The Best Christmas Film Ever Made is Here Now, But I Ended Up Talking About Dinosaurs

Remember that South Park episode where Stan sees everything as shit, and all the films are half-assed and...Adam Sandlery?

It's no secret that plenty of films are made by people who really don't care about the quality of the final product - film is a massive business and no project is possible without money. People and companies put money into a project, and they expect a profit back.
So who - in the name of all that is fucking holy - is involving their money with the sudden surge of movies starring talking dogs? Talking...dogs?

I see these movies everywhere on Sky. Disney have a franchise - yes, a franchise - with talking puppies which I can only assume is called the Buddies movies. The reason I'm so bewildered by the fact these get made is because I wouldn't have thought there is much money in these films. Obviously they're relatively cheap to make so perhaps they do churn out a profit - all you need to do is film a still mid-shot of a dog or puppy for a couple of minutes, film them running around, being cute etc, Then open up After Effects and make their mouths move. Oh, maybe make a set or two, get some costumes, hire John Ratzenberger - and hey presto! You've got a kids film!

I'm not going to hate on these films because while they're incredibly stupid, I'm sure kids think they're fun, and parents are probably drawn to their inviting passiveness. I'm not the target audience anyway. But I've come across the ultimate 'President-Is-A-Duck!' type film starring dogs. Quite possibly the laziest film I have seen in a very long time. Apparently made in 2014, The Three Dogateers is a series of moving images and sounds involving dogs and Christmas happening on Sky Movies right now, also featuring Dean Cain in some parts. It seems like it's almost exclusively a series of second-unit footage, and occasionally there's a story.

What jumps out the most is how much this seems to have been made by someone who knows they are getting paid no matter what, and it's amazing. There's a scene where the dogs watch a Mall Santa advert, and it has a Tim & Eric, Youtube Poop feel to its editing. The dialogue seems to be improvised, even as if the voice actors are merely riffing on the footage. The dogs look bored, and there is a LOT of dogs just talking, at which point the cheapest CG mouths I've ever seen are creepy and hysterical. I can imagine that whoever made this had a lot of fun indulging in the stupidity of the project, revelling in the realisation that this film was their lives for a month or two.

But if a film company is going to make dumb films for dumb kids, I much prefer gems like these exist for a microsecond, rather than someone taking a well-known brand, and dumbing it down for the masses and squandering an opportunity to make a classic for kids to remember. Perhaps to even educate them in life lessons.
Take for instance 2014's disappointing Walking With Dinosaurs adaptation. Fellow Brits will recall how exciting that show was in the late 90's - dated TV CGI aside, it  felt like a legit nature documentary.

 Prehistoric animals did their thing and Kenneth Brannagh narrated. It was realistic, maturely handled and informative - though archaeology, like all sciences, shift theories around with every new discovery so some information is now dated.  It was also bleak. Oh so bleak. Unlike a world populated with talking dogs. One episode followed an Ornithocheirus as it grew old and died alone. Kids loved it! Sure it was depressing, and sure it told a story using a fictional 'character', but it was naturalistic and it carried a message within its narrative that resonated with the fear of all sentient life: dying alone. The show also taught that life can be unfair forever, and that good and evil are not reserved for heroes and villains. Instead, both reside in all beings great and small in the name of survival. A theme that, one day, should also be explored with talking dogs.
The film adaptation however, made be 20th Century Fox, relieved the film of it's human appeal, by making the animals more human in character. The irony! You can still feel traces of the original storytelling ideas in the film. Judging by the way the animals move, there was obviously supposed to be a WALL-E - narrative style, involving audiences universally understanding the body language and atmosphere and tone shifts to figure out what's going on. No doubt test screenings allowed parents to speak for their children, and declare that they would be too stupid to know what was going on unless a 'hilarious' American teenager voice read from a script, written with all the subtleties of  George Lucas dialogue. So we are instead left with an impressive-looking film that is wasted on making sure that the 20 kids who saw it understand that life is always split into good creatures who don't ever express bad thoughts, and bad creatures who are always evil and always get their comeuppance.

But anyway, talking dogs. A cheap film involving a stupid concept of talking dogs is a lot more entertaining than an expensive film featuring talking dinosaurs. Nobody asked for The Three Dogateers, so it doesn't feel like a squandered opportunity, and never will.

EDIT: Click here for a deep, intricate analysis and review of The Three Dogateers!