done as respectfully as possible, no doubt, was just something to behold. That may be because the movie clued the children watching it into the dilemmas and situations going on within it. And once they were, their interest in the Bible would potentially have grown in time. I love that kind of cinematic approach, especially in animation.
But there’s so much more to this movie that I relish in equal measure.
For starters, the animation. The movie’s take on Egypt, its neighboring lands, and especially at the Red Sea felt massive, rough, slightly dreary, yet intimate, beautiful, and expressed with just the right amount of intricacy. Such stylizations were such that they helped the movie portray Egypt as it was when it was one of the most powerful empires in the world, displaying it in all its grandeur, exotic visuals, and unsettling monarchy. Midian also stood out, expressing its more massive and natural terrains while honing a homelier, more subtle, and mellow sense of community. And the Red Sea? Whether on the shores or between the pathways paved away for the Hebrews, the scenes set there were splendorous. They arguably became one of the most famous, iconic scenes in the movie, and looking at the visual dazzles it offered through its blend of 2D hand-drawn and 3D animation, it’s a given.
I must also mention Moses’s dream sequence about his origins and Pharoah Seti’s guards slaying the Hebrew children. Here, the movie went from being 2D hand-drawn animation into an art style inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphics. The applications of the characters and art styles were creative and very clever, besides excelling at setting the mood differently from how it did throughout the rest of the movie.
But it’s not just the environment. The characters were all portrayed with an equally grounded tone, whether they came from royalty or the poorest of neighborhoods. Rameses, Seti, the High Priests, and everyone else from Egypt left their mark with the right amount of royal essence, making you feel their positions of power within Egypt and their role in mistreating their Hebrew servants. And the Hebrews, as well as the citizens of Midian? They were all portrayed as more ragged than anyone else in these lands. Yet, they were generally depicted with much warmer personalities, making them feel like they knew the joys to be found beyond the reaches of luxury or royalty.
The scope of the movie was not what I expected. The scope, though undeniably large, surprisingly felt more modest and restrained at the same time. But that may be because the film focused more on the personal relationships associated with this journey than on the scope itself. That’s not a bad thing, though; it added an element of tenderness to this otherwise colossal journey of self-confidence and liberation. Sometimes, it even compliments them when it’s in the right mood.
Something else I revered in this film is its colors. Unlike most other Disney films, where the colors felt bright and crisp, the colors in this movie felt – and this seems fitting for a film set in Egypt – earthy. The colors here felt earthy and gave the movie a more authentic feel corresponding to its settings.
But the animation that blew me away? The part of the animation that blew me away was the subtleties of the characters’ expressions. Whenever you look closely at the characters in the direst of situations, whether it be Moses, Tzipporah, or especially Rameses, you can feel what went through their heads as their facial expressions did the talking. It also helped that the movie had plenty of moments of silence, so they made the audience read the characters like a book. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then imagine the millions of words the frames letting the characters express themselves freely and deeply would’ve been worth. They’re that good and that evocative.
Before I forget, I really loved how the movie portrayed its characters.
Moses started as the loose cannon of the family; he went on about life with his arrogance, cockiness, and general lack of consideration for either the Hebrews or, sometimes, even his Egyptian customs. In their younger days, Moses and Rameses were mostly troublemakers throughout their lives. The first time I saw them together as the close brothers they grew up to be, they were chasing each other around in their chariots across the kingdom. And yes, you can say this felt like Ancient Egypt’s equivalent of a joyride. However, after his run-in with Tzipporah and with his biological family, he went through what I consider a perfect example of an existential crisis as conveyed through animation. His run-ins made him question everything he thought he was and flee from Egypt in despair and self-exile. But once he settled into Midian and crossed paths with God through the Burning Bush, within him rose a determination to uphold God’s will and deliver his people out of Egypt. However, he did have his doubts, especially considering that letting them go meant quarreling with Rameses over them. This portrayal of Moses felt rounded yet relatable, sympathetic, and beyond fascinating, simply due to the idea of watching him rise to power despite his setbacks and uncertainties about his destiny.
With all the knowledge we’ve gained about Rameses or the Pharaoh, whether they’re the same or not, and how much power and ruthlessness he expressed to his people, the Rameses I saw in this film was one of the most compelling villain portraits I’ve seen yet. Rameses started as an almost insecure young man who was pressured into the expectations of Egyptian pharaonism, as demonstrated best by his father, Seti, who warned him of the consequences of being the ‘weak link’ of their dynasty. Hardened by his father’s harsh words, Rameses took his orders to heart, doing everything he could’ve to uphold the Egyptian traditions, especially as Moses returned to free his people from his rule. Whether he was his best friend in his youth or his opponent over the Hebrews’ welfare, the dilemmas he endured with Moses gave him such sympathetic qualities and complexity that you can understand where he’s coming from, even if his dominion over Egypt and the Hebrews was unorthodox. Watching him sift through his feelings on Moses, his friendship with him, and how in jeopardy he felt over being questioned about his authority was engaging to watch, just like seeing whether Moses would’ve succeeded in convincing Rameses of the reasons why the Hebrews should go. It was such where you felt for both the hero and the villain, and that it was still a tough decision to make, no matter how it would’ve gone and whether the results would’ve been necessary for the greater good. And you can feel it through his and Moses’ dilemmas.
Throughout my life, I never understood why Moses and the characters were talking about why God unleashed his plagues onto Egypt because of Rameses’ quote ‘stubbornness and pride.’ But now, watching it again more perceptively as an adult? I must give the movie credit for being smart about cluing us in to the various signs of Rameses’ newfound vanity without showing it up close. The closest sign I caught on to that told me so was how he became determined to rebuild, expand, and embellish the already existing Egyptian empire to make it even grander than the Egypt that Seti ruled. Initially, Rameses wanted to clean up the wreckage he and Moses left behind in their chariot race before it escalated into throwing in his personal touches all across the kingdom. Heck, even his statue was taller than that of Seti. Not only that, but look at the Hebrews once Moses and Tzipporah returned to Egypt. If anything, the conditions with them looked and felt more miserable after Rameses ascended to the throne. That hinted at a slight egotism stemming from Rameses, so now it makes some sense.
Though not having enough to make them stand out on first impressions, the supporting characters were engaging enough to become more memorable once you’ve seen and known them. Tzipporah, quite frankly, was a generic character. She first showed up as a slave girl meant for Rameses, then for Moses, when they were still the Princes of Egypt. But when Moses helped her escape, even if she did the first half of her escape herself, it left a subtle yet firm impression on her that Moses may still have had a heart. A suspicion that proved true once she and Moses reunited and ultimately married. And then, when she was told of Moses’ run-in with God and the Burning Bush, rather than questioning his run-in or his beliefs, Tzipporah wondered why only he was given the responsibility to deliver his people out of Egypt. Moses reminded her of how her people were free and that the same freedom was what Moses wanted for his people, a belief that she held onto from then on. After that, she felt sidelined outside of serving as emotional support for Moses as he underwent his battles against Rameses. In the original story, Aaron, Moses’ biological brother, mostly stuck by his side as he tried to preach what Moses did out of conviction. I wish Tzipporah filled that role. But at the same time, some of her non-speaking scenes told you how she felt about everything she and Moses did together on their trips to Egypt and the Promised Land. So, I can let some of that slide.
However, that doesn’t mean that Aaron wasn’t in this movie. In this movie, he felt like the kind of guy who survived the Pharaoh’s overbearing workload and tried to keep himself, especially Miriam, out of trouble. And when Moses returned, he was resentful of how Moses unintentionally doubled the workload he and his fellow man had to uphold because of Pharaoh Rameses’ ignorance. It would have been very easy to write him as the straight-up pessimist in the movie. But there’s a part of Aaron, I think, that felt like he wanted to believe with as much carefreeness as Miriam did. But the ever-mounting odds stacked against him and the Hebrews were just too much for him and left him expecting nothing but more pain and suffering to follow. Aaron hesitated to believe that hope would ever have come for him and his people, so he was more of a skeptic than a pessimist.
Which is why Aaron’s and Moses’ sister, Miram, felt like such a compelling character. Despite all that she endured with Aaron, she was the ultimate optimist, hoping that God would’ve delivered her and her people out of Egypt one day. Having witnessed her baby brother be taken in by Tuya, she knew that somehow, Moses would’ve grown up to catch on to his origins, understand the traumas she and her people suffered from, and ultimately be the savior they waited for. For one, her and Aaron’s dynamic, compared to Hotep and Huy, was what I found most potent. Watching these two interacting together felt like the closest thing to a personification of “optimism vs. pessimism” as you can get. But watching her maintain her sense of hope in the bleakest of times made her one of the most resolute and respectable people you could imagine.
The Pharoah introduced in the movie, Seti, felt like a dignified yet stern and morally inept man. He embodied someone who reigned for a long time and knew from experience how to rule Egypt and keep his family dynasty going strong for years to come. It justified his overbearing behavior on Rameses a little since he was his only biological son. But it still felt weird and unorthodox to see Seti blame Rameses for the mess he and Moses made together even if it was mainly Moses’ fault. And once Moses discovered the truth about what he did to the Hebrew children when they got too plentiful, it made him go from stern but loving to loving yet unintentionally creepy. The idea that he was so used to giving such horrible orders and treating them like a normal thing added an always-present-but-now-unearthed facet to him that demonstrated just what kind of Pharaoh he was.
In contrast, the high priest of Midian, Jethro, felt like a jolly man and was the down-to-earth and supremely good-natured leader to contrast with someone like Seti. In the little time he had in this movie, he left behind a succinct impression with his enthusiastic and tender-hearted nature. He is bound to put a smile on anyone’s face because of who and what he embodied.
The closest thing that many people believed felt like a mixed bag was the high priests of Egypt, Hotep and Huy. They felt almost like the movie’s comic relief, and sometimes they hit their mark, but other times, not so much. I’ve seen some people comment that these two guys felt too cartoony and served little to no purpose in the movie, even for a film like The Prince of Egypt. But for me? These two felt more like the bandits from The Small One than they did the gargoyles from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. These guys, narratively unfulfilling as they may have been, still had some admirable elements to them that I remembered as a kid and still have a soft spot for as an adult. These men, being high priests, expressed their devotion to the Egyptian religion with all the Egyptian gods and goddesses, which was interesting enough. But they were also deceitful with their preaching since they always ‘proved’ their religion’s validity with magic and not the powers, if any, of the gods themselves. It made them surprisingly multi-faceted, going from goofy and comedic one minute to conniving and sinister in the next. They even remained high priests throughout both Seti’s reign and that of Rameses, so it displayed a hint of loyalty from them to the throne.
As for the Pharoah’s wife, Tuya? Well, I saw her as a slightly mysterious, elegant character. But it’s primarily because of the love she expressed for Moses, especially since she first found him in Yocheved’s basket. Even when Moses discovered that he may not have been of Egyptian royal blood as he thought, she still tried to console him and reassure Moses of where he came from and belonged. Sometimes, she looked almost as morally inept as Seti, but they didn’t have as much exposé as they could have.
But now, though some characters were more substantial than others, I’ll tell you one thing they all have in common: they were brought to life and made at their most enticing thanks to the fantastic voice acting.
It had a surprisingly robust all-star cast to make this movie work. Look at this: Val Kilmer, Ralph Fiennes, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Jeff Goldblum, Danny Glover, Patrick Stewart, Steve Martin, Martin Short, Helen Mirren. But all the actors brought a multitude of different inflections to imbue their characters with a dashing sense of uniqueness and conviction. They did it so well that somehow, it made the characters almost feel more natural and alive in animation than any other animated film I saw around its release. That’s quite impressive to see a voice acting cast treat their characters so seriously that they sound like they’re acting as they usually would’ve in a high-quality live-action drama.
Now, what did they each offer to help make them stand out? Starting with Val Kilmer, he embodied Moses with a fluid sense of arrogance in his character, and at times when he felt lonely, unsure, indecisive, or conflicted, you could feel the tension in his voice. But, when he gradually rose to become the leader of the Hebrews, he showed great confidence and more noticeable determination in his tone, as if he started to become the Moses that we all knew from the Bible while at the same time being a more human, identifiable Moses. So, Kilmer was just a good pick to play the part. Also, he did the voice of God, and he nailed it in expressing God’s sense of tenderness, comfort, and hidden prowess while remaining just a voice. I also find it clever that Kilmer played God with the same voice he gave unto Moses, hinting that the likeness of God may very well be in the eye of the beholder. So, I thought that was well done.
Ralph Fiennes sounded like he completely embraced every quality of Rameses, though his British accent was a bit noticeable. However, Fiennes did a great job masking his accent and giving Rameses the tenors of a ruthless leader and the modesties of a man who constantly struggled to see if he could’ve filled his father’s shoes and those of the other Pharaohs before them. I even sensed some desperation in Fiennes’ voice whether Rameses sought out Moses or if he tried to maintain what little authority he thought he might have had left. In short, Fiennes conveyed a flourishing amount of three-dimensionality to enhance his otherwise villainous character into someone far more interesting, engaging, and tragic.
Meanwhile, Patrick Stewart honed Seti’s rougher and more hostile, respectable vibes apparent in a great Pharaoh. He allowed his character to unleash his frustrations and expectations onto Rameses with such effort that, characteristically speaking, they spoke for themselves. But, sometimes, he snuck in his tender moments, too. In a way, he resembled Mufasa down to the voice acting, except the result came with fishy essence that hinted at his character’s true nature. As in, don’t let his moments of genuine fatherliness fool you. Soon, Stewart would’ve shown you what kind of man Seti was.
Jeff Goldblum helped make what would otherwise have been such a neurotic character as Aaron feel genuine and conflicted about his beliefs. You’d find yourself sensing something to like about his character, even if he was not always the brightest man in the group. Goldblum nailed down his skittishness, which only added humor to his uncertainties. And something about his voice made Aaron sound like he knew what life was like in Egypt in all its horrific ventures and lived convinced that hope was almost nonexistent after what he endured.
Sandra Bullock, as Miriam, sounded like she, too, knew what being in Egypt at its most horrid felt like, yet her soft voice demonstrated how hopeful she was for something or someone to come and help her and her people out of Egypt. Sometimes, there were moments when she sounded enthusiastic or even emotional. And each time, she hinted at either seeing her innermost hopes coming true or trying to scramble for any semblance of seeing her prayers being answered at last.
Both Steve Martin as Hotep and Martin Short as Huy surprisingly captured their characters’ humorous and underhanded elements. They both demonstrated their comedic talents to pleasing effect in scenes where the characters were allowed to be funny. And in the scenes where they were deceitful, they vocally blended in nicely and gave the characters their unethical demeanors while still maintaining some shred of their lightheartedness.
Michelle Pfeiffer, in general, did an excellent job as Tzipporah. She expressed her aggression when she was at odds with Moses when he was still a Prince of Egypt, mostly because she was in her slave girl condition. And as I saw more of her family life in Midian, plus her and Moses slowly but surely letting their guard down and being there for one another, she came across as more modest and supportive.
And again, despite his short time in the movie, Danny Glover brought a boatload of joy and exhilaration to Jethro, thus establishing him as the righteous leader of Midian. But, the rough voice suggested that even if we don’t see it, he could have showcased a noticeable element of authority when the situation called for it. So even though we don’t see it here, it was still hinted at.
However, for my money, the one aspect that I felt gave the movie its muscle and gravitas was the music done by famed composer Hans Zimmer and the songs done by Stephen Schwartz.
Listening to the score, it went everywhere with its musical exposures concerning the surroundings and the characters. They ranged from energetic and riotous to scary and uncertain, culturally exotic, epic and massive, and even ethereal and beautiful, such as in the Burning Bush scene. I find it funny how Hans Zimmer went from scoring The Lion King, a movie partially inspired by the story of Moses, to scoring The Prince of Egypt, a film that was nothing but the story of Moses. Nonetheless, just like with The Lion King, he knew how to infuse the story of Moses with a musical embodiment that’s fit for a king and, in so doing, sweetened this already magnificent retelling of Moses’ story with a rich and delicate score that took you places in more ways than one.
And Stephen Schwartz? Having done the lyrics with Alan Menken for Pocahontas and The Hunchback of Notre Dame and several years away from creating a Broadway smash through Wicked, his musical talents displayed themselves with striking, delicate, and strong flair. The opening song, Deliver Us, felt full-fledged with its cultural musical components while also throwing in elements of aggressive despair and passionate senses of hope. It even took the time to dwell into more peaceful waters - no pun intended - when Yocheved placed Moses in the basket and bid him goodbye with her lullaby. That was smooth and rhythmic while also carrying a vibe of naturally induced aggression.
All I Ever Wanted, sung by Moses, was a proud, tender, and upbeat song confidently but elegantly expressing how thankful he was to be who he was as a Prince of Egypt. But Moses’ inner urges to fight against what he suspected could’ve been unearthed truths remained at its core. It started modestly but then grew more triumphant with Moses confident in who he thought he was, even if this was before the truth would have come back to haunt him.
The song that Jethro sang, Through Heaven’s Eyes, was a genuine, upbeat, and easygoing tune about the values of being appreciated for just being who they are. It’s almost like the more jubilant ‘what goes around comes around’ song, a song that celebrated the values of the contributions that one person can make in his life. This song clarifies that what may be seen as insignificant may be proven otherwise to God.
The next song, Playing with the Big Boys Now, is what I feel made the Egyptian high priests so memorable in extra helpings. Even though Hotep and Huy were generally as humorous as they were devious, this song completely oozed in their sense of deception, so much that sometimes it made them feel like a force to be reckoned with. That’s the mark of a great and brilliantly performed song when it exposed certain characters as being something we never suspected them of being and just went all out with it. This song was eerie, catchy, and had some flavorful lightheartedness under the surface, and I still get goosebumps from it, it’s so good.
However, by comparison, the next song, Plagues, sends chills down my spine every time I hear it. This song conveyed Moses and Rameses’ struggles through song as God’s plagues laid waste to everything around them, brought about by Rameses’ arrogance. Moses’ and Rameses’ more personal struggles played out via a dark, bleaker reprise of All I Ever Wanted. Meanwhile, spliced in-between these innermost confessions, a choir sang about the effects and threats of the Plagues, like they chanted out God’s exact sayings. The choir sounded ominous, massive, and as menacing as ever, thus spicing up the song with a sense of dread and size to compliment the two main leads’ anguish and inner turmoil.
And the last song that won an Oscar, When You Believe? It may feel a bit light in substance, but it made up for it dearly with its message of hope and how it can prevail even when things may have been at their worst or undeterred. It went all out with its message of how, even if just a speck of it is still alight, the mere essence of hope is all you need to persevere through any hardships and that you can pass it on to others who may be in a similar mode of crisis. It’s so simple yet so optimistic and very exuberant about it. There’s even a cover version of the song performed by Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston that still entrances me whenever I listen to it. Despite its more obvious pop vibes—I’m a sucker for 90s pop tunes, so sue me—the simple essence of hope still shone through here. As I dwell on this, I’m happy it won the Oscar for Best Song. It shows how music that expresses universal themes in the simplest and most delicately inspiring ways can strike a chord somehow.
And before I forget, I should acknowledge the singer who did the voice of Yocheved, Ofra Haza. I understood that she sang her parts in the movie in many languages, especially her native Hebrew language. It gave her a more localized yet resounding and poignant vibe as she sang out her hopes and dreams while simultaneously trying to survive in a society drenched with the blood of her people after being forced into slavery. She was one of the most elegant parts of the songs performed in this movie. Like Miriam, she demonstrated the willpower to survive and live amidst the rough, uncompromising times, even if I sensed more fright from her than I did from Miriam.
I must also mention that despite the liberties the movie took with the story of Moses, the creative team reached out to as many religious institutions as they could’ve about what they were doing with the story of Moses through The Prince of Egypt. They wanted to make sure that the movie at least maintained the spirit and meaning of the story. It was quite an ambitious approach done with this movie, and from what I can see, it paid off big time. The film was even generous enough to mention that in the opening, going as far as to suggest reading the original story in the book of Exodus.
And another thing, you remember what I said about The Hunchback of Notre Dame and how the movie snuck in some adult material to a point where it came dangerously close to getting a PG rating? Well, The Prince of Egypt earned its PG rating, despite this being a family movie. That’s in large part thanks to the core components it carried over from the Bible, which was the slaying of all the Hebrew children under Pharoah Seti’s order. Several characters explicitly mentioned the Hebrew children’s deaths without sugarcoating it. We see one scene at the beginning of the movie that showed the effects without showing the slaughter. We also see the Hebrews painting their doors with the fresh blood of their slaughtered lambs in preparation for the tenth plague; one of the corpses was half-visible, even. And most of all, one of the first plagues God unleashed through Moses’ staff was to turn the Nile into a river of blood. I think it’s a safe bet we know whose blood that was that permeated the Nile. It generally felt gruesome, but it was a satisfactory kind of gruesome.
It’s not often that I would find an animated film that had the audacity to entrance children and adults alike with a subject so alien within the realms of animation as the Biblical story of Moses. Still, The Prince of Egypt pulled it off and then some. Because of its efforts, it became the highest-grossing non-Disney animated movie of all time when it first came out, cementing its status as a fondly remembered animated classic. Nowadays, however, it deserves all the love it can get. Why? Because it played to its creative strengths in a genuinely showy, powerful way, making it a good retelling that stood on its own two feet alongside something like The Ten Commandments.
To all those who remember it, as I do, deliver this to the promised viewers. The Prince of Egypt is truly a strong and graceful film for all.
My Rating
A-
Additional Thoughts
About Aaron being the skeptic in this movie, the payoff with this character felt enlightening to see. By the time God’s powers proved themselves and freed him and the Hebrews at long last, Aaron lunged forth into the opportunities as giddily as Miriam and the other Hebrews would’ve. And, who was the first person to trust Moses in crossing the Red Sea? Aaron, of course. As I said, he always wanted to believe that there was still hope for him and his fellow people yet, and all his doubts and worries melted away the minute he knew that hope had arrived. It was pretty touching to see.
I’ll wager that some people might see the movie’s quote ’lack of diversity’ among the voice actors as a put-off. But the actors did such a fine job here in The Prince of Egypt that I could not care less. I think we need to worry more about actors, especially voice actors, who are great because of their talents and not just actors who are great because they have their ethnicity to match. If we find actors and actresses who excelled at both qualities, then we would have the best of both worlds. But in my book, great acting comes first.