Blazing Away (film)

Blazing Away is a 2018 animated adventure film directed by Della Saba and starring Madeleine Peters, Alyssa Milano, Alex Crossman, and Christian Warbeck. It is a spin-off movie to the Doraemon Tales franchise. It was released on the 1st of December 2018.

The film mainly focuses on Lightning Blaze and his desire to be a wild and free fox.

Plot
The film opens with the crane shot of a blue and white parachute, and the scene shifts through the streets of New York, where preparations for Independence Day are taking place everywhere.

Doraemon and the foster home group walk by talking, with all the animals accompanying. Lightning Blaze is the only one on a leash, and he ignores the others and tries to chase after a dragonfly but is pulled away by Uncle Grady. Lightning Blaze fidgets around at the house and runs to every window trying to get out but they are all shut by Claire, causing him to climb on a table and stare dolefully outside. He turns to Lightning Dash who tells him to get down from there before he breaks something. Lightning Blaze asks him to convince someone to open the window, but when Lightning Dash merely ignores him he gets angry and throws a pillow at him. Lightning Dash chases after Blaze and hits a grand piano almost knocking down a vase, and Grady calls out that “he hopes they’re not making a mess in there”. Dash sighs and tells Blaze to go play with Indi, to which he agrees. But he ends up making a huge mess in the living room while chasing a ball thrown by Indi, making Uncle Grady angry. He chains him to a dog house outside (fox house?) and, Kazu, Suzuko and Shadow stare from a window. Kazu is feeling sorry for him but Shadow says he deserved it, and proceeds to give a lecture on rules but Shizuka covers her mouth.

Later, Blaze is howling outside deliberately and making a racket. He doesn’t see Lightning Dash behind him and jumps in surprise when he puts down some food. Blaze pokes around at it but doesn’t eat. Dash tries to reason with him and explain that he can’t always do whatever he wants whenever he wants, but Blaze protests that he always gets blamed for everything. He tells Dash that he wished he was a wild fox.Dash says that the outside world was dangerous and they were only trying to protect him. Blaze stubbornly stands by his viewpoint and he shouts at him about always having to follow rules and that tying him up to a kennel wasn't any protection. Fed up, Dash becomes angry and shouts back at Blaze then storms back into the house, leaving a sulky Lightning Blaze in the kennel. Almost as soon as Dash had gone Blaze hears howling and barking outside. He pokes his head through the fence and sees a pack of stray animals (an Alsatian, a Flemish rabbit, a cat, a brown bear, a Dean fox, and a python) chasing after and annoying a stray catcher from the animal pound, who is after them with a net. Blaze watches in fascination and the Dean fox sees him and barks slightly, causing the others to notice him. They ask him to come out but he says he can’t, and they realize he is chained. Meanwhile the Alsatian had grabbed the stray catcher’s hat and it flies over the fence, landing in front of Lightning Blaze. He excitedly carries it back to the Dean fox, who giggles. Blaze gazes as they ultimately outwit the stray catcher and steal his hat with the Alsatian leading them. As they walk away Lightning Blaze tries to break free from his chain and tries to jump above the fence, but nothing works. Fed up with his life, Lightning Blaze imagines a world without fences or boundaries for himself. He eventually pulls at the chain so hard that it breaks free. Blaze gives a whoop of joy and then turns to the house and mutters that they can’t tell him what to do anymore. He digs out under the fence and runs across the street looking for the stray animal pack he had seen earlier.

Lightning Blaze finally manages to find one of them in an alley chasing rats. He slowly walks up behind her and takes a deep breath. The Dean fox notices him, smiles to herself and keeps on rummaging in a trash can. Blaze walks up to the trash can next to her and tries to make conversation. The Dean fox introduces herself as Angel. Angel then proceeds to pull a trick by jumping along a box, sliding over the top of some sacks and knocking down an entire trash can all in one go, and says “any wild fox would know how to do that”. Lightning Blaze is in awe at first but then says that it was kid stuff and proceeds to do it himself. He however ends up under the trash can. Angel giggles and tells him that he doesn’t belong on the street and he won’t last five minutes out here. Blaze is indignant but he follows her to a junkyard, where he sees the rest of the strays all doing whatever they want here and there, getting dirty, breaking things on purpose, and chewing on hats. Blaze is delighted and randomly joins them and starts howling, but the others notice him and things become awkward. They recognize him as the fox they had seen chained up and are about to welcome him but the Alsatian shows up and demands his name and where he came from. Blaze confidently introduces himself and says that he wants to wild and free, and the Alsatian, who introduces himself as Buster, says that not just anybody can join their gang and he had to have what it takes. Buster chuckles and decides to put Lightning Blaze to a test, which is going into an alley and taking a can from a leopard asleep in there. The rabbit protests that the other animals never had to do anything like this, but Buster pushes them aside and eggs Blaze on. Lightning Blaze ventures into the alley and manages to take the can but trips over a hanging bed sheet, causing the leopard to wake up and growl. Lightning Blaze runs for it and the strays follow him as the leopard breaks into the junkyard. They run across the streets and meet the stray catcher yet again who immediately takes out his net. He manages to trap Angel, and Blaze jumps up and bites the net, then shakes it around causing the catcher to lose his grip and drop the net entirely. The catcher is led straight into the leopard and he traps him with a bigger net. He drags him to the van, locks him inside and heads for the pound with the Junkyard Pack and Lightning Blaze watching. The rabbit (called Francis) suddenly shouts that Blaze was a hero, he had rescued them from “that awful creature” and Angel thanks him for saving her life. Buster, however, is not very impressed and says that in the streets it’s every man for himself. Angel scowls at him but Buster takes no notice and says that he needs to put Lightning Blaze to another test.

Meanwhile, Kazu had walked out of the house to see Lightning Blaze but had discovered he was gone. He runs frantically inside the house shouting. Uncle Grady calls the pound and all the people they knew, but nobody had seen him. Lightning Dash looks doleful and Shadow assures him that he’ll be alright, while Laughterblast is fidgeting around the kennel. Kazu and Sammy then rush out arguing. Kazu is properly worried about Blaze while Sunetsugu is cackling about how much trouble Blaze will be in when he’s back home. He assures Kazu that since Blaze used to live in a forest he’ll be fine. Uncle Grady then calls them to go out searching, and they run out the front gate.

Lightning Blaze meanwhile is splashing about in puddles and running after the stray pack whooping. He goes up to Vanessa the python and tells her that he’ll be the best wild fox there ever was, but Vanessa chuckles and shakes her head. She says he’ll never be as good as the master and Blaze looks toward Buster in awe. He walks up to him and is about to ask him something when Buster suddenly says “Hey, by the way kid, if you’re gonna be wild, you gotta stick to it”. Lightning Blaze is confused and asks what he means, and Buster initially just walks away. Sparky the cat then jumps in and offers to tell Blaze the story. He tells him about another fox that had once lived on the streets with them, and was very smart and clever. He had one day gotten fed up of Buster and his supposedly evil ways and had left the strays to go back to his original home, in the Fourth Dimension. Buster jumps down from the rock he was sitting on and tell Blaze that according to this fox Buster was "evil" and "arrogant" and "selfish". He adds that the fox had abandoned all of them with this excuse and he was nothing but a traitor, so they shouldn't be talking about him. Lightning Blaze acts disgusted and says he would never betray him, and asks the name of this fox. Much to his astonishment, the fox they are talking about is Lightning Dash, and Blaze gulps. Angel at this point argues that Dash found a real family and was doing great, but Buster shuts her down and stands with his traitor theory. A fly sits on Blaze's back and he scratches it off, making Buster sit up. He squints at him and says that Lightning Dash used to scratch like that, and asks if they were related. Blaze at once says no, and Buster is satisfied. He however threatens Blaze by saying that if he were by any chance related to Dash, then he wouldn't have spared him. Blaze gulps again and gives him a weak smile.

Later at night Lightning Blaze is walking around some train tracks muttering to himself, still unable to believe that Lightning Dash once lived here and knew about the world beyond the fourth dimension. Angel comes up behind him, hears him muttering and asks if he was ok, and Blaze replies he’s fine. Angel then asks why he is out here when he has a family that loves him back home, and Blaze realizes that Angel actually envied him for having such a loving family. Blaze asks her if she ever had a family to which she replies that she had six families, but something would always happen such as moving houses, allergies or having a baby causing them to abandon her. Angel then begs him not to tell Buster because Buster dislikes what he calls “house-pets following the lead of humans”. Blaze assures her that her secret is safe,but asks why she wanted a family so bad when she had all the strays. Angel scoffs and says the strays were hardly a family but she didn't have any other choice. Blaze is slightly baffled and asks her what more she needed when she could do whatever she wanted as a stray. He then rants on about freedom, being able to do whatever you want, dig up flowerbeds, stay up late etc. and doesn’t notice a train coming behind him. Angel shouts at him to run and they both take off across the tracks. Angel jumps in a bush but Lightning Blaze gets his foot stuck in the train track, and calls for help. Angel runs up and frees him and with the train inches away from them, they jump in the lake below. Angel wades out of the lake and calls out for Lightning Blaze, but he is nowhere to be seen.

The search party had not gotten anything so far, and Shadow keeps picking up random scents. Kazu looks as if he’s going to burst into tears and Sammy comforts him, but now he doesn’t look so sure himself. Doraemon is unable to find any helpful gadget.

Shadow notices Dash pacing around and confronts him. She tells him to stop blaming himself and that Grady was also just as angry at Blaze as he was in the morning. Dash protests that if he hadn't yelled at him so much this morning then maybe he would still be here, and it was entirely his own fault. Shadowsky sighs and says he was only trying to discipline Blaze and no one knew this would happen, but Dash flatly disagrees and claims that Blaze must've thought no one cared about him, all because of their argument in the morning. Finally Claire calls them all back as it was getting late and they needed to go back home.

Meanwhile Lightning Blaze wades out of the lake and Angel runs up to him and says she was so worried. Lightning Blaze smirks and says “So...worried?” causing Angel to slightly blush. They walk off in the streets together and get into mischief, chase after fireflies, rustle through flowerbeds, walk through a park and finally eat spaghetti at an Italian restaurant, where Angel licks Lightning Blaze’s face and affectionately nuzzles him.

Afterwards, they are both chasing a squirrel, and they end up at Lightning Blaze’s neighborhood. Lightning Blaze recognizes his house and notices the gate open, and suddenly sees his family coming towards them. He quickly hides in a bush and drags Angel along.

As they pass the bush Lightning Dash recognizes the scent and starts sniffing around the bush. Doraemon asks what’s wrong and Dash claims he can scent Lightning Blaze. Blaze retreats even further in the bush, causing a bird who had nested in there to fly out. Dash sighs, thinking it was only the bird he scented. Angel is still confused but then Grady calls out for them to come back, and tells Dash they’ll find his brother tomorrow. Angel realizes that Blaze had lied about not being related to Lightning Dash and runs over to the house when they had gone in. Lightning Blaze cautiously follows and peeks in through a window. He sees everyone looking gloomy and baby Indi sobbing. Namit hands her a picture of Blaze and Indi hugs it in her mother’s arms. Lightning Blaze’s ears droop and he mutters that he didn’t think they’d miss him that much. Angel becomes annoyed and says she couldn’t believe he’d run away from a home like this, and Blaze tries to tell her how awful it was. Angel, fed-up, sarcastically replies that it must have been awful to have someone care about you that much. Blaze tells her that he wants to wild and stay with the Junkyard Pack, and that was where he belonged. Angel, annoyed again, retorts that he did not belong there at all and he was better than that, and that was what she liked about him. She sighs and walks away, with Lightning Blaze following.

The next day, it’s Independence Day with a fair being held in the district. Doraemon and the gang are all there but none of them in the mood for celebrating. Buster is roaming around and he suddenly notices Lightning Dash. He growls to himself at first, but then he sees Lightning Dash scratching himself. He turns around and sees Lightning Blaze scratching himself in the same way. He chuckles menacingly, muttering “I knew it…”. He then calls Lightning Blaze over and tells him that it was time for his final test. Blaze is excited at first but then Buster points to his family and says “See that family?”. Blaze is terrified and points to some other family saying “You mean THAT family, over there?”. Buster shakes his head and indicates straight towards Doraemon and the rest, making Blaze more scared than ever. Buster than instructs him that he needed to run there and wreck their picnic to prove himself, and Angel gasps and says that he didn’t have to prove anything, and tells him to walk away. Buster tells her to pipe down and sees Blaze gulping. He then drawls in a bored voice “Sheesh! Once a house pet, always a house pet”. Blaze becomes annoyed at that, and runs off towards his family leaving Buster chuckling. Lightning Blaze hides behind a rock watching them for some time. He prepares to attack, wreck all he can and bolt off before anyone even knew he was there. He takes a deep breath and viciously attacks. Hearing his barks, they all turn around in delight but Blaze kicks at the food, breaks a couple of bowls and upturns a basket. He is about to bolt off but Lightning Dash gets in his way and growls. Blaze takes off running the other direction with Dash following behind before anyone knew what was happening. Lightning Blaze is running at top speed when Dash takes flight and pounces on him, but he wriggles out and yet again runs into that annoying stray catcher, knocking him over. Blaze retreats to the left in an alley. Dash doesn’t see him and keeps running up front. Lightning Blaze sighs in relief and mutters to himself that he lost him, but Dash suddenly appears from the other direction frowning. Blaze frantically tries to open a gate and escape, while Dash tells him to slow down. Blaze obstinately protests that he wasn’t going home and he couldn’t make him, and Lightning Dash replies in a bored voice that no one was taking him anywhere. He asks him how life was on the streets and Blaze goes into a rant describing how great it was, when Buster suddenly appears with the rest of the pack and scoffs at Dash. Dash glares at him and says how he hadn’t changed a bit, to which Buster merely grins. Dash tries to explain to Blaze that Buster was bad news, and Buster becomes angry and says Blaze can choose his own opinions. They get into an argument with Blaze looking scared in the middle until Dash steps up in front of him and says he knows what’s best for him. Lightning Blaze becomes angry and shouts that Lightning Dash only knew what was best for himself. Dash, Angel, and the other strays all gasp while Buster chuckles. Dash, disappointed, says that there were probably some things he had to learn by himself, and their door was always open when he had had enough. He then leaves by jumping over the gate. Buster then walks back to the junkyard and breaks the news to Blaze that he was now a successful wild and free animal. Lightning Blaze, only too delighted, rampages around the junkyard before coming face to face with Angel, who is frowning at him. Angel tells him off and asks how he could do that when Dash was his brother, and tells him to go after him. Blaze flatly refuses and says this was all he ever dreamed of. Angel knocks down a trash can and asks if he was seriously dreaming about this. She starts scolding him causing Blaze to get annoyed, and he accidentally reveals that Angel wanted to be a “house-pet”. Buster pricks up his ears and confronts Angel, who confesses that it was true. Buster at once kicks her out saying she doesn’t belong here, while the other strays try to call her back. Angel, however, gives Lightning Blaze one last glare and disappears out the gate. Blaze is definitely not happy and he runs out looking for Angel, who is hiding. Buster sees him looking dismal, and sees the stray catcher coming from the other side of the road. He smiles to himself, and grabs Francis the rabbit and puts him out in the road for the stray catcher to see. He at once takes out the net and Francis hops all the way across the road until Buster suddenly grabs him from behind a fence, leaving the catcher looking around.

As Buster had planned, Francis had unknowingly led the catcher straight to Lightning Blaze. He spots him roaming around at once and chases him. Blaze gets tangled in a clothesline, and barks frantically. He sees Buster standing nearby and calls for him to help, but Buster merely walks away. Francis tries to go and help him but Buster pulls him back. The stray catcher easily grabs Blaze and shuts him in the van. Blaze tries to open it but he is unable to reach the lock.

Lightning Blaze realizes Dash was right all along about Buster and blames himself for being so stupid. He wishes to be home with his family while Angel is roaming around with nowhere to go.

While the van is on its way to the pound Angel suddenly spots Lightning Blaze in the van, and Blaze tells her to get out before the catcher got her too. Angel runs straight to Lightning Blaze’s house, where Stephen and Lightning Dash are out sitting on the front steps. Angel quickly tells Dash that Blaze was captured and they run off to rescue him.

Meanwhile, Blaze has unfortunately been put in the same cell as that leopard in the pound. The leopard immediately tries to attack him but is chained to the wall. He breaks the chain and attacks Blaze just as Dash and Angel come flying in. They open the cage and Dash growls at the leopard. The leopard knocks Lightning Dash unconscious causing Lightning Blaze to become angry and he and Angel both attack the leopard. Lightning Dash wakes up and bites the leopard, telling Blaze and Angel to get out. He then flies out of the cage and shuts the door on the leopard. They are about to go home when the catcher appears at the doorway with a net and proceeds to trap them. Angel bites him from behind, causing him to hit his head and become unconscious.

After getting out, Lightning Blaze apologizes to Dash for running away, and Dash smiles and nuzzles him. Blaze then remembers there was one last thing he had to do, and he heads to the junkyard.

Buster is amazed to see him, and Blaze confronts him and says that he can keep his stray life. He then kicks a can at a pile of trash causing it to avalanche over Buster, trapping him. The other animals realize that Buster is a hypocrite and they leave him under the trash and go to find families of their own. Lightning Blaze returns home with Dash.

It is already dawn, and Grady, Claire, and the kids are sitting around outside waiting for them. Laughterblast and Shadow hear barking and commotion, and run to the gate just as Blaze comes running in. Delighted to see Blaze again, they hug him and Blaze licks all of their faces. Indi hugs him the closest. Lightning Blaze is displeased after Grady says he reeks and needs a bath, but he assures him they’ll just worry about that later.

Angel, meanwhile, watches Lightning Blaze reunite with his family and is happy for him, but can’t help feeling a pang of sorrow as she has no place to go. She turns to return to the streets. Lightning Blaze sees her turning away and barks, jumps from Grady’s arms and goes towards her. Grady tries to summon Angel, who shyly walks beside Lightning Blaze and goes up to Grady. Grady strokes her and asks if she had helped Lightning Blaze out in the lonely streets, to which she happily barks. Indi hugs her too and Angel jumps into her arms. Claire looks towards Grady and wonders if they could keep her, but Grady refuses at first as they had enough animals for now. He then sees the kids making doleful faces, and he tries to refuse again but eventually gives in, saying “Oh, what’s the use? Welcome to the family, Angel,”.

The next scene shows Angel being put down by Claire after a bath among the other animals, and she is wearing a pink bow around her neck. Blaze is being given another bath which he’s mad about. The scene shifts out of the window and to the sky and fades to black.

Cast

 * Madeleine Peters as Lightning Blaze, a mischievous Red Glider fox who wants to be wild and free.
 * Ty Simpkins provides his singing voice in the song I Didn’t Know That I Could Feel This Way
 * Alyssa Milano as Angel, a witty and sarcastic Dean fox who wants to be part of a loving family.
 * Alex Crossman as Lightning Dash, a Green Glider fox and the older brother of Lightning Blaze.
 * Crossman also voices Stephen
 * Christopher Malcolm as Uncle Grady, the foster uncle of the kids
 * Emma Warbeck as Aunt Claire, the foster aunt of the kids.
 * Kevin Hartman as Kazu/Streaker
 * Ty Simpkins as Sammy
 * Danielynn DeWaters as Shadowsky/Suzuko
 * Jayson Biggs as Doraemon
 * Ferrari J. Robinson as Indi, the one-year-old daughter of Aunt Claire and Uncle Grady.

The Junkyard Pack

 * Christian Warbeck as Buster
 * Mickey Rooney as Sparky the cat
 * Myles Stokowski as Francis the rabbit
 * Mandy Moore as Vanessa the python
 * Jared Fogerbakkes as Mooney the brown bear

Songs

 * A World Without Fences
 * I Didn’t Know That I Could Feel This Way
 * Always There

Production
The Walt Disney Company had been planning to release a spin-off series from the popular animated TV series Super Boy, which centered around Stanley. This, however, got cancelled due to the already upcoming live-action movie for the series, and the company thought Super Boy was getting too much hype. Doraemon however had been on a hiatus and had not been renewed for a fourth season yet since the Season 3 finale in November 2015. The company thought about making your typical Doraemon film with the usual four main characters. Della Saba, however, stated she was bored with that and wrote up a story script with Lightning Blaze as the main character, the others being very much in the background. Critics approved of the story and Saba herself was picked to direct Blazing Away.

Casting
The usual Doraemon voice actors reprise their roles in the film, but as it centered on Lightning Blaze a lot of the voice actors had less than half the lines they usually say, with Finn McCartney having no lines at all. Madeleine Peters, a usually-supporting voice actor, however found her usual role hugely expanded.

Ferrari J. Robinson also made his acting debut with the role of Indi.

Trivia

 * Blazing Away is the only film in the Doraemon franchise where neither Namit nor Laughterblast speaks a word. In other words, it's the only movie where Finn McCartney wasn't on set.