What if Amblimation was still open?/Rise of the Guardians: The Untold Story of The Last Light

Rise of the Guardians: The Untold Story of The Last Light is a 2013 direct-to-disc traditional-animated action-adventure fantasy comedy-drama film produced by Amblimation and The Kennedy/Marshall Company. Distributed by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment and released July 16, 2013 on Blu-Ray and DVD, the film's main plot concerns two characters, Jack Frost and Jamie Bennett. Both characters have to deal with the reality of how cruel some adults can be to young children.

The movie was originally written to be a television movie/series pilot in four episode-length segments. The four segments (all of them are written by eight people) are titled "Portrait of a Child", "Breaking Apart is Easy to Do", "Leggo My Child-O", and "Jay and Jamie's Excellent Adventure".

While it did receive positive reviews for it's writing, animation, and voice acting, it also generated a significant amount of criticism and controversy from various media organizations and critics for it's portrayal of child abuse which, unusually for a studio like Amblimation, is portrayed in a very serious manner.

These four episodes aired as the four-part premiere of Rise of the Guardians: The Series. NBC aired the edited, shortened and separated versions of the four segments on September 19, 2013. It also had several scenes cut out, new scenes put in, and other scenes altered to make it more appropriate for broadcast on television.

Portrait of a Child
During the first day of spring break, Jack Frost visits Burgess to bring snow to town and to cure every child's boredom. While he is doing just that, Jamie and his friends decide to play a game of manhunt, but the former ends up going too far from his friends and meets two strangers who parked their van next to the park. The men try to persuade Jamie into going to the van by telling him that his mother is injured, but he refuses to. When Jamie's friends call out to him, the two men capture him and drive away, Jack Frost tries to stop them but ends up failing in the process, and Sophie ends up speaking briefly with the kidnappers before cutting her off.

The Bennett household calls the FBI to hopefully get Jamie back, but when they arrive, they say that the person must be missing for ninety-six hours before they could take action. (They also add that if Jamie isn't found before that time is up, he might vanish forever.) However, they are unable to act. Concerned by the government's actions, Pippa and Monty overhear this and collaborate with Cupcake and Sophie (who is trying to cope with her brother's disappearance) that they should act themselves.

Sneaking into a computer lab at school, the four decide to use Google Earth to trace Jamie and find a satellite image of him being grabbed by two strangers from earlier. Camouflaging themselves in the forest and confronting them with a picture of Jamie, Cupcake gets the men to reveal where they took him (complete with an address). The four children rush to an apartment where they think that he is being kept hostage, but when they find a person wearing Jamie's clothes, he reveals that he was taken away to a secret child slave auction in Miami. Meanwhile, Toothiana, Bunnymund, and Sandy find Jack Frost (who is upset about losing Jamie) and break the news that his friends are in grave danger and are trying to find him. This makes Jack more scared and upset in the process.

On their way to the auction, they slip inside with Sophie, Pippa and Cupcake all dressed up as a trio of victims but as they try to hide, the three girls are caught and are entered in the auction. They end up putting on a show where they dance to Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers. This forces Monty to buy them, but all four are discovered to be frauds when confronted to pay. As the four children become chained in an underground basement, Cupcake breaks free and overpowers the captors with the pipes they are chained to while Sophie finishes them off.

As they exit, they spot Jamie being rushed away in a box and try to intercept but the people who bought him evade them and rush the box into town. Stealing both a motorcycle and car, the four decide to split up in two's and try to find him. When the box is opened, Jamie finds himself delivered to a young man who is setting up some stuff in his own house and refuses to be his slave. The young man reveals that he bought him not to be a slave but to be in the night of the town and introduces him to some of his friends who are attending this event. The man convinces Jamie that if he declines to stay any longer he will be driven home by him. The young boy agrees to stay and is able to re-dress himself but ends up becoming interrupted by his friends and sister who are overjoyed to see him.

Jack Frost, Tooth, Bunny, and Sandy also reunite with the little boy but all of them are cornered by the Miami police department. Jamie tells the officers that it's okay and that there is nothing to worry about. He also tells them about the events that led him here and lets the police use a neuralizer on not only him but everyone who was with him, blanking memories of his own involvement in the process, and taking him and his friends/sister to a hospital before taking the five back to their home safely.

Back in Burgess, the families are happy to see their children again. However, in the Bennett household, Jamie tells his mom that he realized his own lonely existence in the world and wishes that there were some people (apart from his friends) that he could relate to. At the end, he says that it is good to be back home and that the events that happened to him would not have any long-term repercussions.

Breaking Apart is Easy to Do
Several hours after the police use a neuralizer on them, Jack Frost is the last to wake up and panics about where Jamie is. Toothiana and Bunnymund calm him down and tell him that he's safe at home with his mom and sister. They also told him that his friends were in grave danger but North told them the good news that they are fine. Jack slowly breaks down into tears and says that it was his fault. North, Tooth and Bunny protest that it's not his fault. Jack yells out that they don't know what he thought these people were going to do to Jamie and tells them about what happened when trying to save him and that they were trying to violate the rules that North recently told him never to do. He soon erupts into a mixture of anger and grief as he explains that, while it seems to him that the Guardians aren't aware that actions have consequences on others and that they don't seem to care about children, he cares about his first believer more than anything and when he loses him in the future, he will be left alone as a nobody. This bursts him into tears. After a few seconds, North tells him, "Do you want to talk about it?". Jack yells out a long and aggressive "NO!" in response.

More coming soon!

Televised version and changes
NBC aired the movie on September 19, 2013. As foretold in the audio commentary, many scenes were heavily edited and/or altered: