Line #34 WesternAnimation/IsleOfDogs


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/isle.jpg]]
2
3	->''"To the north, a long rickety causeway over a noxious sludge marsh leading to a radioactive landfill polluted by toxic chemical garbage. That's our destination."''
4	-->--'''Rex'''
5
6	''Isle of Dogs'' is a stop-motion animated film directed by Creator/WesAnderson, his second animated film after 2009's ''WesternAnimation/FantasticMrFox''.
7
8	[[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture Twenty years into the future,]] Japan has been overrun with dogs, and a disease known as "dog flu" is ripping through the city of Megasaki. The city's mayor, Kobayashi, has decreed that all dogs are to be sent to Trash Island to contain the disease, creating the eponymous Isle of Dogs. A young boy named Atari Kobayashi flies to the island in an attempt to rescue his dog Spots, enlisting the help of a pack of dogs led by Chief (Creator/BryanCranston).
9
10	The film features an all-star cast, including both Anderson mainstays like Creator/BillMurray and Creator/EdwardNorton and also newcomers like Creator/KenWatanabe and Music/YokoOno. The film had its limited release on March 23, 2018, with a wide release on April 13th, 2018.
11	----
12
13	!! The movie provides examples of:
14
15	%%* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: The film starts off by stating it is 20 years in the future. - ZCE, describe how the trope applies
16	* AbnormalAmmo: [[spoiler:Spots uses ''his own (military-grade) teeth'', and spitting them out proves ridiculously effective at blowing up {{Robot Dog}}s]].
17	* ActorAllusion:
18	** [[Creator/BryanCranston Chief]] [[Series/BreakingBad tells a rival group of dogs]] [[Recap/BreakingBadS2E10Over to leave his tribe's territory]].
19	** [[Creator/BillMurray Boss]] [[UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}} wears a]] baseball uniform.
20	** [[Creator/BryanCranston Chief]] does know a [[WesternAnimation/SuperMansion cat]].
21	** In real life Creator/BillMurray owns a baseball team whose mascot is a dog.
22	** This is sadly not the first politically active beloved of Music/YokoOno to be [[Music/JohnLennon assassinated]].
23	* AllGirlsWantBadBoys: Nutmeg is attracted to Chief because "I'm not into tame animals."
24	* AngryCollarGrab: Tracy does this to Yoko Ono at the restaurant to make her [[GetAHoldOfYourselfMan come to her senses]].
25	* AnimalJingoism: Cats and cat symbolism regularly appear accompanying the dog-hating villains. [[spoiler:[[RedHerring Contrary to what you might expect in the prologue, the cats never actively participate in the plot or do anything evil]], and are mostly around for motif purposes]].
26	* AnimalTalk: As with ''Fantastic Mr. Fox'', the film's animal cast speaks perfect English, though it's handwaved in the prologue by saying "[[TranslationConvention all barks have been rendered in English]]." The only other animal to talk, an owl, is just shown hooting, implying it's species-specific.
27	* AnimatedActors: A funnily literal meta-example. In an ingenious marketing move, Anderson and Crew recorded the cast giving interviews for the promotional campaign, and then uploaded a video with the dogs [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOKzXQdA4Nw animated to match]].
28	* AnArmAndALeg: Happens during the climax when [[spoiler:Tracy has her student visa nullified after protesting against Kobayashi, and then when Spots fights the robot dog, he loses an eye and a limb, and Atari is severely injured as well]].
29	* ArcWords:
30	** "Whatever happened to 'man's best friend'?"
31	** "I bite."
32	** "You heard the rumor, right, about (subject)?"
33	* ArtShift: The scenes of Atari, Spot, and Chief escaping the robo-dogs and falling into the river are traditionally animated.
34	* AsideGlance: Professor Watanabe glances in alarm at the camera in an early scene.
35	* AspectMontage: The preparation of the poisoned sushi is shown in a number of key shots.
36	* BabiesEverAfter: Downplayed. [[spoiler:Spots and Peppermints' litter are born roughly before the climax, but we do see them at the ending with both their mother and father]].
37	* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: There isn't much on-screen violence towards animals, but this is the main source of conflict in the movie.
38	** The Kobayashi Dynasty exiles all dogs in Megasaki to Trash Island with the intent of them all dying of disease and starvation. And when a pro-dog resistance begins to oppose them, Mayor Kobayashi and his conspirators devise a plan to kill all of the dog population with poison.
39	** A chef under the order of [[spoiler:Major Domo to poison Professor Watanabe]] coldly prepares sushi by cutting open a live fish and ripping a live crab in half with his bare hands.
40	* BaitAndSwitch: The film's final shot attempts to trick one into thinking that [[spoiler:Spots died in the climax]], only to reveal [[spoiler:he survived, minus an eye and a foot]].
41	* {{Bathos}}: Andersons's [[DramaticDeadpan signature sense of humor]] helps soften the darker elements of the story, such as the awful conditions on the island and the dog's abandonment issues.
42	* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Nutmeg is a splendid looking dog, her hair is always neat and perfectly combed and she also smells clean. Lampshaded by the dogs, who wonder how she can stay clean after months on the island since there isn't even shampoo there.
43	* BewareTheQuietOnes: The glasses-wearing hacker in Tracy's class never speaks during the movie; [[spoiler:He not only infiltrates Kobayashi's enforcers on Trash Island easily, but he also dispatches them at the climax by reversing the wasabi-poison into their containment suits]].
44	* BigBallOfViolence: Most of the fighting is rendered as this. Given how the rest of the animation is pretty grounded and realistically flowing, the sudden cartoony violence winds up jarring, but hilarious.
45	* BigDamnHeroes: Spots and his band of dogs appear to save Atari from the mayor's goons in the middle of the movie.
46	* BigRedButton: The device to activate the destruction of Trash Island has a big blinking red button.
47	* BilingualBonus: A significant portion of the film uses kanji and katakana in text, and much of the film's dialogue is in Japanese. While most of the text has English captions, a lot of the actual dialogue is left unsubtitled (except by in-universe interpreters who aren't always reliable), presumably to invoke this trope and add flavour.
48	* BlackAndWhiteMorality: Atari and the dogs are likable heroes, while Mayor Kobayashi and the clan he represents are comprised of fascist warmongers, yakuza, skeletal assassins and dog-haters. [[spoiler:However, he realizes the evil of his ways and repents. There is only one actually evil person in the movie]].
49	* BubblegumPopping: Tracy does this when being introduced in class.
50	* TheCameo:
51	** Assistant-Scientist Yoko Ono appears throughout the movie, but she only speaks in one scene where's she's voiced by... the ''actual'' Music/YokoOno.
52	** Creator/KenWatanabe makes a quick vocal appearance late in the film as a surgeon.
53	* CassandraTruth: When Tracy tells her classmates that she has a GutFeeling Kobayashi is up to something, the head of the school newspaper tells her that he will not publish an article based solely upon a hunch. When she outright says Kobayashi is part of a conspiracy, he refuses to publish an article accusing the mayor of such a thing.
54	* ChekhovsGunman: The hacker at Atari's school, who is shown here and there infiltrating the organization who'll exterminate the dogs. [[spoiler:At the climax, he's the one to neutralize Major-Domo's hijacking of Kobayashi's extermination plot, after Kobayashi decides to spare the dogs]].
55	* AChildShallLeadThem: [[spoiler:Due to Mayor Kobayashi being arrested on corruption charges during his re-election, it ends up defaulting to his heir, meaning Atari becomes mayor. To take this a step further, the student dissidents end up becoming his staff]].
56	* ComicBookAdaptation: A [[AdaptationDistillation 4-chapter]] manga by Minetaro Mochizuki of ''Manga/DragonHead'' fame.
57	* CrushBlush: Tracy blushes when Atari refers to her as "an attractive cub reporter" in a speech.
58	* DarkerAndEdgier: Compared to Anderson's [[WesternAnimation/FantasticMrFox previous stop-motion film]]. Whereas ''Fantastic Mr. Fox'' is a bright children's fantasy film, ''Isle of Dogs'' is rated PG-13, has a more dystopian setting, grayer colors, slower pace and some graphic violence.
59	* DayOfTheJackboot: Japan seems to have gone full fascist, judging from all the militaristic imagery and Nazi-like rallies throughout the film.
60	* DelayedReaction: Both the Robodog and Spots stand there for a few seconds after their final fight and then collapse.
61	* DespairEventHorizon:
62	** [[spoiler:Assistant scientist Yoko Ono takes Professor Watanabe's death really badly, and even though everything's pointing to their dog flu cure being effective, she's almost given up hope of anyone even caring. Thankfully, [[GetAHoldOfYourselfMan Tracy snaps her out of it]]]].
63	** Downplayed: early in the film, Atari despairs ''hard'' when he finds his beloved dog apparently dead and prepares to head back to the mainland. Since we wouldn't have much of a movie if he was actually dead, the dogs rush to get Atari back when they found out it's not ''his'' dog who died.
64	* DownInTheDumps: The film mostly takes place on the titular isle, which is actually named "Trash Island" in-universe and is literally a giant landfill.
65	* DragonAscendant: [[spoiler:Mayor Kobayashi [[HeelFaceTurn has a change of heart]] at the climax, but the Majordomo does not and presses the BigRedButton anyway]].
66	* DroppedABridgeOnHim: Subverted. [[spoiler:Rex, Duke, King and Boss]] are unceremoniously fed into a trash incinerator, but the film cuts to them later showing that they're fine as the incinerator is not working properly.
67	-->"[[LampshadeHanging I suppose if it was working correctly, we'd all be dead already]]."
68	* EarAche: Chief bites the ear off another dog named Igor, who doesn't seem that bothered by the injury.
69	* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: [[spoiler:Kobayashi really does love his adopted son, and learning that even after all he's done, Atari is ''still'' grateful to him for saving his life, is the push he needs for his HeelFaceTurn]].
70	* EveryoneHasStandards: What makes [[spoiler:Chief's [[WhatTheHellHero speech towards Spots]] powerful is that he himself used to be a stray who (formerly) couldn't care ''less'' about Atari's well-being, and even ''he's'' disgusted that Spots would ask to be released from his duty as Atari's guard dog]].
71	* EvilIsPetty: The whole film's plot (which involves multiple acts of strong-arming and murder of humans, bio-terrorism, and a breathtakingly absurd amount of animal cruelty delivered in [[FinalSolution a rather evocative fashion]]) is Mayor Kobayashi's culmination of a multi-generational, genocidal hatred of dogs his clan has fostered because one of them bit an ancestor during the Meiji Era.
72	* {{Fauxshadow}}: [[spoiler:According to the legend of the Boy Samurai, the Kobayashi clan was about to kill the last of Japan's wild dogs before a boy stood up to them and decapitated their ancestral leader. In the climax, despite fitting the archetype, Atari ''doesn't'' kill his Uncle Kobayashi. Instead, he appeals to his kinder side by comparing his adoption to that of taking in a stray dog out of kindness]].
73	* FoodPorn: Roughly halfway in the movie, we're treated to a detailed scene of a chef preparing a bento box with fresh fish, crab, and squid. [[spoiler:It exists to show us the moment where a sushi roll is laced with poison wasabi to assassinate Professor Watanabe]].
74	* ForWantOfANail: A positive example; had Boss not [[spoiler:pilfered the name tag from (what he believes to be) Spots' cage]], the search for Spots would have ended right there, [[spoiler:consigning every exiled dog to be euthanized]].
75	* GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: Tracy does a pretty epic version of this to [[spoiler:assistant scientist Yoko Ono, snapping her out of her DespairEventHorizon to confirm her conspiracy theory and give her the dog flu cure]].
76	* GratuitousEnglish: Most of the human characters natively speak Japanese, but occasionally drop quick English words. Early on, the dogs have trouble understanding Atari's Japanese, but they do recognize "Sit" and respond accordingly.
77	* HandicappedBadass: All the dogs are suffering from Dog Flu throughout the majority of the film, but a lot of them can still pull off quite impressive feats.
78	* HeelFaceTurn: Subverted. [[spoiler:While Kobayashi undergoes a turn from villainy and undoes the Trash Island decree, he's still guilty of ''a lot'' of other crimes, so he and his co-conspirators still end up in jail]].
79	* HitlerCam: Kobayashi during his speeches at the beginning of the film.
80	* HopeSpot: [[spoiler:Professor Watanabe's assassination. He manages to notice something's up with the poison wasabi-laced sushi and takes a tiny lick out of it. A scene later, we see that unfortunately this was enough to kill him]].
81	* ImportantHaircut: After an important bit of bonding, Atari gives Chief a bath and grooming session, causing him to lose much of his grizzly appearance [[spoiler:and reveal he actually has white fur with black speckling, like Spots]].
82	* InstitutionalApparel: The striped prison outfits of Mayor Kobayashi and his henchmen at the end.
83	* IOwnThisTown: In addition to being on his sixth consecutive mayoral term, Kobayashi also owns a company that [[WeSellEverything seems to make the vast majority of the utilities in Megasaki]].
84	* IronicEcho: Nutmeg's repeated line to Chief, "I'll tell you when I get to know you better."
85	* LoveBeforeFirstSight: Tracy and Atari don't meet for most of the movie, but as Tracy uncovers Atari's efforts to find Spots, she finds it difficult to organize her thoughts about him.
86	-->'''Tracy:''' Damn it... I've got a crush on you.
87	* MajorInjuryUnderreaction:
88	** One of the dogs of a rival tribe points out to another that his ear was chewed off. When the dog (Igor) notices it, he seems more annoyed at his friend for pointing out something so obvious than he does hurt.
89	** A more serious example; Atari spends most of the movie with a chunk of metal piercing his skull, yet he stoically shrugs it off. [[spoiler:In the climax, he ends up with ''another'' piece of shrapnel stuck in his head, and he passes out, requiring brain surgery]].
90	* MakeoverMontage: Of Atari cleaning Chief.
91	* MeaningfulEcho: The beginning of the film has Professor Watanabe attempting to speak out to save the dogs, ending his speech with "Whatever happened to man's best friend?" which is met with booing from the audience. [[BookEnds In the film's climax]], [[spoiler:Atari makes his speech at the same podium and delivers a poignant haiku, also containing the words "Whatever happened to man's best friend?" This time, the audience is moved to tears]].
92	* MediumBlending: Anything filmed with a camera in-universe is shown on screens as 2D animation designed to look like a traditional Japanese painting.
93	* MeetTheNewBoss: [[spoiler:When Atari and his new cabinet come into power, one of the laws we see them working on is suggesting the Death Penalty for anyone being even mean to a dog. Luckily this is subverted when they disagree with that charge and simply suggest community service and a heavy fine instead]].
94	* MightyWhitey: Amid a canine influenza outbreak in a dystopian Japanese city, a white American exchange student and pro-dog activist leads the investigation of a conspiracy that [[spoiler: the city's authoritarian, cat-loving mayor created the flu as part of a plot to annihilate all of the city's exiled dogs. The student later helps a pack of dogs expose the mayor's corruption by recovering the serum that cures the dog flu.]]
95	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone:
96	** [[spoiler:Kobayashi]] experiences this, admitting he had been acting without honor.
97	** Chief also feels this way while revealing that [[spoiler:he bit a child so hard that the boy ended up in the hospital, feeling that he has to be a stray to keep that from happening again]].
98	* MythPrologue: The opening shows Jupiter narrating the legend of the first clash between free dogs and the cat-loving Kobayashi clan, whose leader is beheaded by a boy warrior who chooses to protect the dogs, foretelling the modern-day struggle between the Trash Island dogs and Kobayashi's regime.
99	-->'''Jupiter:''' At the end of the bloody dog wars the vanquished mongrels became powerless house-pets: tamed, mastered, scorned. But they survived and multiplied. The Kobayashis, however, never forgave their conquered foe.
100	* {{Narrator}}: Creator/CourtneyBVance narrates the film.
101	* NoFlowInCGI: No Flow in Stop-Mo: Not so much averted as shot in the head and left in the dirt. The animators certainly earned their overtime pay on this one.
102	* NoPartyLikeADonnerParty: When asked if he eats other dogs, Gondo responds by saying that [[spoiler:it happened only one time because their former pack leader was sick. Faced with either surviving or dying, they had no choice but to eat him]]. Gondo is not proud of this fact, and he howls in sorrow along with the other dogs.
103	* ObviouslyEvil: Kobayashi and his co-conspirators are all very overtly sinister-looking, particularly the gaunt, skeletal Major Domo.
104	* OnceDoneNeverForgotten: Spots encounters the infamous cannibal dogs on the island and asks if they're going to eat him. Their leader, [[FaceOfAThug Gondo]], is indignant that other dogs think of them as only cannibals, admitting that they only ate one dog one time, and that was because of their former leader being stuck in a coma, and the choices were either eat him to live or starve. Gondo takes this pretty hard since the dog they ate ''was his best friend''.
105	* OnscreenChapterTitles: The movie is divided into chapters by the use of title cards.
106	* PatchworkMap: {{Invoked\|trope}} [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-6Fz5F-6XE by the filmmakers]]; many sections of Trash Island are very sorted and built up of one type of trash, many of them having their own distinct colors (areas of white paper, brown rusty cars, black TV screens, etc.).
107	* ThePlace: The movie's title.
108	* ThePowerOfLove: Mayor Kobayashi's love for Atari [[spoiler:ultimately makes him renege on his promise to the dog-hating clan, admitting his corruption, and calling off the strike]].
109	* PunBasedTitle: While never officially confirmed, "Isle of Dogs" sounds suspiciously like "I love dogs" when said aloud.
110	* PuttingOnTheReich: Kobayashi has giant monolithic posters of his face everywhere and takes advantage of a crisis to consolidate vast amounts of political power, [[spoiler:a crisis that he deliberately created to begin with for exactly this purpose, as is commonly theorized about the Reichstag Fire. His ultimate endgame is the mass poisoning of every dog in Megasaki]].
111	* RetroUniverse: Despite being set [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture 20 years from now]], the technology seen in the film has a very deliberately outdated, pre-WWII {{Zeerust}} look to it, not to mention having experimental jets and incredibly advanced robot dogs [[SchizoTech existing alongside black and white CRT TVs and now-vintage cars]]. Considering that real-life western society in 2018 features gramophones and magnetic tape returning to popularity, plug-and-play versions of old video game systems becoming hot-selling items, and retro-ness in general becoming more "in" than ever before, the assumption seems quite reasonable.
112	* TheReveal: Once Atari gives Chief a bath, it turns out [[spoiler:Chief is not a black dog with bits of white, but a white dog with bits of black. This proves to be a heavy bit of {{Foreshadowing}} as even Chief points out the resemblance between himself and Spots. They are long-lost brothers]].
113	* RippedFromTheHeadlines: One location in the film is a ruined nuclear power plant which is said to have been destroyed by an earthquake, a tsunami, ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill and a volcano]]'', resulting in toxic nuclear material being spilled and creating an uninhabitable wasteland. This is essentially a much more disastrous version of the real-life [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster Fukushima disaster]].
114	* RobotDog: Kobayashi has been developing them following the exile of the real dogs, both to serve as new pets, and to serve the police to track and fight targets.
115	* RunningGag:
116	** "You heard the rumor, right, about ____?" This later leads to a BrickJoke where the rest of the pack [[LampshadeHanging asks Duke where exactly he hears all these rumors]].
117	** Rex repeatedly taking charge and offering a direct plan of action, and Chief snapping that one dog alone does not lead them, they all do (followed by a vote in which he is the only dissenting opinion).
118	** Nutmeg performing one of her old show dog tricks, describing the items she's supposed to be performing them with, leading to Chief [[ImagineSpot imagining the scenario]] and responding with "Yeah, I can picture it."
119	** The dogs sneeze plenty of times in the movie since sneezing is a symptom of snout fever.
120	* SailorFuku: Younger characters sport the more traditional school uniform, including Tracy.
121	* SceneryPorn: It's a Wes Anderson movie, ''[[SignatureStyle duh]]''.
122	* SeparatedAtBirth: Surprisingly, [[spoiler:Chief]] and [[spoiler:Spots]].
123	* ShoutOut:
124	** To Japanese cinema, particularly the films of Creator/AkiraKurosawa:
125	*** Mayor Kobayashi resembles actor Creator/ToshiroMifune, specifically from ''Film/{{High and Low\|1963}}''.
126	*** A guitar tune from ''Film/DrunkenAngel'' is played a few times.
127	*** The theme to ''Film/SevenSamurai'' is also played.
128	*** The laboratory scenes and decor are reminiscent of such scenes from the ''Main/{{Kaiju}}'' films.
129	** The song "Tokyo Shoeshine Boy" was in the movie ''Film/{{MASH}}'' and ''Manga/{{Akira}}''.
130	** An old boat stuck high up on a rock is identical to the one that decorates Walt Disney World's Typhoon Lagoon water park.
131	** Trash Island has massive similarities to the Earth as depicted in Disney-Pixar's ''[[WesternAnimation/WallE WALL•E]]''.
132	** The Island is also a Shout-Out to Japan's real-life [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashima_Island Hashima Island]].
133	** Tracy resembles ComicStrip/LittleOrphanAnnie.
134	* SigilSpam: Since long ago the Kobayashi clan had a great conflict with dogs, and ended up cast as the villain in legend, they've taken the cat as their symbol. ALL Kobayashi buildings (including government buildings because Kobayashi has been mayor for some time) have a cat's head logo adorning them.
135	* SlowElectricity: When Major Domo presses the BigRedButton, its signal travels slowly across the wire.
136	* SplitScreen: Swiftly used when the task force shuttle crashes onto the island.
137	* StatingTheSimpleSolution: Right before fighting a rival dog tribe over a bag of garbage, Rex suggests they look at what's inside the bag to see if it's even worth fighting for. At first, it seems to work, but then Chief declares that it's worth fighting over anyway.
138	* StealthPun:
139	** The title sounds like "I love dogs" when said quickly.
140	** Atari gives Chief a bath, [[spoiler:washing away all the grime that made him a black dog with white spots, and [[RuleOfSymbolism making him a white dog with black spots]]. He's "white-washing" Chief's crimes as a vicious dog with a bite history]].
141	* StringTheory: Tracy has a wall in her room with paper clips connected by strings.
142	* SyntheticPlague: [[spoiler:Dog flu was invented by Kobayashi pharmaceuticals to give the dynasty a pretext for removing all the dogs]].
143	* TalkingIsAFreeAction: Averted; although he's clearly the most perceptive and aware dog in the pack, Rex is still blindsided no less than ''three times'' when he gets carried away with his own monologues.
144	* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: The poisoned wasabi.
145	* TechnicolorScience: The lab that produced the dog flu features flasks of various colors on its shelves.
146	* ThatMakesMeFeelAngry: While telling his backstory about being a former mascot, Boss remarks matter-of-factly, "I've lost all my spirit, I'm depressing."
147	* ThemeNaming: All of the main [[FiveManBand Five-Dog Band]] have names that are titles of authority: King, Duke, Boss, Chief, and Rex (Latin for "King.") This gets lampshaded in the RunningGag of Chief saying one dog does not get to lead all the others, and they have to put an idea to a vote.
148	* TheresNoKillLikeOverkill:
149	** [[spoiler:The amount of poison in the ''very'' tiny bit of wasabi Professor Watanabe barely licks is stated to have 10x the amount of poison needed to stop the heart of a ''whale'']].
150	** [[spoiler:Mayor Kobayashi is later seen getting ready to deploy barrels upon ''barrels'' of it to Trash Island. No matter how many dogs are on Trash Island, that is wildly unnecessary]].
151	* ThickerThanWater: Mayor Kobayashi, when confronted by [[spoiler:Atari, chooses to un-stamp the trash island decree, due to his love for his nephew and the fact that Atari chose to take a more peaceful resolution than in the original fairy tale; and he also chooses to donate his kidney to Atari, knowing full well that he will lose all his political power in doing so]].
152	* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Each of the five main dogs discuss their favorite meal.
153	** Rex says that his favorite food is a double portion of Doggy Chop from the can mixed into a bowl of broken Puppy Snap treats with a vitamin crushed up into it. Though he does say that since his master wasn't rich, it wasn't a daily meal.
154	** King mentions that his favorite food is center cut Kobe ribeye, seared on the bone with salt and pepper. He says that it's his birthday supper every year.
155	** Boss's favorite food is hot sausage, yakitori style. He mentions that the snack vendor at the baseball games often saves him one on game days.
156	** Duke says that his favorite food was green tea ice cream, adding that he probably inherited a sweet tooth from his master.
157	** Chief denies having a favorite food, saying that he's used to leftovers and garbage. [[spoiler:It's later revealed that back when he was a pet, his favorite food was actually homemade hibachi chili (which he tried after biting a child), and he switches to Puppy Snap treats when Atari offers him one]].
158	-->'''Chief:''' Crunchy... salty... supposedly, it cleans your teeth. This is my new favorite food.
159	* TranslationConvention: The movie loves [[PlayingWithATrope playing with this]]. The prologue [[LampshadeHanging explicitly points out]] that "all of the dog's barks have been translated into English," but leaves the human-spoken Japanese unsubtitled, effectively putting the audience in the same linguistic shoes as the dogs (assuming they speak English and not Japanese). Also, there are in-universe news interpreters that translate into English, as well as characters who either speak it natively or in [[GratuitousEnglish quick passing]].
160	* TrashLanding: Rex (and presumably the other dogs) is air-dropped to Trash Island.
161	* TravelMontage: A montage of shifting backgrounds as Atari and the dogs travel across the island.
162	* VerbalTic: The dogs will sometimes sneeze before, during, or after talking. It's mentioned as a symptom of dog flu.
163	* VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory: In 1911, the [[UsefulNotes/{{Istanbul}} City of Istanbul]] exiled its entire stray dog population to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sivriada Sivriada]], a small island in the Bosporus Strait. [[DownerEnding All 80,000 dogs perished there agonizingly]].
164	* WhatTheHellHero: Ironically, [[spoiler:it's the hero of our story (Chief) who is giving such a speech to ''another'' hero (Spots), the one they've been searching for. He calls out Spots for essentially wanting to give up his duty as Atari's guard dog because he has a new duty as the leader of the Aboriginal dogs, and he is going to be a father. And this is despite what Atari went through to find his dog, something none of the Megasaki residents even bothered to try]].
165	* WorthIt: Before the dogs fight, Rex suggests [[StatingTheSimpleSolution opening the sack of leftovers first to see if it's worth fighting for]]. His pack and the other pack agree, and they open it up. Rex describes all that's in the sack, and it's only when Rex mentions a gizzard that Chief declares "Okay, it's worth it," and the two packs immediately start fighting.
166	* WorthlessTreasureTwist: {{Discussed\|Trope}} and {{defied\|Trope}} by Rex, who suggests opening the sack of leftovers ''before'' fighting over it, since it would be a shame to resort to violence only to learn their prize wasn't actually worth the pain.
167	* {{Yakuza}}: One of the groups in on the Kobayashi conspiracy is the local yakuza, in charge of public opinion via intimidation and misinformation. The mayor is also shown to have yakuza tattoos.
168	* YouMakeMeSick: Chief to the pack of dogs regarding their apparent lack of courage.
169	-->'''Chief:''' You all make me sick! (''[[VomitIndiscretionShot pukes to the side]]'') I've seen cats with more balls than you dogs!
170	* YouMustBeThisTallToRide: A sign in front of the helter-skelter. Atari doesn't care.

Context WesternAnimation / IsleOfDogs