It shouldn’t have worked. Seriously.
DreamWorks was the "new kid" on the block in the late 90s, trying to find its footing while Disney was busy cranking out hits like Hercules and Mulan. Then, Jeffrey Katzenberg decided the studio's first big 2D swing would be a somber, high-stakes retelling of the Book of Exodus. You know, the one with the plagues, the infanticide, and the divine wrath. Not exactly Toy Story vibes. Yet, The Prince of Egypt didn't just work; it became a towering achievement of animation that, honestly, hasn't been topped in the decades since.
People still talk about it. They talk about the music. They talk about the scale. But mostly, they talk about the way it handles Moses. This isn't just a Sunday School flannelgraph come to life. It’s a messy, emotional, and deeply human look at a man caught between two worlds.
The Moses We Actually Get to Know
Most versions of this story start with Moses already being a saintly figure with a beard and a staff. He’s usually just a vessel for God’s will. But The Prince of Egypt does something much smarter. It spends the entire first act making you love Moses and Rameses as brothers. They aren't rivals yet. They’re just two reckless rich kids racing chariots and causing property damage in Ancient Egypt.
This is crucial.
If we don't believe they love each other, the rest of the movie has no stakes. When Moses discovers his true heritage, it’s not a moment of triumph. It’s a freaking nightmare. He’s losing his identity, his family, and his status. The film frames the Hebrew struggle through the lens of a fractured brotherhood, which makes the eventual plagues feel like a personal tragedy rather than just a series of special effects. Val Kilmer (voicing Moses) and Ralph Fiennes (voicing Rameses) bring this incredible, lived-in exhaustion to their roles. You can hear the heartbreak when they realize they can't go back to the way things were.
Visual Storytelling That Does Not Play It Safe
Let’s be real: the "Burning Bush" scene is terrifying. It’s supposed to be.
📖 Related: Big Brother 27 Morgan: What Really Happened Behind the Scenes
The directors—Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, and Simon Wells—opted for a visual style that blended traditional hand-drawn animation with early CGI in a way that felt massive. Think about the Hieroglyph Nightmare sequence. It’s stylized, flat, and haunting. It uses the art of the period to tell the story of the slaughter of the innocents without showing a drop of blood, yet it’s one of the most chilling things ever put in a PG movie.
And then there's the Red Sea.
Hans Zimmer’s score is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, but the animation of the water—dark, towering, and filled with the silhouettes of whales—is pure awe. It treats the miracle with the weight it deserves. It isn't "magic." It's something primordial and overwhelming. Most modern animated films feel a bit too clean, a bit too manufactured. This movie feels like it was etched out of stone.
Why the Music is Basically a Religious Experience
Stephen Schwartz, the genius behind Wicked, wrote the songs. You can tell.
"Deliver Us" is arguably the greatest opening number in animation history. It sets the tone immediately: this is a story about systemic oppression and the desperate hope for a savior. It’s heavy. It’s loud. It’s polyphonic. By the time "The Plagues" hits, you're listening to a musical duet between two men who are literally tearing a country apart because they're both too stubborn—or too burdened by duty—to blink.
The soundtrack also uses Hebrew liturgical elements, specifically in "When You Believe," which adds a layer of cultural authenticity that was pretty rare for a big-budget Hollywood flick in 1998. It wasn't just "flavor." It was an acknowledgment of the source material's weight.
👉 See also: The Lil Wayne Tracklist for Tha Carter 3: What Most People Get Wrong
Acknowledging the "Hollywood-isms"
Now, look. It’s still a movie.
Historians will tell you there’s no archaeological evidence of a massive Hebrew slave population building the pyramids (which were mostly built by paid laborers, according to modern findings by Zahi Hawass and others). The film also takes massive liberties with the timeline. In the Bible, Moses is basically an old man when he returns to Egypt. Here, he’s still in his prime.
Does it matter? Not really.
The movie isn't trying to be a textbook. It’s trying to be an epic poem. It captures the spirit of the mythos perfectly. Even if you aren't religious, the themes of standing up against injustice—even when that injustice is being perpetrated by someone you love—are universal. It's about the cost of doing what's right. Moses loses everything to save his people. He doesn't get a "happily ever after" where he goes back to the palace. He goes into the desert.
The Legacy of the Mid-Budget Masterpiece
We don't get movies like this anymore.
Today, everything has to be a franchise. Everything needs a talking animal sidekick for merchandising. The Prince of Egypt had exactly zero talking animals. It didn't have pop culture references or Fourth Wall breaks. It treated its audience—kids included—with enough respect to assume they could handle a story about grief, faith, and the terrifying nature of the divine.
✨ Don't miss: Songs by Tyler Childers: What Most People Get Wrong
It also proved that DreamWorks could be a serious competitor. Without this film, we probably don't get the visual risks taken in How to Train Your Dragon or Kung Fu Panda. It set a bar for "adult" themes in western animation that we’re only just starting to see return with things like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
How to Revisit the Story Today
If you’re looking to dive back into the world of Moses and Ancient Egypt, don't just stop at the Blu-ray. There are a few ways to really appreciate what went into this.
- Watch the "Making Of" documentaries: The technical hurdles of the Red Sea sequence are mind-blowing. They had to invent new software just to make the water look right.
- Listen to the 25th Anniversary Soundtrack: It includes demos and tracks that give you a sense of how the musical's tone shifted during production.
- Check out the Stage Musical: There’s a filmed version of the West End production. It’s different, and some of the new songs are hit-or-miss, but the staging of the miracles is a masterclass in theatrical creativity.
- Compare it to Cecil B. DeMille: Watch the 1956 Ten Commandments. It’s amazing to see how the animated version actually manages to feel more grounded in reality despite being a cartoon.
Moses is a figure that has been reimagined for thousands of years. From the Torah to the Quran to Hollywood, his story is one of the pillars of human storytelling. But for a whole generation, he will always look like a DreamWorks character, standing on a cliffside, watching the clouds part.
It’s a rare film that manages to be both a blockbuster and a piece of high art. If it’s been a while, go back and watch the "The Plagues" sequence on a good pair of speakers. You’ll remember why this movie is still the king.
Next Steps for the Prince of Egypt Fan
To truly appreciate the depth of this production, seek out the art book The Prince of Egypt: A New Vision in Animation. It details the specific color scripts used to differentiate the "warm" world of the Egyptian palace from the "cool, harsh" reality of the desert. Additionally, comparing the lyrics of "Deliver Us" to the original Exodus text reveals how closely Stephen Schwartz worked with scholars to ensure the emotional core of the Hebrew lament was preserved. Finally, for a modern perspective on the film's impact, look into the 2018 retrospective interviews with the directors—they openly discuss the pressure of following Disney and how the "no-jokes" policy was a massive gamble that ultimately saved the film's legacy.