Recap / Film Reroll: Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey

A Shadow of the dog he once was...^note  Art by dandesonmyarm

We play Homeward Bound! Joz makes a furry friend! Pitr climbs on a sheep! Scott tells us all about Don Ameche!

Episodes 21-22 of Film Reroll. Based on the 1993 movie.

Having been left alone, and — as far as they are aware — abandoned by their owners, Chance the bulldog puppy, Shadow the old retriever and Sassy the self-proclaimed cat queen embark on their perilous journey to get back home. A journey which crosses their paths with a dangerous wolf pack, a wild but curious fox and a friendly bear with whom they have a great time.

This campaign also marks the first appearance of Timothy E. Nolan, who has since been helping Paulo Quiros out with the writing and world-building.

Starring Scott Aiello as Shadow, Jocelyn "Joz" Vammer as Chance, Kara Strait^note  credited as “Pitr Strait” as Sassy, and Paulo Quiros as the Dungeon Master.

Followed by O Brother Where Art Thou.

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Tropes:

• Accidental Misnaming: Shadow accidentally calls Peter "Tommy."
• Animal Talk: Played With:
  • Domesticated animals can talk to each other, but they can't understand human speech.
  • Farm birds apparently can't speak, as their owners are not really attached to them enough individually to talk much to them.^note This part is Truth in Television, according to a chicken farmer who commented on the episode.
  • The runaway dog who joined the wolf pack can speak, but he seems to be gradually losing that ability.
  • Flynn the fox is still mute, but our protagonists can communicate with him in other ways.
• Awesome Ego: invoked On more than one occasion, it is pointed out that Sassy was the role Kara was born to play. Case in point, once all of the humans have left the farm, Sassy wastes no time in declaring herself Queen.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Sassy, whenever Kara fails her Acting roll.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Sassy does this at one point.
  Sassy: I'm stubborn, though. It's on my character sheet.
• Call-Back:
  • When Sassy gets put on painkillers, Kara’s voice slides into a relaxed purr that the other players note is very similar to the voice Paulo did for another cat, Lydia.
  • The players sing a certain leitmotif when Chance faces a turkey.
  • They also start singing another famous movie theme when thinking about what might attack them during the night.
  • The first time a die roll goes off the table in this campaign, it's explicitly noted that it doesn't count because they're not playing Jumanji any more. ^note In the Jumanji campaign, there was a house rule that a die roll still counted if it rolled off the table, because that was shown to be the case in the movie.
• Canon Foreigner:
  • Flynn, a wild fox who joins their party.
  • Also the wolf pack, including the Wolf Dog "Joe."
  • Possibly the hermit too, unless he's meant to be the same person as the birdwatcher from the film.
• Canon Welding: The players jokingly theorise that Sassy is the same character as Lydia from their Wizard of Oz campaign, as they are both feline Faux Affably Token Evil Teammates. The biggest difference between them is that Sassy is less mysterious and more egotistical.
• Cats Are Magic: Averted. Kara Strait hoped that Sassy would secretly be a vampire, but this turns out to not be the case. If anything, Shadow the golden retriever is the one with magical powers.
• Chekhov's Gun: When Sassy hurts her face, she gets a cone around her neck to stop her from touching the wound. She is ashamed of it and tries to remove it at several occasions, but it actually saves her life when she falls down in the river by keeping her head above the water.
• Comically Missing the Point: Shadow claims that moose (or "moosen") have sharp teeth and often bite off the tails of other animals. Sassy doesn't believe him. After all, there are no such things as moose.
• Cone of Shame: Sassy gets stuck with one for most of the first episode, as a consequence of some extra shenanigans in the opening scene.
• Conspiracy Theorist:
  • The players create a conspiracy theory about Don Ameche not being real, since he isn't given top-billing on IMDB. (He does, however, appear in the full cast list.)
    Paulo: Let's start a conspiracy theory that Don Ameche isn't real!
  • Due to a critically failed Perception roll, Sassy becomes convinced that one of the park rangers that are taking care of the pets is secretly a bear, and is mortified that the others don't notice. Scott even compares it to a 9/11 Truther.
    Kara: Jet fuel can't melt bears.
• Crosscast Role: Jocelyn Vammer plays Chance the pup, the first out of many instances in the show of her portraying a male character.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • The big grizzly bear, as Chance, Shadow, Sassy and Flynn actually manage to kill and eat him.
  • The little girl Chance rescued in the film, as they never run into each other here. In The Stinger, the players remember about her and ask Paulo to do a dice roll to find out if she survived. He rolls, and reports, "They found her... but a little too late."
• Descent into Addiction: Sassy immediately grows addicted to the morphine the vets used on her. However, she manages to break the addiction when she realizes that she can't both bring a bottle on the journey and shit-talk the others at the same time.
  Sassy: I'm not addicted! I can stop whenever I want... but I just don't want.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • Apparently, Shadow thought that a "reddit" was some kind of creature, rather than a message board.
  • Shadow also believes that raccoons are "big cats with masks." Sassy wonders what they have to hide.
  • However, Shadow has visited the zoo with Peter, so he knows that the big animal chasing them is a "lookmommylook."
• Epic Fail: During the fight with the bear, Flynn manages to get in four hits. The total amount of damage he inflicted? Zero.
• Extremely Short Timespan: At the top of Part 2, Kara decides to pull back the curtain and reveal that they were recording the episode the day after recording Part 1, meaning they all fully remember what had transpired in the campaign.
• Face Stealer: Chance plans to rip off the bear's face and then wear it as a trophy. Unfortunately, the gang runs into the wolf pack before he gets the chance.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: The gang's battle against the bear is told in a very detailed and gory way.
• Faux Affably Evil: Sassy, at least from the mice's perspective...
  Sassy: Oh, you are mine, little darling... I don't know if you can understand this, but we're gonna have a good time, you and I...
• Fire-Forged Friends: Sassy and Flynn. They fight a bit when they first meet, but when Flynn saves Sassy from drowning, she develops a strong respect for him.
• Going Native:
  • One of the wolves is actually a runaway dog. Notably, he is the only member of the pack who can talk, though it sounds like Hulk Speak.
  • After killing the bear and going a bit wild, the animals consider going native in the woods too, but their devotion to their humans wins out.
• Graceful Loser: The spirit of the bear treats Chance with respect when they meet during the latter's Near-Death Experience.
• Groin Attack: Chance bites off and swallows the bear's balls, causing it to fall down to the ground, screaming in pain.
• Happy Ending Override: The players sort of do this to their own story by pointing out that adopting a wild fox like Flynn as a house pet is actually a terrible idea (because they smell horribly and don't pee in the basket).
• Hero Antagonist: As in the movie, the park rangers. All they want is to take care of these poor, injured animals. They only count as antagonists because Sassy doesn't trust them, and believes one of them to secretly be a bear in disguise.
• Insistent Terminology: Kara Strait claims that the only accents she can do is a Dracula-style Transylvanian accent and a "generic offensive Middle-Eastern accent". When the other players point out that Sallah from their Raiders of the Lost Ark campaign didn't sound like either of those, Kara says that Sallah doesn't have an accent, he has a voice.
• Lonely at the Top: Sassy decides to come along on the dogs' adventure because "being a queen is no fun without subjects." Of course, she is only a queen in her own mind.
• Look, a Distraction!:
  • Sassy tries to distract the bear by saying that there is soup in a nearby tree. It doesn't work.
  • Later, she tries to scare the same bear by warning for strippers. It goes just as badly.
• No Animals Were Harmed: Discussed. The players argue whether or not the animals in the movie were hurt during filming. Eventually they decide that they were probably really afraid, but never in any actual danger.
• No Name Given: The Wolf Dog seems to have abandoned whatever name his owner gave him, and claims that he doesn't have one at all. Sassy then decides to give him a new name: Joe Biden.
• No One Gets Left Behind: When the family shows up to pick up the pets from the pound at the end of the campaign, they are effectively intimidated in taking Flynn with them as well.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: When the Burnford-Seavers arrive to pick up their pets at the end of the campaign, it soon dawns on them that something had changed them as they all but outright threaten their owners into taking Flynn with them (with Shadow and Chance outright growling at them). Kara also makes it clear after the fact is that a major hurdle the family is going to experience now having adopted a fox is that the other pets will not stand for them getting rid of him.
• "Not So Different" Remark: After killing the bear, the group encounters the wolf pack for the final time; not only does "Joe Biden" declare them honorary wolves, but Chance openly states they are the same:
  Chance: You. Me. Same. (bows) Strong.
• Off the Rails: Zig-zagged: The family's trip to the farm winds up being delayed a day when Sassy, thinking she's being taken to the vet, repeatedly attempts to escape... only to smash her face in the process, resulting in an actual trip to the vet.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • When Shadow is asked by Sassy to help remove her cone, Scott rolls for Intelligence, only to Crit Fail. As such, Shadow comes up with the plan to have Chance help him pull Sassy out... by having him bite her tail while Shadow bites the collar. As you can guess, Kara only gets more and more distressed as this plan gets outlined.
  • As the pets (and Flynn) attempt to cross the river to get away from the wolves, Sassy falls in and needs to be rescued before she goes over a waterfall. As Shadow tries to pull her out, it soon becomes apparent that despite what the other players (and Paulo) assumed, Chance hadn't crossed yet; Joz makes it clear that she intends to fend the wolves off before even attempting to cross.
    • The situation only gets more dire when Chance encounters one of the wolves^note in reality a dog that joined their pack... and makes it clear he isn't the best spokesman:
      Chance: (sniffs the "wolf") You smell like a dog.
      Kara: Scott is out of his chair.
      Chance: Actually, you smell like me. I don't even know what a dog is- you smell like me. I'm a dog.
      Kara: You know what a dog is.
      Wolf Dog: Yes- (is cut off by Scott spouting gibberish in the background)
      Chance: Why do you smell like me?
      Wolf Dog: You dog. Me wolf now.
      Chance: What?
      Wolf Dog: Me wolf now-
      Chance: I know! What's a wolf?
      Kara: "I know!"
      Scott: (near hysterics) We did not send in our chief negotiator with the wolf people!
• Only Sane Man: Shadow is pretty much Chance and Sassy's babysitter, even if he is a bit of a Know-Nothing Know-It-All.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Scott Aiello once again slips into a British accent. This time, it happens when Shadow tastes blood for the first time, which apparently makes him sound like Alec Guinness.
• Point of Divergence: As Paulo makes it clear after the fact, the reason why the players were able to kill the bear was because Sassy managed to scratch its eyes at the start of the fight; with the stats he gave the pets, Paulo was not expecting them to survive.
• Poor Man's Substitute: The players feel that Don Ameche (the voice of Shadow in the movie), while awesome, is a The Boys from Brazil-style clone of Clark Gable (and might not actually exist).
• Pounds Are Animal Prisons: Mostly averted, but Shadow does get asked "What Are You in For?" by the dog in the next cage.
• Psychotic Smirk: DM Paulo Quiros apparently has one at one point. Kara Strait describes it as his "devious model face."
  Kara Strait: Paulo's trouble's-a-comin' face is so similar to his sexy-sexy face.
• Pun: When Chance (the loudest member of the gang) starts teaching Flynn how to bark, Sassy says this:
  Sassy: You might say that we have a second Chance.
• Questionable Consent: Sassy feels really uncomfortable about being licked by Shadow...
• Running Gag: Paulo Quiros reminding Kara Strait that Sassy still has the cone around her neck.
• Serious Business: Not only is Scott practically appalled to realize he's the only one at the table to know who Don Ameche is, but he almost sounds insulted when Kara later claims Homeward Bound is one of his biggest roles:
  Scott: It is so not! I will defend Don Ameche's dead honor!
• Shout-Out:
  • After hearing a bit of Scott's Shadow voice, Paulo quotes the Men's Warehouse slogan in said voice: "You're gonna like the way you look..."
  • When Chance — a dog — meets Flynn the fox, the rest of the gang wonders if they have ended up in The Fox and the Hound. Chance's attempts at communicating with the fox are also compared to Arrival.
    Kara Strait: Did you know foxes don't experience time linearly?
    Joz Vammer: That makes sense, actually.
    Kara Strait: No, it doesn't. Shut up!
  • Our pet protagonists can't quite understand their owners' speech, (making them believe that humans are the ones who can't talk) so people sound like the adults from Peanuts to them.
  • At one point, Scott refers to the animals' human owners as "Mallory and Jennifer", as a nod to Michael J. Fox's role in the movie.
  • A perception check in the forest results in a shout-out to the "Squirrel!" running gag from Up.
  • The other players compare Kara Strait's portrayal of Sassy with Judi Dench.
  • The green, digital bones raining down from the sky when Shadow and Chance are "accessing the dog web" and coming into contact with their inner animals might be a reference to The Matrix.
  • As Chance prepares to use his experience from the pound in his encounter with the wolves, Scott openly draws a parallel between this and Orange Is the New Black.
  • When Kara Strait discovers that Sassy has "kick with boots" on her skill sheet, she wonders if she's actually Puss in Boots. (Paulo says that no, she isn't.)
  • When Kara says that she's planning to attack the bear's face, Joz compares her to a facehugger from Alien.
  • During the fight with the bear, one of the players calls out "Sweep the leg!" as a suggestion.
  • When the players ask whether they're making any real progress in the fight against the bear, Paulo replies, "This isn't even his final form."
• Take That!: In a minor bit of restraint, Kara waits until the campaign has ended to state she thinks the movie sucked.
• To the Pain: When encountering the wolf pack at the river, Chance essentially threatens to fight the Wolf Dog to the death unless the pack leaves him and his friends alone.
  Chance: If you show up again, I will fight you until one of us bleeds out.
• Unreliable Narrator: Sassy says that when she will tell their story, she will claim that she decapitated the bear all by herself.
• Unsound Effect: The result of several of Sassy's failed acting attempts, such as when she attempts to distract the bear by making the sound of something a bear might eat, which turns into her saying, "Honey honey honey honey..."
• Wham Line: The first time the Wolf Dog speaks intelligibly is one for the players as well as the audience, being also the first indication that he's not a normal wolf, and it having been firmly established beforehand that wild animals don't talk in this setting.
• When Trees Attack: Our heroes believe that the howling of wolves is actually coming from the trees. This scares them, as trees are usually supposed to keep quiet.
• With Catlike Tread: Done by a real cat, ironically enough. Sassy breaks apart many twigs when she tries sneaking up to the bear.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Downplayed: While Shadow is trying to save Sassy from the river, Joz asks where Flynn is. When it's pointed out he had gotten to the other side of the river by now with Chance, Joz makes it clear Chance didn't cross yet, intending to fend off the wolves.
• You Killed My Friend: Sassy tries to invoke this by telling her friends to avenge her death. However, she ends up not dying after all.
• You No Take Candle: The feral dog who is part of the wolf pack speaks a broken form of English.

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