A few days ago I watched 'War Horse', knowing full well that it would be the type of movie that would make me cry as all animal movies do. Seriously there's no animal movie that won't make me cry! I cried in Homeward Bound, Bambi, Two Brothers...when I see animals being emotional and cute the floodgates open!
So that's why I decided to compile a list of my top ten favourite animals in movies.
10. Church the cat from Pet Semetary
This seems like a weird choice but I watched Pet Semetary again recently and this cat has so much personality! It spends the first half of the movie mainly in a glass case and gets its balls chopped off! Then comes back from the dead thanks to the native american burial ground (them native americans always leaving burial grounds lying around) and basically becomes a zombie cat. However even as a zombie cat his personality is still pretty much like a normal cat...cat owners wouls concur that once you've owned a cat the scene where Church drops the mauled rat into the bath is not so horrifying after all the cat kills you've witnessed.
9. Baloo and Bagheera from the Jungle Book
I'm counting these two as one animal because they compliment eachother so well.
Bagheera is so wise and such a cat and Baloo so fun loving and jovial, what more could a feral child ask for?
Also they're Indian so I'm being patriotic.
8. Sebastian the Crab from The Little Mermaid
Sebastian is extremely cool! Not only does he have an awesome accent but he's also loving and protective, gives good advice and is as good a performer as Freddie Mercury! I would have included Ariel too but after thinking about it long and hard I realised she was more human than animal.
7. A Velociraptor from Jurassic Park.
Ok so, I know this is a scary animal and also a dinosaur but if you're thinking that dinosaurs shouldnt have been included on this list they you may as well stop reading now!
Velociraptors became my favourite dinosaur after I watched Jurassic Park, before that I didnt know much about them. I reject the idea of them being covered in feathers as paleontologists have recently suggested and prefer to think of them like this. Lithe, scaly creatures with peircing eyes and human-like intelligence. Also they obviously don't have names because they were running around killing everyone before they barely got acquainted but I'm going to say my favourite is the instigator one that Robert Muldoon is obsessed with.
6. Willy from Free Willy
This Orca is beautiful and seemingly docile despite the fact that in reality Orca's are terrifying, blood thirsty animals. I loved this movie when I was a kid and thought that one day I might become a dolphin trainer and have an orca as my best friend. This is the problem with movies like this though, the point of the movie is overshadowed by the cuteness of the animal so what should have been a catalyst to free orcas actually became an incentive to enslave them.
5. Black Beauty from Black Beauty.
Ok, now would be the time to admit that I was once one of the horse obsessed little girls with the full riding get-up, reading stables and spending every waking moment at the actual stables. I read black beauty when I was proably about 6 or 7 and when the movie came out around that time I fell in love with this horse! All I ever wanted was a black stallion to ride but my parents wouldnt even get me a my little pony toy.
4. Joey from War Horse
Eventhough I just watched this movie this horse is one of my all time favourites! He is so beautiful and clever.
I balled my eyes out when he had to plough the field, in the rain! And pulling the artillery himself to save his horse friend was so compassionate and heroic! this is an amazing horse!
3. Balto from Balto
There had to be atleast one dog on this list and I choose Balto! Balto is hard-working, loyal and sensitive and he was a real dog not just an animated movie. He's also half wolf, as can be seen from the screen shot and therefore dealing with issues of being mixed race, or rather mixed species which makes him complex and broody but also very cool. PS: other wolves I like are Ghost from game of thrones and Akela from The Jungle book.
2. Richard Parker from Life of Pi
Richard Parker, so named because a hunter named Richard Parker found the tiger drinking from a stream and called him Thirsty. When he sold the tiger to the Pondicherry Zoological Gardens the names on the forms got mixed up so the hunter's name was Thirsty and the tiger was named Richard Parker for ever after that. I loved this tiger in the book and the film brought him to life in all his glory. Majestic, powerful and deadly. He shows emotion, and keeps Pi alive but, atypically for most films featuring animals he never stops being a tiger.
1. Littlefoot from The Land Before Time.
Yes a dinosaur is number 1! Littlefoot is the leader of the baby dinosaurs, sensitive, innocent and grieving and that's what makes him the cutest little animal ever. However I actually love all the baby dinosaurs, even Cera. This movie was my childhood! My dad rented it for me 3 times a week for 3 weeks before he realised he was going to have to track down a copy and buy it. I became so obsessed with it that I watched it every night before bed for a whole year, Its a wonder that my VHS didnt get horribly unwound. I started a tradition in the family that every child that came after me also became mildy obsessed with the land before time. My teachers in grade 2 thought I was a child genius after witnessing me tell the story of the little dinosaur who goes on a quest after his mother dies, it was only later that I admitted my plaguerism, never to be believed again. this film is beautiful and for me no other animation matched up to it, not even The Lion King. It didnt sugar-coat death and grief, it was real and yet somehow beautiful. The soundtrack was perfect and the narration, by Pat Hingle, set the tone for a coming of age and profound film.
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