Canada takes things seriously, okay?

Sometimes we all make silly choices.

Such as the choice I made last weekend to buy season two of The Adventures of the Black Stallion because it was $5 at Target. And with the remains of my gift card, that made it free. You know, that beautiful word I look for when hunting for horse-themed anything. Free.

Today I popped in a disc and reveled in the cracktasticness of this thoroughly horrible show. Today we will be discussing the episode Almost Home, because Alec and The Black have finished up with their French shenanigans and have decided to head on back to the good 'ol U.S. of A.

Only they are diverted to Canada, where our merry story will take place.

Alec starts off this episode by summing up his time in France. Oh, there was beautiful sightseeing and chances to meet new people, plus lots of fun new challenges like steeplechases and running from people on motorcycles and accidentally setting off a box of grenades that cause magical things like money showers! Ah, those silly, silly French! What a wonderous people!

However, all good things must come to an end, and so our band of heroes accidentally lands in Canada. For some reason, The Black must spend some amount of time in quarantine as they wait for their next flight. The vet at the quarantine center spends his time telling his helper son that he's an idiot, causing him to do pseudo-abusive things like throwing grain at horses. The horror.

Meanwhile, Nicole (French bandit/stable worker) has hidden herself in a pile of shrink wrapped cargo. How she survived is questionable, but she pops out and says, "America! I will find my lost father here, surely!" And Alec says, "Yeah, actually this is Canada. Good job, Nicole."  Then he walks off laughing. He's such a great friend.

Over at the quarantine facility, after Alec has yelled that he's not supposed to be here and the vet has helpfully informed him that he is, in fact, here, Julien the stable hand has taken the horses hostage with noise makers and a water gun. This is his domain! Bow to Julien and his party supplies! The Black, of course, immediately attracts his outrage. There's...noise made in the stallion's direction. It was probably shocking and horrible. There was probably glitter involved. Later on, Alec decides to exercise The Black, who takes that moment to attack Julien. Julien dives under a truck and The Black literally tries to crawl underneath it so he can punch the guy in the face with his hoof.

This results in The Black visiting the time out chair (ie, a small wooden box). Alec is appalled and begins to hatch a plan to bust The Black out of a government facility. Julien breaks out his taser, but he's too busy monologuing to The Black about how he feels so powerless and unloved to actually use it before Alec crawls through a window and tackles him. The Black gets out of his time out chair, stomps on Julien, who submits and cries about how he'll never be a vet. No one loves him. He should just be punched in the face!

Alec, after thoroughly kicking the crap out of him, decides that he's above punching Julien in the face. The vet is fired. Julien is helped off by a confused bystander. The Black is probably released from quarantine early, or it's possible that Alec and Nicole ride double on The Black's back, gloriously romping through the Canadian countryside on their way to the border, which we all know no one cared about in the early 90s. I'm sure they rode like the wind.

This is a movie that is missing tween girls and vampire bats.

The Black Stallion Returns
1983

Here's the thing about The Black Stallion: it took the basic premise of the book to a different level. It rose above the insanity, if you will, that horse books wallow around in to the point of absurdity. It did this by making sure no one spoke too much, thereby limiting the crazy. Also, I seem to remember a horse fight on a boat that didn't happen...or maybe I'm just dreaming this up. I'm pretty sure I'm not, because The Black strikes me as the sort of horse that can win horse fights on land and on water.

What I'm saying is that the movie version of the book did its best to strip the sheer crazy right out of that story. The movie version of The Black Stallion Returns embraces that crazy, opening the door for the unparalleled weirdness that occurs in The Adventures of the Black Stallion some years later, which opens the floodgates of awful for The Young Black Stallion.

I would like to see The Black Stallion and Flame turned into a movie, where The Black and Flame stop trying to kill each other long enough to take down a vampire bat. Yes, I said vampire bat. How can we insert a tween girl into this picture? It could be done somehow!

The Black Stallion Returns starts normally enough. The Black and Alec are living in some upstate New York farm, where The Black prances to dramatic music. Meanwhile, Abu Ben Ishak and his daughter, Tabari, are entering the country and looking all shady. They speak to a customs official, basically heavily implying that they're there to steal a racehorse (because customs officials hear that sort of stuff all the time, I'm sure). That night, they arrive to discover Kurr, some guy from some rival tribe, is already at the farm attempting to steal The Black, who is all predictably homicidal for seemingly no reason.

Kurr, dismayed that this horse is totally nuts, decides that the best way to steal him is to set the barn on fire. Which is a brilliant plan if you were planning on just standing around hoping that someone will come along and save the horse for you so you don't have to be held responsible for killing the horse because you sort of set it on fire. Yet again his masterful plan backfires, because Ben and Tabari swoop in and steal the horse while he was off somewhere doing something.

This prompts a very chaotic scene involving running around storage containers for a while, but ultimately Alec is forced to smuggle himself aboard a plane to Morocco. It occurs to me now that I'm pretty sure The Black was transported by sea, in which case the timeline for this movie makes no sense. Anyway, Alec proceeds to run around Morocco screaming "Shetan" at anyone who looks like they have the capability to hear. This is amusing to me, since he's basically screaming "Devil" at people, as if they're expected to understand that he's talking about a horse.

At some point, Alec finds himself hitching a ride with Kurr, who then abandons him in the desert. Alec is picked up by a roving public bus, where he meets Raj, who reprimands him a lot. Eventually they get lost in the desert and nearly die, only to be found by Raj's people. Alec, who at this point has perfected forcing people to be hospitable to him, is dropped off with Ben, who is so not thrilled about this situation.

Insert a moment of The Black loves Alec and not Tabari, who for some reason likes to kick her horses in the ribs and scream in their ears. Tabari, you're kind of forcing Ben's hand here. But eventually Alec and The Black get kidnapped by the rival tribe, only to escape. Ben is thrilled again, Alec decides to race The Black in the upcoming desert race of awesomeness, which they win after lots of sand and guns and race fixing and friendly male bonding and such. Alec leaves The Black in whatever country that was, presumably wandering back to New York alone.

- I love how Alec is discovered on the plane. When asked how he got in there he basically says, "I don't know. Hey, can I eat that bread?" And then he starts to consume what looks to be a half-eaten sandwich as the copilot looks on in horrified confusion.

- I kind of always had a huge crush on Raj. I admit it.

- The Black chooses his girlfriend over Alec. Yet again proof that The Black doesn't really care all that much. Sex is better than special super fabulous lifetime friends, apparently.

I still want to see The Black Stallion and Flame take down a vampire bat. I don't think that book was vaguely covered in The Adventures of the Black Stallion. It should have been, because their attempt at The Black Stallion Revolts and The Black Stallion Challenged were both pretty amusing.

In your head, in your head, Zombie...

The Young Black Stallion
2003

Tagline: The greatest story of friendship ever told.

My reaction: lies!

Weirdly, this movie managed to get Zombie by The Cranberries stuck in my head. The only reason this happened is because the old man character tells the annoying young girl character something about someone bringing "their tanks and their bombs" somewhere to maybe blow something up. And I narrowed my eyes at the television and cried bitter, awful tears. It is stuck in my head now. It is truly horrible.

Anyway, I don't know why this movie was made. Quite frankly, it is bad. It was like a mash up of The Black Stallion and The Black Stallion Returns done in forty-five minutes, and let me tell you, the length of this movie is the only thing good about this. That, and maybe it's pretty occasionally. The rest of it is awful. Awful! Yes, with an exclamation point!

First things first: the main character is a girl. And wow, is she irritating. Plus, she couldn't act her way out of a paper bag, even if she was given a map and a flashlight and verbal cues. She wouldn't be able to find the light of day. I don't care if she is a child, damn it, she was wasting mine and everyone else's precious time. Actually, no one in this movie could act their way out of a moderately large trash bag. I am pretty sure they would all get lost somewhere and die in a desert of dehydration after having convinced themselves they've escaped and are actually successful. The only good actor in this bunch is the horse(s). And even then I feel that someone overdid it with the rearing.

Moving on, the voice dubbing that was mainly used to insert lines of dialogue such as "go, Shetan, go" and "you're such a good boy" and "wait!" I...sort of wanted to smack someone after a while. My favorite: "No, it's really me in person, see?" Shut up, really? You're here in person? Like, right in front of me? People, she was only gone for maybe a day or two. A month, tops. Or however long it takes to tame a wild yearling, which in this movie looks like it took a handful of water and two seconds.

And now, the plot, which is The Black Stallion meets The Black Stallion Returns meets the most annoying girl on the planet. This girl almost immediately gets lost in the desert, and is saved by the Black, who is a yearling and is off roaming the Arabian countryside because some mean man caught his mom. As we know from this movie's bonus features, the Black is really the son of some celestial Friesian (I have heard this is actually supported by the book, much to my horror), and this little girl's grandfather's mare named Gina. Or something. Whatever. The important thing is that the Black led the girl to water, and then she gives him water, which means that they are now super fabulous lifetime friends!

Only she randomly stumbles across her house (goody!) and the Black books it out of there, abandoning her to her grandfather and this small boy who was maybe her brother. Or cousin. Or someone. The Black is gone for a year, only to magically come back because I suppose it took him a year to get over this spooking episode. No matter! Little girl rides out to the Black, hops on his back because he is now tame for some reason, and decides that she's going to ride him in the upcoming festival race a la The Black Stallion Returns and win all the best mares and restart their family breeding stable, which I guess went to shit.

But Grandfather forbids it! This horse is like the devil! The little girl does the most shockingly predictable thing and decides to disguise herself and enter the race anyway, putting Shetan on the line. Her grandfather is too busy cuddling with Gina to really notice what's going on. I have a feeling he was drunk, because he sort of got weird halfway through the festival and abandoned the kids to find a hookah tent somewhere. Ah, parenting.

They race, the girl wins, they bring all the mares and Shetan back to the old homestead, and Shetan kisses his mom because of course he remembers her!

Of course this is not what the book is actually about, because I remember paging through it one day out of boredom and I remember it being much darker, but almost as ridiculous, and it actually was a prequel to The Black Stallion. I am not quite sure what this movie even is.

The Black Stallion

The Black Stallion
1979

Tagline: From the moment he first saw the stallion, he knew it would either destroy him, or carry him where no one had ever been before...

I couldn't tell you how many times I've seen this movie, and oddly it never gets old. Going out on a limb, I'd say it's the best horse movie ever made, mainly because it is so visually stunning and all the characters spend so much of their time saying nothing. Honestly, so many horse movies are ruined the instant the main character opens their mouth, and considering this movie probably gives each character about a page of dialogue, we have little to no problem with ego and attitude from our characters. I love it.

Somehow, The Black Stallion doesn't fall into the all the worn out cliches. Alec doesn't fly into hysterics about how only he can understand The Black, and while The Black has inspired countless books and movies about horses that only love and respond to one person, The Black himself is understated. He's not the raging crazy thing you find in The Adventure of the Black Stallion, and it's certainly never stated outright that Alec is the be all and end all of The Black's existence. Because, through the entirety of the film, you have a feeling that he really isn't. The Black is wild first, and Alec is a good runner up. They certainly owe each other over their time on the island, and it's this beginning of the relationship that connects the rest of the movie, from shipwreck to match race.

Anyway, it's written by Melissa Mathison (of E.T. fame), and directed by Carroll Ballard. It was always going to be one of the best horse movies in existence, based on these two things alone. The Library of Congress agrees, having selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry, calling it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."

So, there you have it.