The Furthest Away

Madagascar, though ostensibly a children's movie, is a great parable about the search for the unknown. Marty the zebra is frustrated with his life in the Central Park Zoo. He wants to see the wild, but the other animals are satisfied with their existence. Through some unique circumstances, the gang ends up in Madagascar, in the wild, a situation to which each animal has a different reaction. Marty loves it and makes the most of it; Melman the hypochondriac giraffe worries about his health and material concerns; Gloria the hippo ends up going with the flow and making the most of it; and Alex the lion resists the new surroundings the longest of all....

In the end, the animals are about to set sail for home, but they are not going home as they once were. They have all been changed, but it is Alex, the furthest away, who seems to have changed the most.

[via Life of Turner]