How to Make "A Dog's Purpose" a Good Movie

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Hi all. Today I saw an interesting trailer for an upcoming movie called A Dog's Purpose.



Will this movie be a corny movie full of animal stereotypes and pointless cuteness? Will this movie be a groundbreaking philosophical film? Who knows?

That being said, the trailer is severely lacking. I think that the director should do some re-writes and re-shoots before the film hits theaters.

First of all, the film starts too early. Why does the main character start as a dog? That seems like an arbitrary place to start a cycle of reincarnation. In my opinion, the main character should start out as a primitive chordate swimming in the Iapetus Ocean during the Cambrian. It makes sense because our protagonist starts out as one of the earliest animals with a brain.

As the film goes on, our protagonist gets reincarnated as a fish with jaws. The film now takes place during the Silurian. Our hero is astounded at how awesome jaws are. He gets eaten by a bigger fish but then he gets reincarnated lobe-finned fish living in the Devonian.

He later get reincarnated as a non-mammalian synapsid living in Pangaea during the Permian. He nearly gets eaten by a Therocephalian. He later dies of old age. He soon reincarnates in the Triassic as a proto-mammal. He is shocked to see the huge changes in the ecosystem that were caused by the Permian extinction.

Later, he is reincarnated again as a eutherian living in the Cretaceous. He doesn't have much time to explore his environment because he is squished by a dinosaur just after reaching sexual maturity. After that, he comes back as a basal carnivoran living in the Eocene. After that, he comes back as one of the first grey wolves to work together with humans. Thus, he experiences the dawn of dog domestication.

After that, he comes back as several historical dogs such as an ancient Roman Molossus and an Inuit sled dog. After that, the boring stuff we see in the trailer happens.

After that, humanity is driven to extinction by a nuclear war. Dogs survive somehow. Our hero is reincarnated as a mutant dog living in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. Over time, the dog keeps reincarnating after every death. Decades turn to centuries. Centuries turn to millennia. Thousands of years turn to millions. Our hero eventually finds himself in a world where dogs have evolved into beings with humanlike intelligence. He speaks to the other dog people and they are impressed by his extensive knowledge of the past. He becomes the emperor of the dog people and he lives in a massive fortress in the center of Pangaea Ultima. The motto of the dog people is "In dog we trust."

The dog people are soon visited by some human time travelers who invented time travel to escape from the nuclear holocaust. They are enslaved by the dog people but our protagonist recognizes one of his former owners among the time travelers. Our hero decides that "We must free the humans! They are intelligent beings just like us!" This leads to a civil war in Pangaea Ultima. It becomes the bloodiest battle in the history of the dog people. Thousands of dog people lose their lives but eventually the Confederate States of Dog People are defeated. Our hero later succumbs to old age. He reincarnates later and finds a world where humans and dog people finally get along as equals. He lives long enough to see the first human president of Pangea Ultima.

Later, the Earth gets destroyed when the sun becomes a red giant. Our hero reincarnates as an alien. At this point, he is tired of living and wants to end the cycle of death and rebirth in which he feels trapped. He waits until the heat death of the universe but then he gets reincarnated as a being in another universe.

In this universe, he meets a reincarnation of one of his old owners. The old owner is now a Buddhist. Our hero achieves enlightenment and finally frees himself from the cycle.

THE END

Protip For Hollywood: Don't release any movie unless nerdy people have had an chance to re-do the script and make it good.

A bit esoteric for my taste, but I think it could work. Definitely better than the film they actually made.

The sequel would be animated by Don Bluth and be called "All Dogs Achieve Nirvana".

Jodorowsky should write them.
And make that hertzfeld rather than bluth, then it'll be the stuff of legends.