In acting, they say you should never work with animals. Yet so many films have not only made use of them in various "supporting" roles, there are some cases where animals drive plots and even have top billing. The question to be posed here though is: what would happen if you were to remove the animals from these films? How would the plots change for the better or for the worse - or more precisely, what kind of horrifying change would that have on the other characters? With some films, you kind of get the impression that it might not change much. It's fair to say that if Bruce Wayne really wanted to be a masked vigilante, he'd have done it whether bats existed or not. He'd probably have just picked something else to represent him (maybe he'd have had a real fear of broccoli). But with the following films - if you take out the animals, then you're left with something much worse.
5. 101 Dalmatians (Without Dalmatians)
There's something just a little bit depressing right off the bat if you think of removing the dalmatians from this film; after all, live-action or animated, there really isn't much cuter than all those puppies. But what if Roger and Anita never got Pongo and Perdy? What if Dalmatians just plum didn't exist (actually, that's a much more depressing thought. Let's go with the first one instead, shall we?) For sake of ease, let's talk about the 1996 live-action version of the film. Roger and Anita would probably never meet for starters; Roger would continue unsuccessfully making video games and probably never make it big. Anita would likely continue her work for the House of De Vil - and here is the truly horrifying part. Cruella de Vil is only stopped thanks to the ingenuity and love Pongo and Perdy have for the puppies; without animals like that to deal with, there's no telling just how many animals she would likely capture in her quest for more and more fur. She would go totally unpunished, it would seem, as no human seems to dare stand up to her in the film long enough to make enough of an issue out of it. A modern day villain who couldn't be stopped...unless PETA managed to train some really clever fox parents, perhaps.