Balto — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Plot

In New York City, an elderly woman and her granddaughter are walking through Central Park, looking for a memorial statue. While they rest, the grandmother recounts a story about Nome, Alaska.

In 1925, a wolfdog named Balto lives on the outskirts of Nome with his adoptive goose father Boris alongside two polar bears named Muk and Luk. Balto is ridiculed by dogs and humans alike for his half-breed heritage. His only friends in town are a young girl named Rosy and her red husky Jenna whom Balto has a crush on. He is challenged by the town's favorite sled dog Steele, a fierce and arrogant Alaskan Malamute.

That night, Rosy and all the children in Nome are stricken with diphtheria. Severe winter weather conditions prevent medicine from being brought by air or sea from Anchorage, and the closest rail line ends in Nenana. After authorization to transport the antitoxin by rail is given by the Governor of Alaska, a dog race is held to determine the best-fit dogs for a sled dog team to get the medicine. Balto enters and wins, but is disqualified after Steele exposes his wolf-dog heritage. The team departs that night with Steele in the lead and picks up the medicine successfully. On return, deteriorating conditions leave the disoriented team stranded at the base of a steep slope with the musher knocked unconscious.

When the news reaches Nome, Balto sets out in search of them with Boris, Muk, and Luk . On the way, a huge grizzly bear attacks them, but Jenna, who followed their tracks, intervenes. The bear pursues Balto out onto a frozen lake, where it falls through the ice and drowns. With Jenna injured and unable to continue, Balto instructs Boris and the polar bears to take her back home while he continues alone. Balto eventually finds the team, but Steele refuses his help and attacks him until he loses his balance and falls off a cliff. Balto takes charge of the team, but they lose their way again since Steele had sabotaged the trail as revenge. Balto falls while attempting to save the medicine from falling down a cliff.

Back in Nome, Jenna explains Balto's mission to the other dogs as Steele returns, lying that the team, including Balto, is dead. Jenna sees through his deception and creates an aurora-like signal on the outskirts of town, hoping it will help guide Balto home. When Balto regains consciousness, he is ready to lose hope, until a white wolf appears. Encouraged by the wolf, he drags the medicine back up the cliff to the waiting team. Balto's advanced senses filter out the false markers Steele had created.

After encountering further challenges, Balto and the sled team finally return to Nome with the medicine (losing one vial along the way), allowing the doctors to cure the children. A pity-playing Steele is abandoned by the other dogs after his lies are exposed. Reunited with Jenna and his friends, Balto earns respect from both the dogs and the humans. He visits a cured Rosy, who thanks him for saving her.

Back in the present, the elderly woman and her granddaughter finally find the statue of Balto. The woman, who is actually Rosy, once again thanks Balto for saving her.

Cast

Kevin Bacon as Balto, a brown-and-grey wolfdog; being a Siberian Husky-Arctic wolf hybrid. Jeffrey James Varab and Dick Zondag served as the supervising animators for Balto. Bacon is succeeded by Maurice LaMarche in the direct-to-video sequels, Balto II: Wolf Quest and Balto III: Wings of Change.

Bob Hoskins as Boris Goosinov, a Russian snow goose and Balto's caretaker, mentor, adoptive father, and sidekick. Kristof Serrand served as the supervising animator for Boris. Hoskins is succeeded by his Who Framed Roger Rabbit co-star, Charles Fleischer in the sequels.

Bridget Fonda as Jenna, a female copper-and-white Siberian Husky, Rosy's pet, and Balto's love interest. Her facial design is based on actress Audrey Hepburn. Robert Stevenhagen served as the supervising animator for Jenna. Fonda is succeeded by Jodi Benson in the sequels.

Jim Cummings as Steele, a fierce-looking black-and-white Alaskan Malamute who bullies Balto over his part-wolf heritage and also has a crush on Jenna. Sahin Ersöz served as the supervising animator for Steele. Brendan Fraser was originally cast to voice Steele before being replaced by Cummings.

Phil Collins as Muk and Luk, a pair of polar bears, Boris's adoptive nephews, and Balto's adoptive cousins. Nicolas Marlet designed and served as the supervising animator for Muk and Luk. Collins is succeeded by Kevin Schon in the sequels.

Juliette Brewer as Rosy, a kind, excitable girl and Jenna's owner who was the only human in Nome who was kind to Balto before his epic journey. David Bowers served as the supervising animator for Rosy. Rosy makes a brief cameo in Balto III: Wings of Change.

Miriam Margolyes as old Rosy in the live-action sequences who narrates her story to her granddaughter at the beginning of the film.

Jack Angel, Danny Mann, and Robbie Rist as Nikki, Kaltag, and Star, respectively. Nikki is a reddish-brown Chow Chow, Kaltag is a honey-yellow Chinook, and Star is a mauve-and-cream Siberian Husky. William Salazar was the supervising animator for the team. Nikki, Kaltag, and Star make brief cameos in Balto III: Wings of Change.

Sandra Dickinson as Dixie, a female Pomeranian and one of Jenna's friends who adores Steele until his lies about Balto are exposed by Balto returning with the medicine needed to cure the children. Dickinson also voices Sylvie, a female Afghan Hound who is also Jenna's friend; and Rosy's mother. Patrick Mate designed and served as the supervising animator for Sylvie and Dixie, and all the principal human characters. Sylvie makes a brief cameo in Balto III: Wings of Change.

Lola Bates-Campbell as Rosy's granddaughter who appears in the live-action sequences and is accompanied by her dog Blaze, a purebred Siberian Husky.

William Roberts as Rosy's father

Donald Sinden as Doc, an old St. Bernard. Doc makes a brief cameo in Balto III: Wings of Change.

Garrick Hagon as a telegraph operator

Bill Bailey as a butcher

Animation

Balto was officially put into production in March 1993, under the working title Snowballs. To source the dogs' character animation, the filmmakers set up special drawing classes with about seven Siberian Huskies and videotaped them walking around the studio, while the animators studied their movements and anatomy. During these classes, Kristof Serrand, who was assigned to supervise the animation on Boris, gave a lecture on the locomotion of dogs. Former Disney animator Jeffrey J. Varab, who had trained under Eric Larson and joined Amblimation during production on We're Back!, was assigned to co-supervise the animation on Balto alongside Dick Zondag. At Wells's behest, Varab lectured about dog anatomy and Balto's drawings, based on his work on The Fox and the Hound (1981), and citing preliminary character sketches drawn by character designer Carlos Grangel and original model sheets of Tramp from Lady and the Tramp (1955). Prior to his departure from the project, Nibbelink lectured on applying spacing and weight to the dog animation, using the "bouncing ball" animation exercise he had learned from Frank Thomas while working as an animator at Disney alongside Varab. Wells and several other crew members took special trips to Finland to study dog sledding.

Budget constraints necessitated many difficult decisions. It was calculated that in most shots, the effects animators must choose either footprints or shadows. To achieve the snow colors and textures that Bacher's production design mandated, the background artists needed to use oil paint, instead of the gouache or watercolor in most animated films. Because oil paint dries more slowly than gouache, the filmmakers scheduled extra days for each background to dry before shooting scenes. According to producer Steve Hickner, an advantage of this was that the artists could "work back into their art" days later, while the paint was still wet.

Principal animation lasted from 1993 to 1994, with each animator completing five seconds of animation a week on average; Ken Keys, one of the animators on Steele, stated that he was "throwing away nine drawings to keep one". The film is mainly hand-drawn, but with considerable computer animation in more challenging visual elements; all of the falling snow was animated using an early CGI particle system. All of the ink-and-paint work is the first use in film of the 2D animation software program Toonz, which was still in development and needing intense interactivity with its developers. Additional animation was provided by the Danish studio A. Film Production. Each shot was composited digitally and transferred to film through a "Solitaire" film recorder, before being spliced into the leica reel.

Casting

Wells stated that the casting process was easy, explaining "Basically, you pick your dream [actors] and see if you can get them." Because the characters were designed before the voices were cast, the actors were given several inspirational character sketches to look at before each recording session, in order to get a sense of the characters they were portraying. Initially, it was reported that Kevin Anderson had been cast as Balto. Anderson had finished all of his voice-over work and the animation had been done around his performance, but late into production, Universal Pictures insisted on having a bigger name in the role, so he was replaced by Kevin Bacon, who had been filming Apollo 13 (1995) at Universal around the same time. Because of the completed animation, Bacon had to precisely match his timing to Balto's mouth movement. According to Bacon, "It was very hard. I didn't like it. They would play his dialogue in the way that he had said it in my head right before I'd say my line." Wells said he "did a terrific job and was really enthusiastic".

Similarly, Brendan Fraser, who was filming Airheads (1994) at the time, was originally cast as Steele, because Wells had envisioned Steele as a school quarterback jock carried away by his sense of importance, and said that Fraser fit that personality well. According to Wells, "I liked Brendan a great deal, and we did one recording session with him that was terrific." However, Spielberg wanted to feel a clearer sense of Steele's "inherent evil", so Fraser was replaced by Jim Cummings. Wells stated that Cummings "did a fantastic job, and totally made the character live, so I don't regret the choice". Cummings was officially cast by January 1995, though Anderson was still listed at the time. According to Cummings, several other on-camera actors were brought in to replace Fraser, before the role ultimately went to him. Spielberg, having been too busy with Schindler's List (1993) to attend Fraser's recording sessions, and not wanting to reject yet another unsatisfactory performance based on footage viewings, also insisted on directing Cummings personally, and completing his recording in one day.

Jennifer Blanc also originally voiced Jenna, but she was also subsequently replaced by Bridget Fonda. Fonda explained in an interview with Bobbie Wygant that she was offered the role of Jenna via phone call, and accepted after being shown a rough cut on tape, which showed some shots in finished form, some still in pencil test form, and some missing. When asked how hard it was to be doing voice-over work for animation for the first time, she explained, "It was odd, it was different. It was challenging. It was exhausting in that I had to be more active, and more outgoing vocally than usually. And syncing up to animated is very difficult. But, y'know, it was just so imaginative, and satisfying in a different way."

Bob Hoskins voiced Boris, having previously collaborated with Spielberg on Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Hook (1991). Wells stated that his performance helped shape Boris, praising it as "a lot more emotional and effusive than we had originally conceived the character to be". Wells recalled Hoskins's brief struggle with Boris's accent and angrily venting that he "used to have a career [before] playing a goose". Phil Collins had never done voice-over work before, but actively expressed interest in the dual role of Muk and Luk, and called Amblimation to ask for the role. Wells praised his voice for Muk as "just head and shoulders better than anything else we heard". In his autobiography, Jack Angel stated that he, Danny Mann, and Robbie Rist were flown to London to record their respective roles as Nikki, Kaltag, and Star together, and he brought his wife, Arlene Thornton. Angel added that although they had no personal interaction with Spielberg, he flew Angel, Mann, and Rist out again after they had finished recording their roles, because "somebody apparently didn't get it right the first time".

Critical reception

Balto generally received mixed reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 54% based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 5.80/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Balto is a well-meaning adventure with spirited animation, but mushy sentimentality and bland characterization keeps it at paw's length from more sophisticated family fare." The film received a "thumbs down" from Gene Siskel and a "thumbs up" from Roger Ebert in a 1996 episode of At the Movies. Siskel found the film to be a weak attempt at aping Lady and the Tramp, criticizing the animation style as "sketchy", and the story as "all over the map, from the rousing adventure, to the sweet and cloying scenes", whereas Ebert liked the film, stating that though it is not in the "category of the great animated film" and the animation not being as strong as that of Disney, it was "adequate", the story was "interesting", and the film was a "nice, little children's adventure movie about a brave dog".

Roger Ebert gave the film a three-out-of-four-star review, praising it as "a kids' movie, simply told, with lots of excitement and characters you can care about", and though he criticized Balto's refusal to fight Steele and stated that it compared poorly to Disney's output, he found it to be a satisfactory film in its own right. Paul Merrill of Empire Magazine gave the film three out of five stars, commending the film as "enchanting, highly enjoyable and impressively crafted, not least for its adventurous 'camera work'", and praised the voice cast, "barnstorming" chase sequences and lack of "cheesy songs to slow proceedings down". Nell Minow of Common Sense Media gave the film three out of five stars, calling it a "fun-but-tense fact-based film". Stephen Holden of The New York Times praised the film for "avoiding the mythological grandiosity and freneticism that afflict so many animated features these days", and "making modesty a virtue". Brian Lowry of Variety gave the film a more middling review, praising its pro-social messages and James Horner's "blaring" score, and finding the action sequences decent, but also criticized the humor as scant, and Balto himself as "rather blandly heroic".

On the negative side, Nick Bradshaw of Time Out criticized the film as a "half-hearted animated feature" that "rambles on" with "second-hand plotting and characterization", and criticized the animation style as "TV-standard". David Kronke of The Los Angeles Times criticized the film's historical inaccuracy and slow-paced premise establishment, criticized the animation as competent at best, and criticized the voice cast, stating that "even as voiced by [Kevin Bacon], Balto doesn't have the sort of charisma to get kids to truly root for him." Rita Kempley of The Washington Post gave the film a negative review, calling it a "mushy animated melodrama", criticizing its storyline as "prosaic" and "sappy", and unfavorably comparing the film to Toy Story, and Disney's other output, and its artistry to Dogs Playing Poker.

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