Lee Eisenberg Ethel Pedley wrote the Dot series as a criticism of the humans' impact on Australia's wildlife. And so, Yoram Gross adapted them to film. "Dot and the Kangaroo" has the girl lost in the woods and befriending a marsupial who lost her baby to humans. In the process, Dot comes to develop a better connection to nature.I recommend the movie. It's got some interesting songs, and I like the mix of animation and live action. But mostly it reminds us that we can't separate ourselves from nature as much as we think. After all, you can't fight nature and win. I have a vague memory of seeing some of the Dot movies when I was little, but the characters were dubbed with American accents.PS: One scene has the kangaroo mention a creature called the bunyip. We don't see the bunyip here, but a later movie in the series focused on smugglers who are after him, and we get to meet him.

ethereal_heart Well I must agree I haven't seen this in a long time since I was five, but now after seeing it again I understood everything.If you play close attention you might learn something, it's fun while it lasts though you gotta admit the scene when they sing about the bunyip is creepy especially the background music for it.But the rest is very enjoyable but fair enough although it doesn't exactly have a happy ending and it's a bit heart-wrenching when you do I should know after seeing it again when we got to the end, I couldn't help it, it was so sad it made me and my sister cry. Well who wouldn't at seeing how much Dot misses her friend already...But there's a moral for those after seeing the end don't be sad for all we know someday those two friends will meet again and she's not gone forever and would't want her friend sad plus she'll live in your heart no matter what.That's all that matters out of all the scale it's very lovely movie I suggest if kids are gonna watch this watch it with their folks for support and understanding

mcolson2 Wow! One of the greatest movies I have ever seen. Because of the great voice talent? Not really. For the amazing animation? Hardly. (Worse than 60's HB's). The animated characters on a live-action background? That helped convince me to rent it after my wife's reminiscing. But when she told me that it was a sad cartoon movie and doesn't have a standard happy ending, I said, "Oh, we must see this." Being an Austrailian film, it's not easy to find, (We wrote a few e-mails to Netflix before it became available) but well worth it. It is very touching and bold, and the characters are deeper than the animation leads you to believe. Yoram Gross's vision, assumably, was to expose kids to the Bush's' point of view which he did a swell job. Overall, a frolicking adventure that opens with a girl (Dot) crying because she is lost in the bush. The kangaroo that finds and helps her has also lost her joey. After the parents give up on her and the roo is almost killed protecting Dot, she returns home never to see her friend again. I have never in my life seen such a sad kids movie but my two young daughters were both moved and very much enjoyed it. A MUST on many levels.

Raindogs70 The original is great and worth picking up, but they could do a good job in doing a remake, esp the way animation is now. Nothing is like the original, but the DVD could have had a lot added to it. Hopefully kids will rediscover this classic in the meantime.