HOOVES OF FIRE is a very pleasant little Christmas special from BBC. Oddly, however, when the DVD for this nice show was released in the US, a "special" audio track was substituted for the original voices. Instead of Ardal O'Hanlon and the rest doing the voices like they did in the original, Ben Stiller and some other Americans did the voices for track #1. Fortunately, the original sound track is included, though oddly it's #3. And, sadly, the original voice credit were all removed from this American edition! That sure seems tacky! As I had already seen this show on American television with the British/Irish voice track, I refused to listen to track #1 and stuck with the original when I watched it again tonight.
The story involves Robbie the Reindeer--the son of Rudolph. Sadly, however, unlike his famous father, Robbie lacks ambition or confidence. He also is a bit lazy and doesn't see a need to keep in shape like the other reindeer who hope to pull Santa's sleigh. This mindset is made worse by Blitzen, who turns out to be a jealous jerk who hates Rudolph and by default also wants to see Robbie fail. He encourages Robbie to give up and for the first half of the film, Robbie is a loser. He doesn't recognize how sweet and stuck on him Donner is and he thinks it's impossible to be chosen so he just gives up. However, being a bit formulaic, you know that he eventually gets out of his rut, goes into training with Old Jingle (who is batty, to say the least) and ends up winning the day by the end of the film.
Overall, this is a very nice kids show that adults can enjoy as well due to some decent writing and voice talents. Don't expect something of the same high quality as an Aardman production (the famous British company that also makes stop-motion shows--but of a considerably higher quality) but it still is good fun.
If you liked this, two years later, a sequel, LEGENDS OF THE LOST TRIBE was made and is quite fun.
The story involves Robbie the Reindeer--the son of Rudolph. Sadly, however, unlike his famous father, Robbie lacks ambition or confidence. He also is a bit lazy and doesn't see a need to keep in shape like the other reindeer who hope to pull Santa's sleigh. This mindset is made worse by Blitzen, who turns out to be a jealous jerk who hates Rudolph and by default also wants to see Robbie fail. He encourages Robbie to give up and for the first half of the film, Robbie is a loser. He doesn't recognize how sweet and stuck on him Donner is and he thinks it's impossible to be chosen so he just gives up. However, being a bit formulaic, you know that he eventually gets out of his rut, goes into training with Old Jingle (who is batty, to say the least) and ends up winning the day by the end of the film.
Overall, this is a very nice kids show that adults can enjoy as well due to some decent writing and voice talents. Don't expect something of the same high quality as an Aardman production (the famous British company that also makes stop-motion shows--but of a considerably higher quality) but it still is good fun.
If you liked this, two years later, a sequel, LEGENDS OF THE LOST TRIBE was made and is quite fun.