20.08 - Included is a scene in which one of the Squirrels picks up an explosive device but throws it away at the insistence of Fox, only for it to explode near Mr. Pheasant and burn his tail feathers off. This was a good call continuity-wise, as Mr. Pheasant spends the remainder of his screen time with visibly charred tail feathers. Of course, since Journey Home never explicitly establishes that the animals are on military training ground, the appearance of an explosive device here seems a lot more random.
21.03 - As with the original series, we see an ominous shot of a human throwing a cigarette stub upon the grassland, and then cut to Mole asking Badger if he can get down from his back. Mole hints that he needs to urinate, as he "drank a lot of water with those worms", although seeing as how Journey Home missed out an earlier scene in which Mole is actually seen slurping down earthworms, this statement isn't given any context.
Journey Home cuts out much of the dilemma faced by Badger when he's required to take charge in Fox's absence, only not all of the party are accounted for - Adder still hasn't caught up with the others, and Mole has disappeared underground in pursuit of more earthworms. Missing is a scene with Badger panicking when he realises that Mole nowhere in sight and refusing to allow the other animals to begin fleeing without him. Gone also is Badger's eventual solution to allow Adder and Mole exactly two hundred heart beats to catch up with the rest of the party, otherwise they will be forced to leave them for dead.
22.31 - Adder makes it to the group in time, but the animals cannot afford to wait around for Mole any longer. As they begin to make their way through the smoke, Journey Home omits Owl's rather tactless efforts to console Badger using one of her pearls of wisdom: "He who can lose friends and home and still remain calm is beyond all grief."
23.29 - As Fox and Toad are reunited with the other animals, Journey Home adds in the sounds of an approaching fire engine siren.
Needless to say, Journey Home omits the scene in which Toad recounts how the fire started, and how fortunate the animals were that the winds were blowing the fire away from them, in the direction they had just traveled. No need to drop any hints about the Newts' grisly fate when they were never officially brought up in the first place.
23.39 - After Mole tunnels to the surface and begins weeping, believing that the other animals have all been wiped out in the fire, we hear the sounds of footsteps as one of the firefighters approaches, although the scene cuts away as soon as the human's boot looms into the view. In the original, the well-intentioned firefighter picks up Mole and places him in his pocket, from which he is later seen escaping. Journey Home implies that the human walked directly up to Mole, but either didn't notice him or didn't care.
Journey Home also leaves out a scene in which the animals are required to cross a causeway to an island in order to put a stretch of water between themselves and the fire - after Mole's (truncated) encounter with the firefighter, we rejoin the animals and find them already gathered upon the island.
25.50 - The scene fades out where Episode 3 ended, with a shot of the rain falling over the wetlands.
25.52 - Onto the events of episode 4. As with Episode 3, the opening scenes, which show the animals struggling to cross the muddied farmland in the rains, have been omitted, and the film picks up with them already making their way toward the barn.
28.56 - More film-exclusive sound effects - as the rains cease and the skies begin to clear over the farm, Journey Home adds in the sounds of a rooster crowing. In the original series, no such sound was heard and for very good reason. There, the farmer discovers that his chicken coop has been raided by a fox and promptly takes his anger out on Bruno for failing in his duties as a guard dog. The verbal abuse that Bruno endures has largely been excised from Journey Home - instead, it's the farmer merely calling to Bruno that is implied to have roused Mrs. Pheasant.
Mrs. Pheasant's death happens exactly as it does in the original, although all glimpses of her dead body are restricted to silhouette form, when the farmer holds it up to threaten Bruno. The close-up shot, as Owl observes the farmer carrying off her lifeless body, does not appear here.
In the original series, the farmer makes the rather foolish mistake of sitting down to a full roast dinner before returning to the barn with a fully-loaded shotgun, thus accounting for the luxurious amount of the time the animals have in which to pull off their escape plan. No such explanation occurs in Journey Home, so I guess we're to assume that he's just a really slow walker.
30.28 - Weasel's line, upon being hit by a wad of dirt from Mole's tunneling, is slightly different in Journey Home. Here, she sarcastically says, "Thanks for the warning!", whereas in the original she remarks, with a similar degree of sarcasm, "There's thanks for you!"
31.06 - We see a brief glimpse of Bruno growling at Adder, but Journey Home removes the verbal exchange between the two. In the original, Bruno comments that he would like to get his teeth into Adder, at which point Adder warns him, wittily, that her bite is worse than her bark.
32.09 - After Fox is seen clearing the tunnel, the film immediately cuts to a scene with the animals unwinding at the safety of the copse. Omitted from Journey Home is the second portion of their escape, in which they have to climb up a hillside with Bruno in hot pursuit. In the original, this leads to a confrontation between Fox and Bruno, during which Fox is finally able to persuade Bruno to back down by convincing him that it would not be worth his while to kill him.
33.54 - We're into Episode 5! Mr. Pheasant volunteers to go back for Adder, at which point the film immediately fades into the scene with him arriving at the farm. In Journey Home, he never actually explains his reasons for wanting to return to the farm (ie: to see his wife's final resting place), nor do we get any of the issues with the Hares rebuking him or him being such a terrible flier.
As the rat in the barn notices Adder sneaking up behind it and flees, its scream has been muted out for some reason.
Pheasant meets his end in much the same manner as the original series, only sans one very important element - which is to say, his wife's chargrilled body. We see no glimpse of it at all in Journey Home, possibly due to time constraints or, more likely, because it made the scene in question a little too gruesome for the editors' tastes. In Journey Home, it seems that Pheasant gets shot simply because he isn't bright enough to notice the human with a gun standing a mere few metres from him, although in the original series the circumstances leading up to his death were a bit more complicated - Pheasant couldn't see the farmer because his eyes were too welled up with tears.
35.13 - Reactions to that fateful gunshot are restricted to shots of the startled rooks taking flight from the trees and Badger turning and saying, "Oh, no!" We then immediately cut to a shot of dusk descending over the copse (no such shot occurs in the TV series - this is actually a reverse shot of dawn ascending), and fade out.
35.16 - We fade back in, and the animals are on the move once again, with Adder at their heels. As Fox explains:
"We left at sunrise. We knew we'd never see the Pheasants again. Even Adder, who'd found her way back from the farm. We had to stay clear of the humans, but only Toad knew which way to go."
This was a slight departure from the events of the original series, in which Adder did not make it back to the other animals alone, but rather was retrieved by Owl, who volunteered to go back after Pheasant's failed attempt. The two animals did not set out immediately, however, but instead lingered around the barn for much of the night, enjoying a borderline mutinous discussion over the crumpled body of a deceased rat. Turns out, Owl is still resentful that Fox was chosen as leader over her, and it's also evident that Adder enjoys stroking Owl's ego for her own amusement. This scene doesn't exactly go anywhere plot-wise, other than foreshadowing the animals' upcoming quandary as to who should assume leadership when Fox is separated from the rest of the group, so it's not too surprising that it was left out, although it does provide some nice (if rather dark) character-building for Owl and Adder.
Also removed from Journey Home are most of the scenes with the animals stuck at the copse. This includes animals befriending the local rook population, who invite them to stay permanently (some of the party are tempted, but Toad argues that there wouldn't be enough food to sustain them during the winter months), and Baby Rabbit's near-fatal encounter with a snare.
35.59 - Adder's bizarre moment of fourth wall-breaking is retained in Journey Home, as the animals approach the river and Toad assures them that it will be an easy cross. Adder remarks that "Toad's always so cheerful, isn't he?", with her gaze clearly directed at the viewer. In the original, Adder comments that "Toad is such an optimist, isn't he?", and her disdain is a lot more evident than in Journey Home, where she comes off as making more of a general observation.
41.14 - Here we get one of the more seamless transitions from one episode into the next, helped immensely by the fact that Episodes 5 and 6 close and open in the exact same way, with Toad pointing toward the river and saying, "Wait, look."
Very little of Episode 6 makes it into Journey Home, other than Badger's rescue and Kestrel's efforts to keep tabs on an unconscious Fox as he is carried down the river on a piece if driftwood. Gone is Mole's near-miss with the pike (which was pure filler anyhow) and the animals questioning who should take over as leader if Fox does not return.
43.25 - Kestrel explains to Badger how she followed Fox diligently before finally losing all trace of him. The animals are devastated, but Badger convinces them that the journey must continue in his absence.
Not included in Journey Home are some of the subsequent difficulties encountered when the animals attempt to continue their journey, including Toad's loss of direction and Mrs. Field-Mouse's unplanned pregnancy.
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