I just finished watching it on iTunes. I do think they meant to imply that Crusoe ate Churchill, but I'm glad they didn't show it on screen. I would have preferred it, though, if they'd rounded things out by making it clear one way or the other. I did feel unsettled by not knowing for sure.
As for whether such a harsh reality is appropriate in a children's story, I think it is. As noted by sloopydrew, such elements have not been unheard of in children's books and movies. I feel there's always a way to convey troubling incidents so that children needn't be given nightmares, but are still exposed to the concepts of death and grief, or just plain scary stuff. Learning to cope with these things is an important part of growing up. Hey, the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz gave me the yips when I was 9, but my 6-year old sister and I willingly exposed ourselves to them as we fell asleep listening to an audio recording of the movie every night for about a year (around 1970). I love dogs, and Churchill was a beautiful bulldog, but in this story, the sea monster eating the dog who terrorized him from infancy makes perfect sense.
If only the cessation of Churchill's continuous barking had been preceded by a quick, off-screen yelp, I believe we'd feel a sense of closure on this one issue. I was even thinking that, after they showed Crusoe bearing down on Churchill, and the men realized they couldn't hear him anymore, it would have been good story-telling to then show Crusoe spitting out Churchill's leather collar as he hovered above Sgt. Strunk's head (the cook who was also Churchill's master), just before he picked him up and shook him like a rag doll. Remember how Crusoe spat out that piece of Angus' dad's shoe leather early on? I know his size at the end made it more than possible for him to swallow a hundred such collars in one gulp, but I think such a moment could have played well, and would certainly have helped put a period on the end of that paragraph. (But since a collar-spitting probably wasn't in the book, they wouldn't have done it even if they'd thought of it.)
By the way, if a plesiosaur (or whatever Crusoe was) shook a man like that in real life, the guy's spine would have snapped in two, let alone the bones that would have shattered when he got flung hard onto the shore. I mean, Strunk was not a young man! He should have had at least a broken pelvis or femur! But hey, I guess a dog (maybe) getting eaten off-camera is probably enough "reality" for a kid's story. Having Crusoe actually injure or kill a human would have painted him with a PG-13 brush instead of just PG.
Anyway, I really liked the movie, and I think it's fine for kids as young as 8, even with a dog being eaten by a sea monster.
*NOTE: Regarding the fate of the third man who was not seen again after Crusoe upturned the boat, I believe we are meant to assume he swam to shore and ran to safety. I just don't believe the director would have allowed a dead or injured human to go unaddressed. Certainly, Captain Hamilton would have been otherwise occupied than to help a sea monster escape to the ocean if one of his men had been killed.
Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.
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