The Plague Dogs

The Plague Dogs is a 1982 British-American animated adventure drama film, based on the 1977 novel of the same name by Richard Adams. It was written, directed and produced by Martin Rosen, who also directed Watership Down, the film adaptation of another novel by Adams. The Plague Dogs was produced by Nepenthe Productions; it was released by Embassy Pictures in the United States and by United Artists in the United Kingdom. The film was rated PG-13 by the MPAA for mature themes such as animal cruelty, violent imagery, and emotionally distressing scenes. The Plague Dogs is the first non-family-oriented MGM animated film, and marks their first adult animated feature by the studio.

Plot
An animated adaptation of Richard Adams' novel, about a pair of dogs who escape from a research laboratory and try to survive in the wild with the help of a cunning fox.

Why It Left This Cruel World Behind

 * 1) The idea of a dog duo fighting for survival after escaping from an animal experimentation laboratory is very creative and interesting.
 * 2) The film is very emotionally powerful, giving the right emotions at the right time. For example, the scene at the beginning that shows the animals being experimented on and Rowf being forcibly submerged in water by the scientists is filled with tension and fear, which is completely warranted given how the scene is showing one of the film's main characters, as well as many other characters who are (admittedly never explored throughout the film and are basically only there to send the message of the horrors of the lab and it's experimentations, but still) suffering and possibly even dying in their current situation.
 * 3) Amazing animation with a great soundtrack to go with it.
 * 4) Great action scenes.
 * 5) It teaches the message that animal cruelty is not a good thing to do and that you must be kind to the environment. And, like the best forms of media with life lessons, said lessons aren't shoved down the audiences' throats. But instead, they're included in the film as part of the overall story and narrative.
 * 6) There's a large amount of tension in the film and it's overall stakes are very high. For example, at one point in the movie, it's revealed that Snitter and Rowf might have actually become infected with a plague (which also happens to be revealed just after the former of the two ends up accidently killing a man who had been trying to recover the dogs) and the military gets involved in the efforts to hunt them down. This greatly raises the already high tension of the film and it's situation due to the fact that Snitter had previously shot a man in the face on accident, due to the fact that now, a bigger task force is hunting down the protagonists.
 * 7) The film focuses more on the animals' perspective to get the audience to sympathize with the protagonists more, while also avoiding the faces of the human characters to avoid audiences sympathizing with them for anything.
 * 8) The ending is interesting: As armed troops approach and prepare to shoot the dogs, Snitter looks out over the water and claims to see an island - he jumps into the sea and begins to swim to it. Rowf is hesitant to follow due to his conditioned fear of water, but his greater fear of the gunmen drives him to jump in as well and catch up with Snitter. Two gunshots are fired at the dogs but seemingly miss; immediately a white mist envelops the pair, and the humans and the helicopter disappear. The dogs swim through the mist towards the island Snitter claims to see but Rowf can't spot, until, at last, Snitter begins to doubt that "there is any island" and he stops paddling, losing hope. Rowf, however, claims to finally spot the island and urges Snitter to continue. The dogs swim onwards through the mist, and their fate is left ambiguous. The silhouette of an island is shown during the credits. And since there's no absolute confirmation of anything, it's left up to the viewer to imagine or decide their fate, whether they made it to the "island" or not.
 * 9) The animation was spot on. The animators really did an amazing job making the animation realistic as possible and make the dogs have their animations more so like an actual dog, as in they don't look like they're scripted to walk in a certain way.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Some of the scenes where the human characters are having a conversation off-screen can leave the audience confused as to which person is doing the talking.
 * 2) The movie was marketed as a children's film, despite it clearly being aimed for adults. This left many younger viewers traumatized by the graphic and dark nature of the film.

Reception
The Plague Dogs has been given mostly positive reception since its release in the 1980s. It currently has a 60% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.9/10 on IMDb.

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