Last month, I talked about a Finnish animated film depicting complicated family turmoil among flying reindeer.  It was a sequel to a movie entitled Niko and the Way to the Stars – one which, after being exposed to the second, I found it necessary to track down.  Having successfully done just that, I suppose it is only appropriate that I should follow up here.

The animation isn’t as sharp as in the second film, but it’s still pretty decent, and the detail they squeeze in despite the low tech is impressive at points.  The English dub is mostly serviceable.  But we’re not here to talk about the technical details…

As you may recall from last time, our little protagonist Niko’s parents have split custody of him in the sequel, and mom shacks up with a new caribou.  This left me with certain expectations of some kind of rocky reindeer divorce occurring in the first.  But the reality, as it turns out, may be even better.

Let’s take a look at the Wikipedia page for Santa’s reindeer.  Niko has an entry on it.  It states, and I quote, that he is:

Prancer’s illegitimate child from a one-night stand with a regular reindeer.

That…is awesome.  I mean, there’s just something kind of fantastic about the blunt, offical candor of a statement like that when considering the subject matter.  And aren’t those links helpful?

So, how do flying reindeer by-blows happen?  When the film begins, Niko is already aware that his father is one of Santa’s crew, but his mother refuses to tell him which one.  She also openly admits to him that she never bothered to tell his dad that he exists.  Real nice.  She explains that she got cozy with him one night when Santa’s sleigh “broke down” nearby (I’ll pause a moment to let you consider what constitutes the ‘engine’ of this particular magical flying sleigh, and subsequently the implications of this claim).  Smooth, Prancer.  Smooth.

Anyway, on to the story.

While gallivanting around in preadolescent reindeerhood, Niko is spotted by a prowling wolf, who naturally wants to turn him into not being hungry anymore.  Niko, being a little reindeer, runs back to his herd for protection.  The wolf, being a predator, follows.  Rather than killing the crap out of this singular wolf, however, the adult reindeer opt instead to run away forever, because apparently they are terrible at being large spiky-headed hoofy-legged animals (there’s a reason wolves hunt lone ungulates in packs).  Since the herd is now displaced, it decides collectively to hate Niko for leading a wolf to its territory.  Since little reindeer don’t like being hated by everyone they know, Niko decides to run away during a snowstorm and track down his father.  Niko’s mother at first wants to go after him, but she is easily talked out of it by another reindeer, deciding that letting her son’s squirrel sidekick try to find him and bring him back safely is good enough.  Reindeer mom of the year.

When Niko finally makes it to Santa’s workshop, he confronts the flying squad in their reindeer tavern (yes, that’s a thing).  When he asks if any of them remember hooking up with a normal caribou one Christmas night, they tell him that he’ll have to be a lot more specific than that.  This means exactly what you think it does.  Santa’s eight are hotshot rock-stars in the reindeer world, and they don’t shy away from picking up a few groupies here and there.  You know, that…actually makes too much sense for raillery.  Niko clarifies his mother’s identity and drops the bomb that one of them is his father, but their response for the time being is feigned ignorance and wholehearted denial.  Why does nobody want this adorable little reindeer kid?

That face. It’s glycerin.

Let’s talk about the villain.  Ooh, let’s!

He is the leader of a pack of wolves who’ve fallen on hard times.  His goal is to eat Santa’s reindeer.  Because – are you ready? – he believes, for no discernible reason, that doing so will grant him their ability to fly.  And then.  He aims to eat Santa Claus himself.  And then.  He intends at last to take Santa’s place so he can FLY AROUND THE WORLD AND EAT EVERY CHILD EVER ON CHRISTMAS.  I–ghh–bvv…  This is possibly the best and most insane motivation I have ever seen for an antagonist in a Christmas or children’s movie.

Then, there is a pink poodle who is inexplicably lost and on her own in the north pole, and even more inexplicably knows the way to Santa’s secret workshop.  She runs into the wolves and they make her lead them there.  The one semi-intelligent non-jerk wolf in the group, likely realizing his pack is entirely male, runs off with her.  Now I want to see what a woodle (a poolf?) looks like.

I could go on, but there’s simply too much and I can’t describe it all coherently.  Just find it and watch it.  It’s madness.  In the meantime, I’ll leave you with seven more things you should know about Niko and the Way to the Stars.

• Niko is the same size and seems to be only slightly younger in this than he is in the second, which takes place at least a year later.  I’m guessing this is because, as the son of Prancer, who is ostensibly immortal, he ages much more slowly than a regular caribou would.
• The ermine randomly breaks out into song in this one, and is generally psychotic.  I guess they dropped that particular direction for the second.
• Why is Vixen male?  At least Donner and Blitzen have German accents.
• Niko’s squirrel morbidly creates snowsquirrels of his wife and kid to keep himself company, because the real ones were eaten by wolves.
• The gateway cave to Santa’s workshop is a perilous Indiana Jones-style death trap.
• At one point, when Prancer gets knocked out, the squirrel sodomizes him with an icicle to wake him up.
• Toward the end, Santa’s reindeer warp into outer space with the wolf leader, and then drop him from orbit (maybe that’s the way to the stars?).

Bene scribete.