The Biggest Problem with The Prince of Egypt

The Prince of Egypt is an incredible movie. It's amazing that something like it could even get into production, with how faith based and powerful it is. There's so much to love about, from a great voice cast, to the absolute banger of a score, to the beautiful animation. But I have one big problem with it that brings it down a point or two in my rating.

My siblings and I noticed this on our last rewatch of the movie. Prince of Egypt is based on the story of Moses, and it's really well done. It follows the story pretty well, and doesn't add too much extra. They bring in the faith aspect quite well.

You get through all this great stuff. You watch Moses hear God's voice and shiver at the ten plagues song. Pharaoh finally agrees to let the Israelites leave. And then they sing "When You Believe".

That's the issue right there. It's a great sounding song. Powerful, uplifting, really fits the mood of triumph as God's people exit Egypt.

But if you actually listen to it, or look up the lyrics, you'll find there's about zero mentions of God, especially in the Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey version.

It talks of miracles, but makes it sound like we're the ones who create them. It talks about belief, but in what? God is not mentioned, and not even really implied in this song.

When you really look at it, you see the direction it takes is "hooray, WE did this great thing". "WE were moving mountains." "There can be miracles when YOU believe."

God is only an implication in this song. It's falls under the more "feel good" Christian song than a powerful marker of faith.

The funny thing is, if you look at the part in Hebrew the children sing, it's a condensed version of "The Song of Seas" from Exodus. Directly praising God for what he has done. It's taken straight from the Bible. I find it interesting that really the truth does come from the lips of children.

If they had replaced "When You Believe" with a song praising and thanking God for his works, can you imagine how much more powerful the ending would be? It's already emotional, but you could take it to the next level.

So yes, I love Prince of Egypt as a whole. I hope it's touched lives and brought people to God. But I do wish they hadn't chickened out on the big finale number. It just shows we need more Christians out there making films like this.

What are your thoughts on this? What's your favorite song from Prince of Egypt? Tell me in the comments.

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