Heaven knows, why they would buy this picture in the first place. It's based on a german book series and it's musical adaptions, that have been touring germany since 1993, even going so far to hire a few of the cast, like Heinz Hoenig, who played Arktos (the villain) since 2003, and Rufus Beck, who voices the fatherly mentor character, here a Raven, in the musicals a character called "Der Magier" (the Magician). But back to the review. Why are the English distributors at fault? Because firstly , they wanted to trick parents into thinking that this was Disney's Frozen apparently. And how? They changed the main Character from Tabaluga (the dragon), to his love interest, who was the daughter of Arktos in the books. Secondly, the English dub is just horrible, im guessing that it was done in Canada, which is like the center of English voice dubbing. Dear citizens of America, Canada, the UK and other. If theres one thing you absolutely mess up every time (except for anime) is dubbing foreign movies and series. And for those who were expecting Pixar level animation, we don't do that here, Germany and animation is another whole subject, but in short: we aren't very good at it. The songs, which were written by german Rock Icon Peter Maffay and childrens entertainer Rolf Zuckowski, aren't all originally written for this movie but come from the books, where they are arranged much better, and don't sound so computery. To conclude, this movie only works, if you're german and grew up with Tabaluga.

Tabaluga the movie is based on the classic German media franchise of the same name created by German rock musician Peter Maffay. The series has been around since 1983 and is famous in Germany for its appealing stories, music albums, and cartoon series from 1997 to 2004. The brand has helped me a lot in my life. Tabaluga has always been there for me and been a friend despite being fictional. He really means a lot to me. This movie is based on the Tabaluga concept albums partically Tabaluga and Lily as well as the Tabaluga novel and other albums from his universe. In this movie Tabaluga is the last of the dragons growing up in Greenland. Arktos the ruler of iceworld killed both Tabalugas mom and dad and plans to do the same to our hero Tabaluga. Tabaluga is sadly teased and bullied by the other animals because hes a dragon with no fire. His only two real friends are his adoptive dad raven Kolk and the little Ladybug named Bully who is his sidekick. Tabaluga goes to iceworld to find his fire with Bully and ends up meeting Lily a beautiful girl made of ice he falls in love with. The two become a romance but Lily was created by Arktos. She takes him to arktos where he reveals his plans to kill Tabaluga. Tabaluga and his friends escape Arktos but he wont give up. He lies telling the iceworlders Tabaluga captured Lily. I really can relate to Tabalugas feelings at times in this film. Some of it is very comparable to Tabaluga and the magic jadestone from the 1980s by Chris Thompson. Another amazing thing about this movie is its soundtrack the Peter Maffay music is so catchy and many of the songs come directly from the Tabaluga albums. Some favorites that even make me tear up are Nessaja, and I feel like you the romantic song Tabaluga and Lily sing. I wont give away full spoilers but Arktos ends up capturing Tabalugas girlfriend Lily and in the end Tabaluga, Bully the bug, and Limbo the polar bear as well as Lily defeated Arktos for good. Save Greenland and the greenlanders and iceworld citizens become friends. Tabaluga finds his fire. Just like at the end of season 1 of the Tabaluga cartoon. This is my favorite animated movie of all time and always will be. For those who say it's not as good as the cartoon series I agree season 1 is the best Tabaluga, but at the same time this movie does a great job like season 1 of the cartoon making a very believable fun entertaining Tabaluga story. I know many characters are different then the Australian cartoon but that's because it's based on modern album source material as well for example unlike Happy Bunny in the cartoon its Bully the ladybug here. We need more films with messages like this in the world now. Films this good are rare.