Joseph King Of Dreams Plot
Thora Buckner
Joseph: King of Dreams is a 2000 American direct-to-video animated biblical musical drama film. The second film adaptation of the Bible from DreamWorks Animation and the only direct-to-video production they released, the film is an adaptation of the story of Joseph from the Book of Genesis in the Bible and serves as a prequel to the 1998 film The Prince of Egypt (as the biblical narrative of Joseph happens before that of Moses). Composer Daniel Pelfrey stated that the film was designed as a companion piece to The Prince of Egypt, noting that though "Joseph turned out to be very different than The Prince of Egypt, it was very challenging and rewarding".[2][3]
Co-director Robert Ramirez has said that whilst the reviews for the film had "generally been very good" there was a period "when the film was not working very well, when the storytelling was heavy-handed" and "klunky".[4]
Joseph, the youngest of Jacob's eleven sons, is considered to be a "miracle child" because his mother, Rachel, was thought to have been infertile. Joseph grows conceited from his parents' special treatment, and his brothers become increasingly jealous of him. One night, Joseph dreams of a pack of wolves attacking the family's flock of sheep. The dream comes true, but Joseph's brothers dismiss it as a coincidence. Joseph further enrages his brothers by recounting his next dream, in which he saw his brothers bowing before him. Led by the oldest brother, Judah, the brothers sell Joseph to a slave trader for twenty pieces of silver and take his torn coat back to their parents, convincing them that Joseph was killed by wolves.
In Egypt, Joseph is bought by Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh's guards. He becomes a trusted servant and falls in love with Potipher's niece Asenath. Potiphar's wife, Zuleika, unsuccessfully tries to seduce Joseph and falsely accuses him of attempting to rape her. Potiphar realizes that Joseph is innocent, but he reluctantly throws him in prison to preserve his reputation. There, Joseph meets the Pharaoh's cupbearer and baker and interprets their dreams, which soon come true. Having seen that the cupbearer will return to his position, Joseph begs him to tell Pharaoh about his gift, but the cupbearer forgets to do so. Meanwhile, Asenath secretly supplies food to Joseph until she is nearly spotted by a guard and forced to drop the food, which is devoured by rats. Raging at God for his misfortunes, Joseph climbs the walls of the jail, slips and falls back down, ending up being knocked unconscious. After he wakes up, he finds renewed purpose in caring for a dying tree as he reflects on his past and begins to trust in God's plan again.
The Pharaoh becomes troubled by nightmares which none of his advisors can interpret. Remembering Joseph, the Pharaoh's cupbearer advises him to send Potiphar to retrieve him. Potiphar apologizes to Joseph for imprisoning him, and Joseph forgives him. Joseph interprets the Pharaoh's dreams as warnings of seven years of abundance set to be followed by seven years of famine that may wipe out Egypt. He suggests that one fifth of each year's harvest should be stored for rationing. Impressed, the Pharaoh makes Joseph his minister and second-in-command, under the name "Zaphnath-Paaneah". In the following years, Joseph's guidance saves the Egyptians and their neighbors from starvation. He marries Asenath and has two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, with her.
Joseph's brothers arrive in Egypt to buy grain, offering to pay for it with the twenty silver pieces. The brothers claim they have to feed their youngest brother and their elderly father. Unrecognized by them, Joseph refuses to sell them grain and imprisons one of the brothers, Simeon, until they can prove their story by bringing their youngest brother. The brothers reappear with Benjamin, Jacob's twelfth son whom he favors as he did Joseph. Benjamin tells Joseph that Rachel died and that his father was crushed by Joseph's death. Joseph questions Benjamin on whether his father trusts his brothers to look after him and how his supposed death affected them. Benjamin says they never speak of it. Joseph then releases Simeon and invites the brothers to a feast.
After the feast, Joseph has his golden chalice concealed in Benjamin's bag. Upon its discovery, he orders that Benjamin shall be punished, but the brothers offer themselves in his place to Joseph's surprise. After Joseph questions the brothers' motives, Judah, grief-stricken and ashamed, confesses to having sold Joseph into slavery and says that the brothers and their father could not bear to lose Benjamin too. A shocked and touched Joseph decides to reveal himself to them, and they reconcile. Joseph reunites with his father and meets his brothers' families after inviting them to live in Egypt. The film ends with the Hebrews entering Egypt.
Development for Joseph started while The Prince of Egypt was being made, so the same crew worked on both films, and the wide group of ministers served on both projects as consultants. Work on the film was based in Los Angeles and Canada, and nearly 500 artists contributed to the project.[5]
Executive producer Penney Finkelman Cox and DreamWorks employee Kelly Sooter noted the challenge in telling a Bible story faithfully yet still making it interesting and marketable. They also noted that though it was destined to be a direct-to-video project from the beginning, their approach to the film was to develop it with the same quality and storytelling as they did with The Prince of Egypt. Creatives involved also noted that one of the most challenging parts of the film was creating Joseph's dream sequences, which look like "a Van Gogh painting in motion".[5] Nassos Vakalis, who helped storyboard and animate the film, said that he had to travel a lot to Canada to see work done in a few studios that were subcontracting part of the film.[6] Composer Daniel Pelfrey said that the writers and directors did a "great" job on staying true to the story and bringing it into a presentation for a contemporary audience.[2]
December of 1997 was a great time on the production. While the script was being fleshed out, Paul Duncan (the head background painter) and Brian Andrews (story artist) were creating some phenomenal conceptual artwork. Francisco Avalos and Nasos Vakalis were doing storyboards based on a rough story outline. Weeks later we started assembling a very talented story crew that included artists that had both television and feature experience. We had a script that was well-structured and followed the Bible story fairly accurately. Once the First Act was storyboarded, we filmed the panels, recorded a temp vocal track with music, and edited it all together to create the storyreel. We were excited and ready for our First Act screening for Jeffrey Katzenberg, which was set for an early weekend morning in the New Year of 1998.[4]
When the lights came on in the screening room, the silence was deafening. All the execs put down their yellow legal notepads and headed down the hall to the conference room (which for me felt miles away). When we all sat down, Jeffrey looked up and said three words: "Nothing made sense". He was right. Nothing made sense. We followed the Bible story tightly. The script had structure. We storyboarded it word for word, yet it fell flat on its face. It all suddenly felt like a horrible, horrible disaster, and the worst part of it all was that I didn't know how to fix it. I was deeply confused, and our aggressive production schedule didn't allow for the story re-working that usually takes place on a theatrical feature. Share Stallings, one of our creative executives on the project, was very supportive and offered encouragement to the crew. She assured me that at least two sequences could be saved by clarifying some visuals and re-writing some dialogue. I couldn't see it at the time, although she turned out to be right. The only thing I could think about was that "nothing made sense".
When we started analyzing the characters in Joseph, we began to work from the inside out as opposed to just putting together a story. Once we delved into the minds of these characters and dissected their personalities, we started making some important breakthroughs. What does Joseph want? To be a part of his brothers' lives and reunite with his family. What does Judah, Joseph's older brother, want? He wants the love and positive attention that his father Jacob reserves only for Joseph. What does Jacob want? Jacob wants to show the world how much he loves his favorite son, Joseph. Why does Jacob love Joseph so much more than his other sons? Because Joseph is the spitting image of his favorite wife. He's the first-born son of the woman he waited for all his life to marry. Once we discovered the "wants" of the main characters, it was simple to figure out what actions they would take to satisfy them. Another important discovery was finding the voice of each individual. Once we had a deeper understanding of our characters and what made them tick, the scenes had a new spark of life that had been missing all along. The characters were now driving the scenes, instead of vice versa. In time, ideas that were born out of character helped blend sequences so that they flowed into each other instead of feeling disconnected.[4]
Judah starts out at a high station in his family structure, and that's all disrupted by this little child who claims to have visions of the future, he says. Eventually, it causes Judah to lead all the brothers against Joseph. I don't think of him as a villain. In many ways, he's like all people, wondering, "How will this affect my own life?" He's self-centered and has to re-evaluate all his preconceived notions.[5]
These 'strangers' turned out to be his brothers. Now it was Joseph's turn. Would he follow his initial gut instinct and enslave them? Abuse them? Kill them? Or would he rise above hatred and forgive them? In a nutshell, that's what the crux of the story is about: forgiveness.[4]