In 1963, Disney released a film adaption of the book, The Incredible Journey.
It's a perfectly adequate movie for its time. Parts of it are little laggy and quite dated. Thirty years later, Disney would remake The Incredible Journey as Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey.
How does the remake fair? It's better than the original in every way. Talking animal movies often get a reputation of being bad and that's because often talking animal movies are just made as cheap comedies meant to entertain kids for an hour and a half. That's not the case here with this remake, there is so much heart in this movie that you can't help but root for the animals to make it home. As I mentioned in the introduction yesterday, I will not be doing a plot breakdown for these remakes as that just doesn't seem the right way to handle them. Instead, I'll look at what they kept, what they improved and how does it hold up.
What They Kept
Just like the original, the focus in on three house pets trying to make it home. However, the idea of home is much more prevalent than the journey itself and that is felt in the title changing it from The Incredible Journey to Homeward Bound. The animals, for the most part, are kept the same, however, the cat was a male in the original.
Another thing they kept is the idea of narration, the original relied on it so heavily that narrator Rex Allan had to tell the audience what the pets were feeling whereas here, it was used sparingly and wonderfully from the Pup, Chance by Michael J. Fox.
Which brings us to...
How It Improved
The most important element of this story is the pets and what they go through, you have to feel for the pets or the story doesn't work. The original is fine but again it relies too much on the narrator to make the audience feel for the pets. This is a rare case where making the animals talking characters improves the story but when you have the likes of people such as the aforementioned Fox and Sally Field voicing the pets, you are guaranteed true characterization that makes you care about the pets. This also ties into the relationship between the pets and their children best exemplified in the relationship between Peter and Shadow.
Shadow would do anything for Peter and the same is true for Peter doing anything for his dog. This was quite deliberate.
this later version was expanded to examine the special bond between a child and his pet, especially as exemplified by Peter (Benj Thall) and his relationship with Shadow.
Also, the original has one of the dumbest bits of dialogue from a Disney movie I've heard regarding dogs.
Peter Hunter: I knew all along Badger wouldn't make it. He was just too old.
Elizabeth Hunter: But Peter, you are not old and he is the same age as you!
Yeah, that killed the moment of the original whereas the relationship between pets and children feels more natural in this version.
I mentioned that journey is kept that there are elements that are more fun and exciting such as the escape from the shelter and Sassy teaching Chance how to fish. And the bear attack.
Yes, this was in the original but it felt better executed here. And I truly felt for Chance when he was praying for death having the needles being pulled out. This was such a strong moment that kept me emotional and Fox sold the moment so hard.
Let's move onto the final question
How Does it Hold Up
Honestly, quite well and if given the choice between this or the original, I'd say watch this one as it's more satisfying and it takes the time to make you care about the pets and what they go through. Homeward Bound proved to be quite a success that in 1996, a sequel was made. And next time, we are going to look at how a sequel to a remake fares when we get...
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