Isle of Dogs is a blast. Jaw dropping stop motion, fun characters and dialogue and timing, great emotional moments. Wes Anderson continues to deliver. This time developing the story with Kunichi Nomura, Jason Schwartzman, and Roman Coppola.
I have touched on "Favorite Food as Motif" before, and it is done so well. Here obviously I wanted to focus on the story structure. The first half of Act 2 gets a little long on the board, but hopefully the story still comes across clearly.
This is a story about a dog. To me the main character is Chief (voiced by Bryan Cranston), though his story tracks closely with Atari's. "Will the dogs survive?" and "Will Atari find his dog?" are two core questions that establish themselves early. To do this we first run through the history of the people and the dogs, the spread of Dog Flu, the passing of an anti-dog law, the creation of Dog Island, and meet our main pack of dogs.
Then Atari crash lands on the island, he meets the pack, and finds his dog Spots' cage full of skeleton bones, we flashback to him meeting Spots. Their relationship is strong. We end the flashback to learn that Dog Flu has been cured. We also learn that Spots is not necessarily dead--those aren't his bones--Atari has reason to stay on the island. So here we are: Dog Flu is a lie and Atari is on a quest. Will he find his dog? Will the pack he is with survive? We're off.
Atari hangs with the dog pack for a while from here, we learn about the Government Robot Dogs, we see Chief say, "I don't sit." We meet Nutmeg, get to know her a little bit. We plan to find Jupiter and get his advice. We also get a closer look at Tracy, our exchange student ally that almost serves as a B-Story.
We set out for Jupiter, discuss and establish favorite food as a motif for love (this is huge), we see the powerful Pro Cat Board, Tracy unites dog owners, and we get to Jupiter who informs us that the "Savage" dogs may have Spots, if he is alive. This is where our midpoint starts to establish. The scientist who cured Dog Flu is murdered, and Atari and Chief are separated from the pack; so here all at once we have the Dog People uniting, the Cat People killing scientists, and our two main characters starting their friendship. All hands on deck.
The second half of Act 2 moves into Atari and Chief's friendship strengthening, Tracy's love for Atari surfacing, and the dog pack uniting again. We also flashback to see what happened to Spots. He is alive. He joins us and fights with us against the Robot Dog Army. We get free again and learn that Spots can no longer serve as Guard Dog (due to now having a family). We also learn that he and Chief are indeed brothers.
Extermination is the focus of Act 3. We must now fight to survive as news comes to light of a plan to destroy all dogs. We set sail for the city, and we change oaths to swap Chief into the role of Guard Dog, another emotional moment. Meanwhile Tracy gets ahold of the Dog Flu cure and heads to the public political gathering. There is a meeting of all groups. Atari, who has been presumed dead to the public, reveals himself and speaks. The Mayor changes heart and tries to stop the dog extermination, but a fight breaks out with the other Pro Cat leaders. The Robot Dogs join in, as does Spots, and with the help of a Pro Dog computer hacker, the extermination is stopped.
Atari is injured again and needs an organ donation; the Mayor offers, and they do the surgery. It goes well. Legalities leave Atari as the new mayor, and he establishes Pro Dog regulation with Tracy at his side. The animals are returned to the city and united with their families. Chief is the new Guard Dog with Nutmeg at his side.
Chief's evolution into a dog who can love and allow himself to be loved--this is huge. The plot against the dogs of the city is also huge. To me these two plot lines can lead us through the core of the story and out to the other side.
What a tight structure. Much enjoyed.
Be well.
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(words and image are original)