Balto II: Wolf Quest is a 2002 (2000 produced) American direct-to-video animated adventure film. It is the sequel to Universal Pictures/Amblin Entertainment's 1995 animated film Balto.
Plot[]
Balto (voiced by Maurice LaMarche) and his mate Jenna (voiced by Jodi Benson) have a new family of six puppies. Five of their puppies look like their husky mother, while one pup named Aleu (voiced by Lacey Chabert Or Fairouz ai In The Japanese Dub) clearly takes her looks from her wolfdog father. When they all reach eight weeks old, all of the other pups are adopted to new homes, but no one wants Aleu. Aleu stays with her father, Balto. A year later, after she is almost killed by a hunter (voiced by Joe Alaskey), Balto tells Aleu the truth about her wolf heritage. In anger and sadness, she runs away, hoping to find her place in the world.
At the same time, Balto has been struggling with strange dreams of a raven and a pack of wolves. He cannot understand what the dreams mean, but when Aleu doesn't come back the next day, he runs off to find her and bring her back home. He meets with mysterious creatures, like a cunning fox (voiced by Mary Kay Bergman Or Rie Kugimiya In The Japanese Dub), a trio of wolverines (voiced by Kevin Schon, Rob Paulsen, and Mary Kay Bergman) that taunt him, the same guiding raven from his dreams, and a furious grizzly bear that suddenly disappears as if it was never there.
During the journey, his friends Boris (voiced by Charles Fleischer), a Russian snow goose, and Muk and Luk (both voiced by Kevin Schon), twin polar bears, hope to find Balto, but they are halted by some unknown force. They soon realize that this journey to find Aleu is meant for the father and daughter themselves. Aleu, after taking refuge in a cave, meets the field mouse called Muru (voiced by Peter MacNicol Or Ayumu Murase In The Japanese Dub ) who lets Aleu realize that being part-wolf isn't so bad. He teaches her that everyone has a spirit guide. After singing the song "Who Are You?", it turns out that Muru is Aleu's spirit guide.
When Aleu and Balto reunite after a close escape from the bear, a part that helped them escape is a strange ability that Aleu managed to get somehow, and allowed Aleu see the bear's thoughts. Aleu has started to grow, telling her father that she's not going home until she finds out who she is. The two of them travel onward, both following the raven, to a starving pack of wolves by the ocean. They are led by a wise and elderly wolf named Nava (voiced by David Carradine), who has magic abilities and can contact the mysterious white wolf, Aniu (voiced by Moonae Michael), in his "dream visions". He tells his pack that one day soon, they will be led by a new leader, "the one who is wolf but does not know." Everyone believes that Balto, who is half wolf himself, is the chosen one that Aniu was speaking of. However, Niju (voiced by Mark Hamill), a young and dangerously ruthless wolf, hopes that he will be the next leader since he is stronger and more powerful than the old, wise Nava. He plans to accomplish that with his followers Nuk (voiced by Joe Alaskey), Yak (voiced by Jeff Bennett), and Sumac (voiced by Rob Paulsen).
The day comes to depart from their home to follow the caribou, the wolves' food source, across the large sea using pieces of ice like a bridge, with Balto in the lead. However, Niju is strongly against moving the clan at all. Niju is not afraid to cross the water, but he is afraid of change. His belief that their clan's land is their permanent home, and would rather come to the face of death then abandon the only home he's ever known. When Nava is separated from the rest of the pack, Aleu joins him to help him across, but runs into Niju, who is ready to take the elderly leader's life and the young half-wolf's as well. Balto abandons the pack to save his daughter, but before anyone gets hurt, they realize that the pack is floating away, leaderless. Nava cannot make the swim in his old age, and Niju shows his fearfulness when Balto tells him to swim across to the pack and returns to his homeland. Balto is prepared to help the pack, but Aleu realizes that this is where she truly belongs. She makes the swim to the pack to become its leader as Nava returns to his home to find Niju. The movie ends as Balto says goodbye to his daughter and Nava, the raven revealing its true form as the great white wolf, Aniu, who is Balto's mother, and makes his way home.
Reception[]
A lot of the fans criticized the movie due to the lack of being loyal to the first. Some of them pointed out how
- Balto was for some reason nervous about his wolf-side again despite when he accepted his wolf heritage and was confident about his wolf-side in the first movie.
- They ignored how brave was Jenna, Boris and Muk & Luk in the first film when Balto was finding Steele while also encountering a bear. Despite them being majors, they were casted aside and became entirely at the background.
- Somehow NOBODY remembers when Balto saved Nome. They ignored it so they can make new things fit.
- They neglect wolf-dogs when people of Nome clearly accepted Balto's wolf-dog appearance in the first movie.
- The film tried so hard to be like a Disney movie.
- They also never asked Simon Wells (director of 'Balto') or any person from the original film's crew for answers, so the sequel's crew later changed Balto's family tree by switching the mother and father's species, making the mother as Balto's wolf side instead of father (according to Wells, Balto's mother was a working husky and Balto's father was a wolf, Boris found Balto in Nome as an outcast pup and adopted him – i. e. Balto probably was born in Nome, and that explains, how Balto and people and dogs of Nome can know about his mixed origin, why he wants to be a dog and is ashamed of his wolf side).
- It is unknown, why Aniu, being Balto's mother and the revered wolf deity, with all her powers and authority didn't try to find and return young Balto, when he accidentally got lost. She ignored Balto all his life until Aleu's birth.
- Balto mentioned that he was accidentally separated from mother at young age, i. e. he accidentally got lost. It is unknown, why he never tried to leave Nome and to find his mother all these years and be in wolf pack, if he was rejected by Nome's people and dogs all his life.
- Dev Ross (writer of Balto-2) and the third film confirmed that Balto never had a father, and his father even doesn't know about Balto. That means, Balto lived only with mother-wolf. It is unknown, why Balto considered himself as a wolfdog instead of regular wolf and why considered his father as a dog, and why he had problems with "Who I really am" and wanted to be a dog and denied his wolf nature, if he knew only his wolf mother and had very fond memories about her.
- It is unknown, why then townfolks of Nome considered Balto as a wolfdog instead of regular wolf, if Boris found and adopted Balto and brought him to Nome, not humans, who even didn't see Balto's dog parent.
However, they were glad they didn't ignore Balto & Jenna being mates and despite its negative reception the creators learn about their mistakes and Balto III was more bearable.
Cast[]
- Maurice LaMarche as Balto
- Jodi Benson as Jenna
- Lacey Chabert as Aleu
- David Carradine as Nava
- Mark Hamill as Niju
- Charles Fleischer as Boris
- Peter MacNicol as Muru (speaking)
- Rob Paulsen as Terrier, Sumac, Wolverine #2, Muru (singing)
- Jeff Bennett as Yak
- Nicolette Little as Dingo
- Melanie Spore as Saba
- Kevin Schon as Muk & Luk, Wolverine #1
- Joe Alaskey as Hunter, Nuk
- Monnae Michaell as Aniu
- Mary Kay Bergman as Fox, Wolverine #3
Trivia[]
- When Balto says goodbye to his daughter, it almost feels like he is sending his teenage daughter away to college to start her own place in life. In this case, with her wolf pack.
- Aleu and Muru's name's rhyme, which was almost a dead giveaway that he was her spirit guide.
- In real life, Balto was neutered at 6 months of age, so there's no way he and Jenna could have had puppies to begin with. If the creators had stuck with this fact, Aleu and her siblings wouldn't exist.
- Phil Weinstein hasn't even watched the first film which would explain why Balto was nervous with his wolf-side again, despite feeling confident about it in the first film.
- Phil Weinstein cleared that The White Wolf is the same wolf in the first film. However, Simon Wells (director of Balto, not the sequels) stated that the White Wolf was the spirit of Balto's father while his mom was an unnamed sled-dog husky.
- None of the Celebrity Voice Talents from the first film (Kevin Bacon, Bridget Fonda, Bob Hoskins and Phil Collins) reprised their roles as Balto, Jenna, Boris and Muk & Luk respectively, instead replacing them with more Experienced Voice Actors (Maurice LaMarche, Jodi Benson, Charles Fleischer and Kevin Schon), who'd also voice them in Balto III: Wings of Change (2004).
Three characters were written out of the sequel:
- Nava's character design is based on Balto.
- The character designs (the fur patterns) of the wolf clan members (excluding Niju, Yak, Sumac, and Nuk) are based on Balto one way or another.
- Niju, Yak, Nuk, and Sumac's characters were based on Steele, Kaltag, Nikki, and Star from Balto (1995), respectively.
- Mark Hamill (Niju), Jeff Bennett (Yak), Joe Alaskey (Hunter, Nuk) and Mary Kay Bergman (The Fox, Wolverine #3) previously worked in four Straight to Video Scooby-Doo movies including Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island (1998), Scooby-Doo and the Witch's Ghost (1999), Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders (2000) and Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase (2001).
- This was Mary Kay Bergman’s final film role before her death in 1999.
- Mark Hamill is known his role as Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars franchise.
- Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche were together in Animaniacs.