It is a movie about a man who finds out his entire life is a lie. Most people remember The Prince of Egypt for the soaring soundtrack or that terrifyingly beautiful "Plagues" sequence, but looking back decades later, it's honestly a miracle this movie ever got made. DreamWorks was the "new kid" in 1998. They were trying to out-Disney Disney by being darker, bolder, and way more serious. It worked.
The film doesn't treat the Exodus story like a Sunday school lesson. It treats it like a Shakespearean tragedy between two brothers who happen to be on opposite sides of a divine war.
The Risky Bet That Defined DreamWorks
Jeffrey Katzenberg had a bit of a chip on his shoulder after leaving Disney. He wanted to prove that animation wasn't just for kids eating popcorn on a Saturday morning. To do that, he picked one of the most foundational, high-stakes stories in human history.
It was massive.
The production brought in over 600 religious scholars to make sure they weren't being disrespectful, but the filmmakers still took massive creative liberties with the relationship between Moses and Rameses. That’s the secret sauce. In the original text, Rameses (or the Pharaoh) is more of a stone wall. In the movie, he’s a grieving brother. You actually feel bad for the guy, even when he’s being a tyrant.
Val Kilmer and Ralph Fiennes turned in performances that most live-action actors would kill for. They didn't "voice act" in the cartoony sense. They whispered. They cracked. They sounded like people crumbling under the weight of empires.
Why the visual style looks so "crunchy" and real
There’s a specific look to this film that nobody has really matched since. The character designs are angular and lean. It’s not the soft, round "bubbly" look of The Little Mermaid. The artists looked at monumental Egyptian statues and tried to bake that scale into the human faces.
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Then you have the Parting of the Red Sea.
Even with modern CGI, that scene holds up because it feels heavy. You can almost smell the salt and the wet sand. The team at DreamWorks spent ten hours just rendering a single frame of the water at one point. It was a brutal mix of hand-drawn artistry and early digital effects that somehow created a timeless aesthetic.
The Music: Beyond "Deliver Us"
Hans Zimmer and Stephen Schwartz basically went into the studio and decided to create the most intense musical theater experience of the 90s. Everyone talks about "When You Believe"—which won the Oscar—but the real power is in the world-building songs.
"Deliver Us" is an incredible opening. It sets the tone immediately: this is a movie about slavery, blood, and hope. It doesn't blink.
- The Chanting: They used real Hebrew prayers.
- The Scale: The orchestra sounds like it’s echoing off the walls of a canyon.
- The Contrast: Switching from the grit of the pits to the lush, quiet palace gardens in a single cut.
Honestly, the "Playing with the Big Boys" sequence is probably the weirdest part of the movie, but even that serves a purpose. It shows the psychological grip the Egyptian priesthood had. It’s creepy. Steve Martin and Martin Short bring a vaudevillian energy that feels slightly out of place until you realize it’s supposed to feel like a deceptive magic show.
The Prince of Egypt and the "Adult" Animation Gap
We're in a weird spot now where most big-budget animation is either a "for everyone" comedy or a niche indie film. The Prince of Egypt occupied a middle ground that barely exists anymore. It was a PG movie that dealt with infanticide, the death of the firstborn, and the psychological toll of leadership.
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It didn't have a talking sidekick.
Think about that. No funny gargoyles. No wisecracking lizard. Moses had a dog for about three seconds and then the dog basically disappears when things get serious. The filmmakers trusted the audience to stay engaged without a comic relief character breaking the tension every five minutes.
That’s why adults still watch it. You can sit down as a 30-year-old and find the political maneuvering and the "nature of God" questions actually interesting.
What most people get wrong about the production
A common myth is that this was a direct "anti-Disney" project. While the rivalry was real, the actual artists were more focused on the technical hurdles. They had to invent new software just to handle the way light hit the sand.
Some people also think the movie was a box office failure. It wasn't. It made over $218 million on a $70 million budget. For a non-Disney 2D animated film in the late 90s, that was huge. It paved the way for Shrek, which is ironic because Shrek is the exact opposite of this movie's tone.
Why it still matters in 2026
We are seeing a massive resurgence in 2D-inspired aesthetics (think Spider-Verse or Arcane), but they are all very "digital." There is something about the hand-painted backgrounds in The Prince of Egypt that feels tactile. It feels like a historical epic in the vein of Ben-Hur or The Ten Commandments, just drawn by hand.
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It’s a reminder that animation is a medium, not a genre.
If you're looking to revisit it or show it to someone for the first time, keep an eye on the lighting. Notice how Moses is often shrouded in shadow when he’s in the palace, and how the light becomes blindingly bright once he hits the desert. It’s visual storytelling 101, executed at a masterclass level.
How to appreciate the film today
To really get why this movie is a landmark, you have to look at it through the lens of risk management. No studio today would hand $70 million to a team to make a serious, religious, 2D epic without a plush-toy-ready mascot.
- Watch the "Plagues" sequence on the biggest screen possible. The way they use the color red is genuinely disturbing and beautiful.
- Listen to the "Through Heaven's Eyes" lyrics. It’s actually a pretty profound philosophy on human worth regardless of social status.
- Compare the character of Rameses to other villains. He isn't "evil." He's trapped by tradition and the ghost of his father.
If you want to dive deeper into how the film was made, look for the older "Making Of" documentaries that feature the animators discussing the "hieroglyph nightmare" sequence. That specific scene used a blend of 3D space and 2D textures that was years ahead of its time. It remains one of the most effective uses of horror elements in a "family" film.
The best way to experience the legacy of The Prince of Egypt is to watch it back-to-back with modern CG films. You’ll notice the weight. You’ll notice the silence. And you'll see why, even 28 years later, it remains the gold standard for what happens when a studio decides to grow up.