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I'm going to have to go in deep deep detail of why I dislike Wolf Quest. If you don't like reading a long post about how it's all been done before, Aleu the adult-child, Niju the weako-antagonisto, annoying spiritualism, killing of original characters, annoying songs, bad animation, weird voices, overused storylines, no emotion and a little bit at the end about Anaiyu, don't read. Otherwise, continue.
People don't like it Balto 2: Wolf Quest because it's all already been done before. Hero's daughter goes off to find herself, done before. Spiritual guides, done before. It reeks of Lion Kind 2: Simba's Pride, but Simba's Pride was good because they ACTUALLY managed to pull it off, AND it was a DTV release and before Wolf Quest. Wolf Quest had no excuse to be what it is - it has a great precedessor with original characters, they show emotion, no songs but an excellent soundtrack, beautiful animation and hand-painted backgrounds, very good proportions and then this... THING comes along and calls itself 'brilliantly animated' with 'unforgettable songs' and all that. NO, it is NOT.
I have a problem with Aleu. She looks okay, she has the potential to be a really good character, but.... her voice is childish, her actions are childish, she acts like a CHILD when she is A YEAR OLD, pretty much an adult by now. She should at least think maturely and speak at the least like a teenager or young adult but nooo, 'a cave.... a least it'll be cool in here'. No duh. Also, her proportions - what is this!! Oversized paws, stick-thin legs, a tail that crosses between husky shape and wolf shape, and unnaturally curved neck and blue eyes. The blue eyes can be explainable as wolves can have a rare defect that causes their eyes to not turn brown as they mature and stay blue, but then again Aleu isn't mature at ALL. And what's with her eyes? They focus on things very very badly, many many times she's cross-eyed.
Niju is the weakest antagonist I have ever seen in ANY movie. He doesn't verbally attack anyone very well, he doesn't actually HURT anyone, he doesn't try and kill anyone, it looks like he's trying to mate with Aleu near the end after he kicks Nava away but apparently he's preparing to "attack" her. What sort of wolf attacks another wolf by walking over her? None, only a poorly made animated wolf named Niju that just happens to look like Steele. Steele had some actual badass, insulting Balto, throwing him against rocks, causing him sorrow over Jenna, while this Niju, a poor clone, can only insult Balto by calling him a mutt, backs away when Aleu challenges him for it, and can only tackle then again, he wouldn't be able to do much else because he's so poorly animated. And, in the end, he RUNS AWAY. What kind of antagonist does THAT?
The spiritual thing bugs me. The only spiritual thing in Balto 1 is the White Wolf. That was okay because it wasn't the full-on 'beeing one with da treeee' crap that Wolf Quest was. Muru was very pointless, the only thing he did was fill time, add another song and tell Aleu that she must go on a quest to find herself. If I was Aleu I'd say 'screw you, I'm already on a quest' but Aleu just stands there and goes "what are you doing!!!" "why!!" and looking around at these animal shapes in the rock and the light figures looking plain dumb. Also, the raven and the river mist - what? What is that? "Oh my gosh I can't see through this semi-transparent mist!!" Balto 1 had blizzards, and they could see through that, yet Balto acts blind when he's in mist. The raven's another time filler, Balto could easily of sniffed out Aleu's trail (he did in the end, but followed that bird) by himself without the raven. And the bear... weirdo bear. Care Bears can even do better than that bear. It has long freakish arms, short legs, extra long claws and Aleu and Balto seemingly easily fight it. Balto 1 has a more accurate portrayal of what happens when two dogs fight a bear - Balto is nearly suffocated, he is plunged into a cold freezing lake after the bear falls in and is unconcious, Jenna recieves a nasty injury that makes her unable to walk yet in WQ Aleu bites onto an extra long leg and Balto even rides on top of the bear much like the Troll scene in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - even then Harry is shaken about and nearly clubbed yet in WQ Balto rides the bear like he's at a ride-a-pony stall at a fair.
The original character's personalities were changed completely. And some vanished - Steele, Morris, Doc, Nikki, Kaltag and Star and Dixie and Sylvie were all dumped. And Rosie was only mentioned. Balto was now an overprotective father - hello, Simba's Pride! - and Jenna was completely flattened to be this passive mother character that hardly shows concern for Aleu, like when Balto tells her Aleu has gone, she only goes 'oh we hav to find her' and sniffs around and wags her tail. Dogs do not wag their tail when their offspring are missing, THEY DO NOT. Boris is now almost non-Russian and is just a way to tell Jenna the journey's for Aleu and Balto only - this is what I got out of it - 'lol u cant have an importunt part in deh movvee bcuz itz a movvee about aleu and balto not you lolololol'. Muk and Luk are now very strange... they look under Balto's sleeping blanket, hop after frogs and play hide and seek and scream at each other - then again their faces look so freakish they have a right to be screaming at each other.
Okay, final bit of the rant, I'm getting tired of typing. Songs, animation, voices, storyline and emotion. The songs were all out of place and time-fillers. Although I will admit the 'Somebody Wants You' was quite nice, and goes well with the movie. But, 'Who Are You' is useless, and 'The Grand Design' is just plain annoying. Also with some of the soundtrack theres random 'Hey ya!'s - what's with that? They're trying to make it sound Inuit but it just sounds Jamaican, they may as well used Hey Ya by Black Eyed Peas for it all. The animation... was terrible, even I can draw a bit better than that. The lip-synching was pretty off and running looked like a robot was doing the work. The backgrounds I also have to admit were very pretty - by that I mean the waterfalls and the crystal-imbedded cave, pretty pretty shiny shiny *_* - but near the end, the dark sky, oh look in 5 seconds from nice and sunny its ULTRA DARK AND GLOOMY! The clouds are purple for crying out loud. Try grey next time. And it didn't even *rain* - what is it now, spiritual purple clouds in the sky? The animation should of stayed traditional for both WQ and WoC, I've said that a lot, and I *know* 3D animation is cheaper but pleeeese, at least our eyeeeees won't be burrrrrning with this so-called brilliant animationnnn... Universal knows it wasn't brilliant at all, it was downright uuuug-lee. Sure, it was slightly better in WoC and they had a bigger budget then but for the love of God, low budget is no excuse for all of the line and coloring mistakes! What, you only had an extra $5 so you left Balto's paw socks out near the end when he climbs onto the iceberg Aleu, Nava and Niju are on? Puh-lease. As for the voices... the original characters' voices were merely imitations of the original, I have seen this change in the Battle Fronteir series of Pokémon and it ALWAYS sounds TERRIBLE! The Lion King's sequel's voice replacements were good because the voice actors could *actually* sound like the originals. Also with Lucy Chabert, the voice of Kiara, also voicing Aleu? What's with that? They wanted Aleu to be so much like Kiara so they even hired Lucy to make her even SOUND like Kiara? What is with that? They most definitely should of gotten a different voice actor. Most of the characters unfortunately sound out of character to the originals or sound generic. Last bit, storyline, the storyline is SO overused and weak, and its had its worst use in WQ. Spiritualness, the hero's daughter running away to 'find herself', ehem, baaaaad. Even my sister liked the original but when she saw a bit of me watching WQ she was like 'what's this *****?'. Now for the final bit - emotion. If one of the characters died in the movie, I wouldn't give a ***** because the characters don't make you feel what they're feeling, it's just the same blunt flat way of saying things. And oh lookie here WE'RE IMMORTAL! WE CAN'T GET INJURED! Yeah, really great for the emotion. Balto doesn't seem to care when Aleu nearly falls off the cliff and neither would I. Even the My Little Pony movie of 1986 (one of my childhood favourites) is more dramatic than Wolf Quest.
There. Done. One last bit, trying to make characters in B1 different in WQ, they tried to make the White Wolf Balto's mother. Just because Balto had a wolf mother and the White Wolf is a wolf. The White Wolf is most likely male because of his size, but nooo, let's make him a girrl with red eyes and call her a weirdness try-hard Inuit-sounding name like Anaiyu and try to make her look like Balto so she's his mother! No. N. O. You cannot take a character like that, a SYMBOLIC character, and change it into the mother of the protagonist of the series, Balto. Balto is living flesh and bones in B1 and the White Wolf is a hero-inspiring spirit and nothing more. How can a spirit have a flesh son? That we do not know.
I think if they're ever going to have a successful sequel that's actually fairly good it can't be a DTV release - it'll have to be either theatrical or transferred to Dreamworks Studios. And with Universal's attitude towards the series, with their "sequals" that are poorly made in the first place, its highly unlikely that will happen.
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