By Jonah Gray
“Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey” is a 1993 Disney movie and a family-friendly classic starring three charismatic critters on their adventure through the Sierra Nevada mountains. From fantastic voice acting and beautiful wilderness to love and loss, this movie was just as exciting to watch as an adult as the first time I saw it as a child.
Our cast of creatures are the three pets of the Burnford-Seaver family. Unfortunately, when Dad brings the family to San Francisco for work, their apartment cannot accommodate a family of five plus three pets. Instead, our heroes are dropped off at a family member’s ranch for the two-week trip. Spoiler alert: the pets do not stay at the ranch for two weeks.
Our three main characters are Sassy, the Himalayan cat, voiced by Sally Field; Shadow, the golden retriever, voiced by Don Ameche; and finally, our fun-loving, and sometimes selfish, main character, Chance, the American bulldog, who’s excellently voiced by Michael J. Fox.
Sassy is fittingly named and embodies every cat stereotype you can imagine. She’s proper, uptight and loathes getting wet.
Shadow is our wise leader and is everything you would want in a dog. He’s calm, collected and clever. Chance describes him as “faithful, loyal and a chump.” Unfortunately, Chance isn’t far off.
Shadow’s biggest flaw may be his loyalty. Due to his inability to stay put for two weeks while the family travels, he leads the three on an unnecessary adventure through the mountains. You have to have some respect for him, though, because his reckless choices resulted in a fantastic movie.
Chance is the young, energetic pup that provides plenty of comic relief. He was an apprehended stray who was adopted by the Burnford-Seaver family.
Chance is constantly getting into trouble both at home and in the wild. He loves eating things he’s not supposed to and sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong, and each time, it results in a memorable moment.
When placed into the Sierra Nevada wilderness, these three work together to cross rivers, collect food and thwart mountain lions, and they even manage to be unexpected heroes. Shadow even takes this adventure as an opportunity to train Chance by teaching him valuable lessons in patience, selflessness and loyalty to their humans. If there was a coming of age film about a dog, this would be Chance’s.
Although I grew up watching this version of the story — a favorite among my brothers when we went to Grandma and Grandpa’s for the weekend — you may be familiar with the 1963 movie sharing a similar title, “The Incredible Journey,” or even the 1961 book written by Sheila Burnford, also called “The Incredible Journey.”
All three of the stories share most of the central ideas. Each story has a cast of three family pets: a cat, an old dog and a young pup. The stories also share the “incredible journey” these three pets endure to reach their human owners.
It had been years since I’d watched this movie, and it still brought me the same joy as when I saw it as a kid. Maybe it’s because of the warm memories it elucidates of my brothers, my grandparents, root beer in chilled mugs and buttery popcorn popped in a Stir-Crazy popper.
“Homeward Bound” became a viewing staple for us as kids. We watched it so much that we wore out the VHS tape and had to replace it with a DVD. This movie is worth a watch for anyone looking for a light, fun adventure movie.
“Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey” is rated G and available for streaming on Disney+ and for rent on Amazon Prime.
