Line #70 Headscratchers/Bolt


1	!!The Mic
2	* The ShowWithinAShow's director freaks out when he sees a boom mic in one shot, because Bolt would have seen it as well. Considering that Bolt is actually ''on the set of the show'', one wonders how he's been in the dark for so long.
3	** And couldn't the whole thing have been prevented if they'd shot the cliffhanger episode in one go and just ''aired'' it in two parts?
4	*** I'm assuming child labour laws would have prevented them from working Penny that long in one go.
5	*** Penny was, for the moment, out of the picture. She could have left, rested, and so on... and been fine. Besides, they could have just done DawsonCasting.
6	*** How could they have expected to direct the dog with Penny separated from him? The director was a complete idiot who did not carefully think through his "creative" process.
7	** You assume he is a perfectly reasonable and logical person; he seems like a guy who freaks over everything. In reality Bolt has probably seen the boom mic and more, just assumed it was part of Dr. Calico's evil plots. What always bothers me about the shooting method is that Bolt could, if freaked enough, actually hurt or kill the extras to protect Penny from the danger he does not know is not real.
8	*** You assume Bolt isn't trained like any other show dog (or any highly trained dog), just under different pretenses. Barring abused dogs or dogs that have been trained to fight, highly trained 'attack' dogs are actually trained to not harm but just bring down and prevent someone from escaping. They generally won't even attack unless directly ordered.
9	*** Also, he's a super-hero, ThouShallNotKill is likely a part of his "heroic upbringing".
10	*** Actually, Bolt probably doesn't even know what a boom mic is.
11	** He wasn't freaking about because Bolt might have seen it, but because the ''audience'' would see it, and they can't re-shoot the scene or Bolt will get suspicious.
12	*** That’s not what he said. Also, you can easily edit out a boom mic.
13	*** What he said is that they have to do the show in one take. If there's an obvious boom mic, that means they need a second take. It's not about Bolt seeing the boom mic and being confused, it's about Bolt having to perform the same 'mission' the same way that they think will confuse him and break the masquerade.
14	*** I could be mistaken, since it's been a long time since I've watched the film, but I remember him saying, "The dog could have seen it!" or a similar line. That implies that he's afraid of Bolt putting two and two together. As mentioned above, Bolt probably wouldn't have paid any real heed to the boom mic.
15	*** No, you're correct, he does lament that the dog could've seen it. In fact, Mindy Parker from the network's first line is her responding, "Uhh, ''who cares'', if the dog sees it?"
16
17	!!Filming the In-Un's Show
18	* How could they have filmed every single episode in one shot nearly flawlessly?
19	** Did you see the part before they 'kidnap' Penny? It took a hell of a lot of cameras, all hidden, and planning. They plan the scripts out and most probably have someone else and a trained dog go trough to see if the camera's in the right place, then let Penny and Bolt go through with little left to go wrong.
20	** No matter ''how'' many cameras they use, it's not going to prevent people from occasionally flubbing their lines, missing their marks, tripping on set, or having an ill-timed need for a bathroom break.
21
22	!!Shipping Without Food?
23	* How can a dog survive in a package without food or water as he was shipped across the contury?
24	** Duh! Next Day Air. :)
25	*** He could have gotten overnighted.
26
27	!!Wouldn't "Green" be "Gray"?
28	* How exactly does Bolt know to look for a man with a green eye, when dogs are color-blind?
29	** [[RealityIsUnrealistic Dogs aren't actually colorblind]], they just [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness have a lower chromatic acuity then humans]] (they can't see colors as well as we can, but they can see them). Also, Penny called him "The Green-Eyed Man" outright.
30
31	!!They're pretty negligent with their Canine Assets
32	* So, a dog that's the star of what has to be a multi-million dollar an episode show goes missing, and the network doesn't broadcast some sort of reward, or publicize that he's missing, or ''anything''?
33	** Get the impression the network isn't very nice? And/or that they consider animals easily replaced?
34	** Or maybe they were afraid of the negative hype the show would pick up if word got out they lost one of their lead stars.
35	** Mindy the network representative is apparently not aware of Bolt's EnforcedMethodActing until the show's creator tells her about it, so it seems that it isn't public knowledge either. If an ordinary person were to approach Bolt and get attacked, the creators and network could be open to a lawsuit and their unethical manipulation of Bolt could be exposed, possibly getting them fired or even getting the show completely shut down.
36	** Or the fact that it could still take weeks to find him and they had to start producing the next episode ''now''?
37	** Or the fact that someone with a greedy streak might be the one to find Bolt, and could hit up the studio for a ''very'' large reward for his return.
38
39	!!Rhino's Previous Owners
40	* When Rhino is first introduced, he's shown to be among hamsters that look an awful lot like his family. In addition, he also lives with an old lady, which one would think would be said family's owner. During the entire time Rhino is gone, no one in Rhino's family nor his owner tries to find him in any way, shape, or form. Worse yet, does this mean that Penny's mom unknowingly ''stole'' Rhino from his rightful owner?
41	** This bugged me too. One gets the impression that Rhino and his owner were never that close, and that his longing for adventure and heroism like he saw on the Magic Box greatly outweighed any kind of comfort he got from spinning around a wheel in a trailer park all day. In fact, it is this aspect of his character that makes him such an excellent {{Foil}} to both Bolt and Mittens, and I wish it were explored on a little more than just his monologue where he convinces him to rescue Mittens from the pound because of all the animals like Rhino that looked up to Bolt's heroism and independence.
42	** Hamsters are notorious for going missing. As are most small rodent pets. The owner probably figured he got out while the door was open or something.
43	** How do you know they never looked for him? His owner can hardly have expected him to ''jump in a vehicle'' and leave the state! She probably conducted a small local search the way most owners would before giving up. It isn't practical to conduct a nation-wide search for a hamster.
44	*** Especially since the odds are good that a hamster which gets loose outdoors will get eaten by something -- cat, dog, hawk, snake, whatever -- within a matter of hours. Domesticated golden hamsters aren't the most wilderness-savvy of pets.
45	** Keeping multiple golden hamsters in the same cage isn't recommended in any case, as they [[ExplosiveBreeder reproduce non-stop]] and/or kill each other over living space. If Rhino's owner wasn't keeping them separated, it's possible her pets were breeding out of control and she ''didn't know'' how many hamsters she actually had.
46	*** The "Crazy Hamster Lady" (as I'll call her) seems to be a hoarder and Rhino going missing from her care (sure, he's safe and sound) could be TruthInTelevision, as animal hoarders can really have their pets die or go missing right from under their noses and they wouldn't notice. Since Rhino was already outside when he meets Bolt and Mittens, ya'll could argue that he's more or less not CHL's pet and it's not like CHL would know the difference betwixt either hamster.
47	!!The Executive Meddlers
48	* The use of ExecutiveMeddling to instigate the plot bugged me. It made sense in theory, but after [[FridgeLogic a trip to the fridge]] I started wondering why the executives of a kid's show would be so interested in the 18-35 year old demographic. I mean, they're not the Target Demographic, so why pander to them if the show is popular with kids? There have been many cartoon over the years with formulaic plots and predictable endings like what the executive complains about, and they have been successful without any need for {{Retool}}s; while on the other side, shows like Animaniacs and Freakazoid were CutShort because they attracted ''too much'' of the older demographics while not enough actual children were watching them. So what gives? I understand that the {{Retool}} is what starts the plot of the movie by causing Bolt to run away, but I wish they had a [[WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief more believable reason]] to Retool to the show than "this kids' show isn't getting enough teenagers, so we should threaten to cancel it until it makes teenagers want to watch it."
49	** It's amazing what executives will have fits over. Maybe it airs during a time when a lot of that demographic are watching TV, or maybe it airs right before or right after a show that is aimed at that demographic.
50	** Who said the show within a show is a kids show? Sure, it stars a girl and her dog, but it features action, explosions, espionage and many staples of the superhero genre. Also, it's live action, not a cartoon.
51	** You can actually see that the Show is aired Thursdays at 8pm in one scene, it's shown on a bus when Bolt is in New York. So 18- to 35-year-olds probably ARE the show's main target, and the executives were afraid to lose their audience and thus in consequence the jobs of their employees. What Mindi said there was realistic if you view it from that standpoint.
52	** This is true - the target demographic is 18-35, at a premium time for their viewing, and it's become a show that while cute, appeals more to ten-year-olds, so it's losing viewers. They can't just go up to the network and ask to be viewed at 4:30 instead.
53	!!Penny's SadisticChoice
54	* Why is Penny forced to choose between using another actor to play the Bolt character and searching for her dog? ''These are not mutually exclusive decisions''.
55	** They don't want her focusing on it because they feel it will hurt her acting ability. Also: the main exec's crazy.
56	** And they had to get the next episode filmed.
57	** The goal, presumably, is to have this other dog take Bolt's place without the audience being aware anything has changed. If Penny puts up "Lost Dog" posters for Bolt and otherwise advertises their disappearance, that's not gonna work.
58	!!Why didn't they read the collar?
59	* Mittens notices early on that Bolt has a collar with identification on it. So why didn't she tell him to go show it to some human in order to get back to Penny?
60	** Bolt was intent on dragging Mittens across the country even after she told him how to get to Hollywood. He probably wouldn't have just let her loose had she told him to show someone his collar, and getting caught with Bolt and taken to the pound is the absolute last thing she wants to happen to her.
61	!!Searching for their star?
62	* The studio loses the star of its television show and doesn't even try to retrieve him? Why is Penny printing out "Lost Dog" posters instead of the executives putting out an urgent press release?
63	** They're on a tight schedule, and it's implied they had that replacement Bolt in reserve; it's more efficient to just start using him right away than wait for Bolt to be found and probably have to cough up a reward.
64	** Also, Bolt is not a celebrity; he's just a dog who's trained to act things out in a TV show. As an analogy, if the dog from ''Dog with a Blog'' got loose one day and didn't come back, I don't think you'd expect the Disney Channel to put out a press release and keep production on hold when they could just find a replacement. As for Penny, as far as the production staff are aware, her only time spent with Bolt is when they were filming the events of the show -- Penny says she's never taken him home since they started -- so they probably weren't able to accept the fact that she could care about him ''that much.''
65
66	!!OSHA won't be happy
67	* No fire prevention system on the set? Seriously? I'm pretty sure they're required by law to have sprinklers ready in case of an actual fire.
68	** They might've disabled the system so that they could shoot the scene with the torches, if it was ever installed at all. Just because it's illegal doesn't mean they wouldn't do it.
69	** Wouldn't be the only hideously unethical thing going on with this production, at any rate.
70
71	!!Mobile homes
72	* Do they really transport entire ''houses'' on the backs of trucks (like the one Bolt and Mittens traveled in, where Mittens shows Bolt what life's like in a normal house)?
73	** Yes. Prefabricated houses.
74
75	!!Puppies are innocent
76	* Now how can Bolt go so long in his life without knowing what "hunger" was? When he first experiences it, he believes he's been poisoned, and Mittens exploits it to get free food. Um...?
77	** His handlers on the show were probably very careful to keep him properly energized for shooting, which, for TV shows, is usually done on a pretty tight schedule; they probably had to keep him consistently well-fed.
78	** Even if he's not strictly well-fed, it's doubtful he'd ever gone close to a full day without food, which is what he was experiencing then.
79
80	!!Penny's Mom booting the manager
81	* It's a small thing, but when kicking your agent out of a vehicle, the appropriate thing to yell is not "we quit!" but "you're fired!" You'd think that one of the veteran Hollywood actors they had on the set would have remembered who works for who.
82	** She was saying they were quitting the show, not quitting the agent.
83	*** Although, they were probably doing that, too.
84	** They quit because while the agent was being a jerk, he was merely a part of the problem that the studio has been giving them. Just firing the agent would've changed absolutely nothing because the executives are uncaring and negligent. It would not be fair for Penny's mother to paint the agent as the ONLY person at fault.
85
86	!!Expy?
87	* Just something I'm curious about: Penny has a very similar appearance to [[WesternAnimation/TheRescuers another Penny]] from the Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon. (Not to mention [[WesternAnimation/OliverAndCompany Jenny]], who was based the aforementioned Penny.) Was this an intentional ContinuityNod, or did they just forget to do their research?
88	** WordOfGod at least acknowledged that this Penny was named after [[WesternAnimation/InspectorGadget Inspector Gadget's niece]], so it may or may not be possible those are other {{Shout Out}}s, intentional or not.
89
90	!!Training Bolt
91	* So did the producers of the show brainwash Bolt from his puppy years to make him think he was a superdog? Because the scene at the very beginning seems to indicate that Bolt was either always Penny's dog outside the show or that scene is the first episode of a very long-running series. Very confusing.
92	** If you assume the first scene of Penny and Bolt as a teenager and adult dog, respectively, is the show's standard opening, Bolt became a superdog in the show when he was full grown, not when he was a puppy. The scene with Bolt as a puppy could be part of the show, a "real-life" scene, or both. If it is both, the show we see in the film may be a spinoff of a show focusing on Penny's in-show father, which would result in a genre shift between show and spinoff.
93	** Or they, y'know, used an actual puppy to film the backstory for the superdog-character. Bolt's fur is all white, so any white American shepherd pup would be an acceptable stand-in.
94	*** That works, too.
95
96	!!Baseball Glove Vehichle
97	* Just how DID the agent ride a baseball glove to school anyway?
98	** He just pretended to ride it to school every day because he desperately wanted a bicycle. Or, he was just making something random up for that scene.
99	** Or he was doing that stereotypical older-generation thing about kids these days having it so easy, only to foul it up with an unbelievable part. When he was Penny's age, he had to walk ten miles in the snow to get to school. Uphill. Both ways. That sort of thing?
100	** Because the agent is a troll who likes to talk rubbish.
101	** Yes he was a troll. This troper has to comment anyway that her father actually did walk to school up hill both ways. School was on another hill than his house.
102
103	!!Can't tell fiction from what's real.
104	* If Bolt thinks the show is real, how can the show producers ensure that he's going to do everything they expect him to do?
105	** Most of what he does is on command from Penny. The rest, well, they trained him, so they can [[BatmanGambit accurately predict how he'll react to what they do.]]
106	*** Though as any professional animal handler can tell you, the odds of even a well-trained animal doing exactly what you want 100% of the time are pretty much non-existent - especially if you're expecting things to get done in a single take. It's just another point that requires the suspension of disbelief. Granted, Bolt seems to be of superb intelligence, but that brings in the additional wild card of him possibly being able to think up new plans on the fly, which would also result in him going off the show's rails.
107	*** Who's to say he does do everything exactly right? Remember that mook that took himself out by facepalming while his taser-gauntlet was on? What if Bolt was originally scripted to knock that guy out, but missed his cue, so the actor had to improvise?
108
109	!!Quitting the show
110	* Why didn't Penny's mother have her quit the show earlier than she did? Even if you choose to forget that the show's executives refused to let her take her dog home with her while she was off work, they also lost the dog, tried initially to trick Penny into accepting a new one, insisted that she "be an adult" and continue working on the show instead of looking for Bolt...Shouldn't there have been a point where her mother stepped in and did something? Penny's only a teenager at most; it's not her job to support them with her acting career if she's not being treated well.
111	** That show had kept them fed and clothed for years, and it was only by the events of the movie that things started to get really bad, which is probably when Penny's mother started to see quitting as an option. Plus, as an actor, even a child one, crap like is describe above is an occupational hazard and if her mother did want to quit their only source of income over her daughter being treated unfairly, Penny seems like the type to refuse out of guilt until she nearly burned to death and was saved by the dog her employers had abandoned.
112	** Could be a case of the straw that killed the camel. Considering what we already see with child stars IRL, a lot of their parents had breaking points, citing the questionable things studios and agents do being a part of said breaking points.
113
114	!!Rescuing Mittens
115	* After they rescue Mittens from the pound, why is Rhino suddenly okay with her not being treated like a prisoner? He still thinks Bolt is a real super-dog, yet after Bolt learns the truth, he never gets on Mittens' case about her supposed evilness like he did earlier on.
116	** Rhino is nothing if not GenreSavvy. He knows that once you go out of your way to rescue the villain's henchman from certain death, they're likely to do a HeelFaceTurn and join the good guys. Since Bolt was treating Mittens like a friend after that point, obviously Rhino followed his lead.
117
118	!!In-Un's CGI?
119	* What was stopping the studio from using CGI to create Bolt? Based on the devices seen used by people, it can be assumed the setting is around the middle to late 2000s. Around this time, live-action action movies already utilize fully digital characters that blend seamlessly.
120	** Off-hand guess? The Director probably refused because it "wouldn't be real enough!".
121	** We’re talking about a TV show, not a movie. They probably didn’t have the budget or resources to implement a convincing CGI dog who’s prominent in every episode and has to do a variety of spectacular stunts. Penny also might not be as good an actor when she has to work alongside a dog that isn’t there during filming. And there was no reason for them to try for a CGI dog when a real one works just as well. The only one who took issue with replacing Bolt with a real dog was Penny, for sentimental reasons. It’s never hinted that the studio had trouble finding a replacement.

Context Headscratchers / Bolt