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I never had an issue with Jenna as a character. It was slightly nice to see a female character that DIDN'T need saving since a lot of people still put crap like that in movies. It is just the fact that I really think her and Balto falling in love was unnecessary and it would have been just as good if she wasn't thrown in to be his love interest (among other things).

That's a point we'll probably always disagree on I think. Without the love story, Balto would have had no motivation to do anything he did in the movie. Literally everything he did was fueled by his affection for Jenna. Examples:

- He saved Rosy's hat from being run over because he wanted to impress Jenna
- He was only in town when Rosy got sick because Boris convinced him to talk to Jenna (hence the "northern lights" scene)
- He ran in the qualifying race to impress Jenna and to get on the team to save Rosy
- He wanted to be on the medicine team to save Rosy, who was Jenna's owner
- He went to look for the missing team for the same reason
- He made a promise to Jenna to find the team and bring the medicine back to Nome

Literally every major plot point in the movie depended on Balto's affection for Jenna. Even the parts with Steele, because Steele wanted Jenna for himself and resented Balto. If you take that out of the movie, what do you have left? You have Balto sitting around on his boat with no motivation to do anything. He would have no reason to go get the medicine or to save the town. Everybody in the town hated or at least distrusted him, remember?

I get that you don't like love stories. And that's fine, you don't have to like them. But it is an essential part of this movie, and there's no conceivable way that this would be an interesting movie without it. We don't have to like the same things, but you really can't say the movie would have been just as good without the love story. Ask yourself why Balto would have wanted to get the medicine and save the town if there were no Jenna in the movie, and you'll see what I'm talking about. It's all about motivation, characters don't do things for no reason.

Balto had a good reason to do everything he did - his love for Jenna.

^ I had no problem with Jenna. I agree on every point NYBF made. However.
I have to disagree that EVERYTHING Balto did was motivated by his affection for her.


Granted Jenna was quite a motivator, but to say she was the ONLY reason why Balto would risk his life to save many people from certain death sounds... shallow. In the beginning of the film, Rosy was being very sweet to Balto. One of the few if not only people to NOT treat him like pondscum. That could be a very good motivator, backed up by when Balto over hears the other dogs talking about Steele's team and seeing the tiny coffins, he says quietly with concern, 'Rosy...'.

Quoting another member from another topic:



True. And love does give a lot of 'motivation', but that doesn't mean it always comes in the romantic form.

This is becoming frightening, Roi...we're finding ourselves in agreement again. ROFL

Yes, I concur with you. Whole heartedly. Jenna was most definitely not Balto's sole motivation for anything he did in the movie. It is clear that Balto and Rosy were friends already...it is implied in how Rosy playfully teases him on the street in town about "impressing a pretty girrrrrl". lol And in other poignant exchanges between them, and in his expression whenever Balto looks at Rosy. It's NOT just because he wants to get lucky with Jenna (or impress her)...nor is the Balto movie exclusively a romantic love story. It's much more than that.

And you noted what I also said earlier about Balto whispering Rosy's name with deep concern when he listens in on the conversation the other dogs are having about the whereabouts of Steele's team.

Personally, I happen to think the scene in which Balto looks in on the carpenter, and notices the coffins (and reacts the way he does) is supposed to serve a bigger purpose even than just his concern for Rosy. I think that it implies Balto's altruistic and sacrificial nature towards the people of Nome altogether. Not just Rosy. Surely it's not said in any way (by Balto or anyone else), but if it were just about Rosy, then they certainly would only have had one small coffin in the scene, or which he would have exclusively noticed. But that didn't happen. He noticed all the coffins, and the work the carpenter was doing in making more.

hmmm.. a lot's been already said.. but two things I can think of right now are..

yeah, the Half-wolf thing.. I mean, if it was another character/story fine.. but since the real Balto wasn't Half-wolf.. I wouldn't even had a problem if he was half-pigeon.. but I think they just did it for story purposes...

and on another note, why can't Balto be Black and White?.. I guess it's not to confuse him with Steele but still..

and another thing, yeah, they treat like BALTO was a one-dog sled team.. yes, I know the real statue at the end credits the whole team. but in the movie and Wings of Change.. it was all Balto according to the humans.. hmmph..

I didn't get that at all. As Steele is coming into town on the last leg of the race and Balto pokes his head out of the crowd to look around, he sees Jenna. There is no implication that he had ever met Jenna or Rosy prior to that. He gets a big grin on his face because of Jenna, not Rosy, obviously, and when Rosy's hat gets blown into Steele's path, Balto's motivation to grab it was to impress Jenna, which is exactly what Rosy herself said a minute later.

That's where the motivation came from, which is the point I was making earlier. Balto was not motivated to grab Rosy's hat because he liked her. He was motivated because he liked Jenna. There's a slight disparity here, because Balto acts like he's never seen Jenna before, while Rosy already knows his name. But a lot of people in town know his name including Rosy's father and the butcher, much in the same way that I know the name of my neighbor's dog but we don't ever interact. it doesn't mean they've ever met before or were ever friends, and the way Balto reacts to Jenna certainly indicates that they've never met.

This is about Balto's motivation for doing things. It should be clear to almost everybody that Balto's motivation in that scene was Jenna. Not Rosy. And that's how it goes through the whole movie. There are a lot more examples of this, you should already be familiar with them without me having to point them out.

And yes, Balto does care for Rosy, and that could easily be by *******. Rosy is Jenna's owner, hence Balto likes her. Without any evidence to the contrary and no canon to go by, it's just guesswork anyway. Well that and common sense. But she is not his primary motivation for doing anything. Jenna is. There's a simple test for this: If Jenna were not in the movie, would Balto have done everything he did to get the medicine back? The answer is no. He wouldn't even have been in town, he wouldn't have had a REASON to be. He wouldn't even have had a reason to interact with Rosy, at any point.

Balto was altruistic, and the coffin thing did make him want to get the medicine. But why was he there in the first place? Jenna. Lots of kids were sick, but he only cared about Rosy. Why? She was Jenna's owner. How did Balto find out she was sick? Because he came into town looking for Jenna. Who did he make a promise to about returning with the medicine? Jenna. Why did he bother finding out what was wrong with Rosy? Jenna.

There is no indication anywhere in the movie that Balto would have done everything he did because he liked Rosy that much. Take Jenna out, and would Balto really have gotten up on the window sill to look at Rosy, gone through the boiler room and under the hospital to listen to the doctor on his own with no other motivation? No. There is no indication that Balto and Rosy were that close or that Balto would have had any reason to be in town in the first place if not for Jenna. Balto was an outcast and lived outside of town, and all the people and dogs hated him or distrusted him. Steele picked on him and he wouldn't even have had a reason to bother with Steele at all, much less want to be on a sled team with him, if not for Jenna.

Like it or not, Jenna was Balto's primary motivation for doing everything he did in the movie.

Then we're going to have to agree to disagree and be done with it, because I don't see it as you do. I see it as I explained it. There is more to this story than just a simple romance.

Xaqtly: Could you edit the *'s from your post? It implies swearing which is obviously not allowed. I'd have edited it myself but I couldn't quite think of how to.



On topic:

While I agree that one of Balto's biggest motivations was indeed Jenna, Rosy was also a pretty big one too.

Balto had feelings for Jenna, that much was obvious, but he also longed to be accepted by the people of the town.
Balto's personality was that of someone who aimed to please, he wanted to help the people and be accepted by them.
The same with the other dogs, he wanted so badly to fit in and be accepted and in his mind - helping bring the medicine back to save the children was something he knew he could do to try and help to meet those ends.

His first motivation was probably Jenna and wanting her to like him, but after seeing how sick Rosy was, how upset Jenna was, how dire the situation was becoming - he wanted to help all of them.

The scene where he saw the coffins was directly after the scene with him eaves-dropping on the dogs in the boiler room resulting in him over-hearing that Steele and the team was lost in the storm - not with him seeing Jenna.

Balto was a caring personality; his motivation for helping the entire town wasn't entirely fuelled by something as selfish as wanting to impress a girl.

I agree with UK, Jersey and Roi. Balto's main motivation was not Jenna, for he wasn't that shallow of a character. Yes he fancied her and all, but he didn't try and save the entire town just to impress her and win her heart. He was generally worried for all of the children - particuarly Rosy. Not just because she's Jenna's owner, but because she was the only person who showed him kindness in the film - and has probably shown him kindness beforehand.

The boiler room scene, in which Doc says "The medicine won't be here in time. We're going to lose them," Balto looks devastated, and whisper's the little girl's name. Showing that he doesn't want to lose her. Same instance when he sees the carpenter building little coffins for the children. He's absolutely shocked, and actually sits and thinks for a good 6 seconds about the poor children. Then shakes his head, and whispers Rosy's name. Then he looks very determined, and turns to set out on his quest to find the missing team. And that bit right here proves that Rosy is the whole reason for it. After he fell off the cliff and lost all hope, whose name was it he whispered? Rosy's. And he covered his face with his paw and cried for her, feeling like he'd failed her, and failed the whole town. Then, at the end of the film, he goes into the hospital to see Rosy after her father invited him in, watching happily as her parents hugged her in relief. He then turns and looks across the whole ward to see the other children waking up, just to see that they're all okay. Jenna's the last thing on his mind right now. It's only after Rosy's embraced and thanked him that she decides to show, and Balto's obviously happy to see her. But it's cuz he loves her, right? So of course he is. And he's won her love and the town's approval in turn, because of his selfless act.

And he was indeed selfless because he wanted to save the children. Not because he wanted to impress Jenna. Yes, she was a part of it, but she wasn't the biggest part. imo, that's not a very good reason to want to save the town.

The word is "p-r-o-x-y", which is obviously not swearing. I don't know why it was bleeped.



I never said there wasn't. But saying "there's more to the story than romance" doesn't disprove anything else I said. Try doing what I suggested and remove Jenna from the story and re-evaluate Balto and his motivations. You will find that the story would be basically entirely different without Jenna.



Try removing Jenna from the story, then say that. As I said, when you remove Jenna from the movie, Balto's motivations change, and so do his actions. If Jenna hadn't been there, would Balto have been staring at Rosy instead? No. Would he have cared when her hat flew out in front of the oncoming team? No. Furthermore, every indication actually given in the movie suggests that Balto knew Rosy because of Jenna, not prior to meeting Jenna. Of course Balto wanted to save her, he had a connection with her.

And what was that connection? Jenna. Who did he make the promise to? Jenna. How did he learn that Rosy was sick in the first place? Jenna. This would be a very different movie without Jenna in it, which should be a good indicator as to what motivates Balto to do what he does.

Xaqtly: Please don't double post next time. There is a edit button to edit your posts.

And as for me, I somewhat agree with Xaqtly. In the way the movie was set, Balto really had a better connection with Rosie threw Jenna. Though I wish they didn't have Jenna, and instead Balto wanted to be Rosi's pet, I think it would have been more deep. But thats just my opinion.

My apologies!
I didn't know that was censored either. xD

Certainly the story would have been different without Jenna. "Entirely" different? I don't agree. He clearly knew his way around town. And wandered around it frequently. And interacted with at least some of the humans and dogs. And the movie demonstrates that these anthropomorphic dogs can understand human speech (even if the humans cannot understand them when they are "talking"...which is probably not English but shown as English for the viewers' benefit). Therefore, he would have known soon enough that trouble was a-foot, and he would have wanted to be involved in the team selection (via the race in town)...as he clearly was motivated to go into town in the opening scenes of the animated part of the movie in order to watch the closing moments of the cross-country dogsled race. Not to see Jenna (whom he obviously had never seen before that point, as the movie makes quite evident). There is no indication or implication that he wouldn't have acted if Jenna were not a factor. None. He is portrayed as an empathetic, friendly character in the trilogy...my judgement is that he would have acted anyway.


Oh? I will more directly quote a line of Rosy's from the movie, which I alluded to before...



That is the first time any human character addresses him by name. The clear implication is that Rosy knew Balto already, probably having encountered him in town, or seeing him at the boat. In the fictional setting, it is even possible that she named him (because how else would she know his name if he had been given it by another dog or a wolf...where we could assume that Aniu named him by guessing outside of the canon)? There is no other explanation for this scene. Even if Rosy is acknowledging that Balto rescued her hat to impress Jenna (even if I and others may happen to think that he also did this for Rosy's benefit as well...an equal motivation as far as I can see), Rosy already knew him, and talks to him in a friendly, jesting way. Seems pretty clear to me. And Rosy shows a great deal of empathy for him after her father says harsh words about him. We can see that Jenna probably did not know Balto before that (certainly the movie implies it), and that Balto didn't know she was owned by Rosy's family until he saw them both together watching the race. That much I can agree on. Beyond that, I cannot see how you can squeeze this character's primary motivations for helping Rosy, or even getting involved, into romance (which is what you are maintaining in your previous points).

Lawl, frightening indeed. But a nice change of pace never the less.

-



...that's what we've been doing... I don't think you are though...
At this point I wanna say you seem like a hopeless romatic who's blind with love. [don't mean that as an insult... though I apologize if it does sound it]
Not everyone's motivations are just based on their love for someone else and nothing else. Balto is not a shallow character who only thinks of himself...
that's why Steele was in the film... I'm not going to say again what I have been saying all along, for being redundant is just spamming.