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I've heard certain people who are free to remain unidentified say Kodi was "boring," citing his dedication to doing his job well. Apparently good work ethic and pride in a job well done isn't "cool" anymore.

Neither is a character of good heart and decency. I've seen several noteworthy (and many less-than noteworthy) members on here say that they felt even Balto was "boring" simply because he doesn't appear to have any vices or negative traits. Well wowsers. I guess it's a bad thing to be decent, honorable and to have a good heart. At least within the realm of this community of fans.

Well if a character is deemed as "perfect" boys, it is a boring character xD When they either do everything right, or worse they do everything wrong and it just happens to go their way.

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Besides, for a good fifteen minutes, he's off sulking because the other doggies made fun of him. Dogs he doesn't even like, much less care about. Him feeling sorry for himself doesn't exactly give us incentive to like him. Sure, you could say it's a flaw, but his depression doesn't even hinder him in any way. So why have so much self-pity? It's not becoming xD

It's not that he's "good". He just does nothing wrong, and when he does, it doesn't effect him. It's really one of the same problems I have with Aleu.

Balto would've fared off better if he was mute. When he talked, it was never funny or inspirational or adding to the story or even really coherent alot of the time. But he's got an incredibly interesting face, and they would've gotten away with him being a non-speaking character and just going by facial expressions alone. I would've liked him better, then he'd really have no good way to stick up for himself either.

As for Kodi? There's a difference between a "good" character and a "goody goody". It's fine he's passionate about his job, but he doesn't even talk about why he likes it. He's just all "My job my job my job!" well, why do you like your job so much Kodi? Everyone else doesn't really find it that glamorous, and your opinion is obviously different. Why is that? Is it because it's the best you could do? Or is it because you've known Simpson all your life, and you're grateful that he's given you a home? Or maybe you just like helping people?

You're not told or even hinted at any of this, he just likes his job. Big deal. If you're not gonna tell us why, stop being gratuitously worshiping of your job.

"BUT CAAAAT, IF YOU DON'T LIKE BALTO CUZ HE'S "PERFECT" WHY DO YOU HATE KODI? HE'S MADE MISTAKES!"

Yea, I guess I can settle with him not wanting to do the right thing at first and then changing his mind later as a "flaw" but riddle me this: Wouldn't his speech have hit a little closer to home if you saw ANY prior reasoning to him liking his job? Saying "Delivering the mail and supplies is all about helping people!" just sounds a little last minute and doesn't give any impact. We didn't even see him getting his own personal epiphany on doing the right thing. His mom had to nag at him, and then we see him looking guilty about not helping Duke. (We don't see him looking back about helping people, asking himself "Why is helping Duke any different from helping everyone here?" or anything like that. Blame time constraints if you want, but I'm looking at what's there, and what would've fixed the problem.)

I would've liked him better if we saw him getting treatment similar to Balto. Yes, we saw a kid hug Kodi and the rest of the team earlier, but that's cuz he delivered toys. But off-hand seeing a kid with a toy should provide more gratitude for the person who got them the toy, not the messenger. If we saw Kodi get hugged by a kid at a hospital bedside (or something even slightly less extreme, but still deemed as really important) we'd see right off the bat that he liked helping people.

We can blame the writing for that, I suppose, but just the same. For what the movie is, Kodi is seen as having a more goody-two-shoes attitude about his job, and less of a righteous one. So his last-second "righteousness" is taken with a grain of salt. It just seems empty and heartless without a prior motive.

But I will say this, I like Kodi a CONSIDERABLE amount more than Aleu. He is a better character than she is.

Thank you for that xD I'll take that into consideration.

It's not really known what year the movie takes place, but no one (no dogs, at least) predicted anything happening after the events in this movie, so it shouldn't really effect much. Just the same, it was expressed that Kodi thinking about his job was selfish, and it was, how he was thinking about it (unlike Ralph, who made it a point that all of the dogs would be homeless if they lost their jobs. and with the knowledge of the Great Depression, you'd think it would've been expressed as a bigger problem for our characters). So I don't think "Be grateful you have a job" was in the list of morals in this movie xD And I never said this movie was terrible. At worst it's boring. Same with Kodi. He's not a bad character, just a yawn.

I don't remember being surprised... I knew a third was coming

I thought it was a cool movie... until i watched it: SOOOO BORING! Wolf Quest is even better!

Kodi_the_hippie I PMed you with a warning. Do not swear and cause drama.

That was uncalled-for, and extremely rude. That person has a right to express their opinion...especially if it is done so with civility, which they did do in this topic!

My initial reaction after being hugely disappointed in Wolf Quest was that it was much better than it's predecessor. Maybe seeing the writers of the original attached to it influenced my thoughts somewhat.

I thought that Stella was a largely useless character that was given far too much screen time for her role in the film. Not a knock against Jean Smart, because she was actually well-voiced. She was the worst part of the movie, at least I thought so, at first.

After reading these posts, I realized that perhaps Hideo Kojima could direct a 45 minute long cutscene of pointing out flaws and intricacies about Kodi's character that were probably a bigger detriment to the film than I had initially realized.

Yeah, it was but the plot for the third was almost so simple that they shouldn't have even made it into a movie...

I'm gonna agree with Lee on this one. Knowing the history of the time period, they put more into the storyline of this one than they did the first sequel...and grounded it in more realism than that half-baked tribal mysticism thing.

Sometimes, simplicity is a good thing. The first Balto film wasn't very complicated, and the third one draws many parallels to it. It was a crisis on a smaller scale, but the whole act of doing the right thing in the face of personal adversity was a pretty strong motif for both of them.

Balto 2 was a massive deus ex machina, in my opinion. I really loved the first fifteen or so minutes of the film, as I thought Aleu's struggle with finding her place in the world, coupled with her parents' story of loving, raising, and eventually letting go of their children was a very powerful tale in itself. I'm sure it's something a lot of people could relate to.

And then, they wanted to cram as much into the film that they could. Bears, foxes, wolverines, wolf packs (this one isn't too far off the mark, but Nava is sort of ehh...), singing mouse spirits, Aleu and Balto's psychic visions, flashy dream sequences, all of it. The meeting goes like this.

"Ok, so we've got all of these ideas in play. How do we link them all together?"
*Uneasy stares from around the room*
"Time travel!"
"Time travel? Please, how about something that isn't completely unrealistic."
"Nanomachines!"
"No."
"A Raven!"
"Maybe we should ask the director?"
"We don't have one yet."
"I've got it! How about... Inuit or Native mysticism? There's all sorts of folklore out there!"
"Umm... it might work. Can you elaborate?"
"Everything is set in motion by a wolf spirit, who plans to uhhh... use Aleu to help out the wolf pack. Oh, and the wolf spirit is Balto's mother."
"Is that last bit really necessary? It's a bit far fetched already."
"Absolutely."
"Can we still have a raven?"
"What is with you and that raven?"

Instead of crafting a story with reasonable plot devices, they tried to explain away everything with divine intervention.

Sure, it's might work from a storytelling perspective, but how a sequel to a film that tells a harrowing story based on real events that actually happened can go in such a wildly different and fictitious direction is a bit jarring. That's why, simplistic or not, I found Balto 3 to be a refreshing return to form.