Chicken Run
Encyclopedia : C : CH : CHI : Chicken Run
- A chicken run is also an enclosed yard for keeping poultry.
Chicken Run tells the humorous story of a band of chickens who seek escape from their coop before their owners, mild-mannered egg farmer Mr. Tweedy and his overbearing wife, make them all into chicken pot pies. The film is an homage to the World War II prison films of the 1950s and 1960s (particularly The Great Escape, Stalag 17, and Escape of the Birdmen), but it alludes to numerous other films, including Braveheart, the Indiana Jones films, and Star Trek. (Perhaps ironically, the latter 4 films or film series were all released by Paramount Pictures, currently sister studio to DreamWorks after Viacom bought the latter in 2005.)
The star roles in the movie are those of Ginger (voiced by Julia Sawalha), a hen who has absolute faith that the chickens can fly out of the coop if only they train hard enough, and Rocky Rhodes (voiced by Mel Gibson), a rooster whom Ginger believes can fly, but who keeps the secret of his flightlessness from her for much of the film. Mrs. Tweedy (voiced by Miranda Richardson) is the nefarious, grasping farm wife whose exasperation at low profits from egg sales leads her to reinvent her farm as a chicken pie factory.
The film proved a success with both children and adults, and showed that Peter Lord and Nick Park had the ability to handle the technical and writing challenges posed by a feature film, and thereby serving as a test bed for the 2005 movie outing for Wallace and Gromit, .
Summary
A prison-like chicken farm is the setting in Great Britain. The farmer is on his watch checking the locks, while a small group of chickens stealthily make their way around. The farmer catches on and a lone chicken is thrown in a dumpster. The farmer lets out the warning "No chicken escapes from Tweedy's farm!"
Day and night pass by and the farmer takes the eggs while his nefarious wife checks progress. All the while Ginger (the lone chicken) makes new plans to escape which all end in failure. A new day begins and all the chickens stand for roll call while a male rooster babbles on about "his old RAF days". The wife, Mrs. Tweedy, frightfully checks all the chicken, marking down the eggs they have laid. One chicken, Edwina, hasn't laid any in week and is taken inside a shed. Ginger sneaks to see what happens, as Mrs. Tweedy takes an axe and decapitates her.
But the chickens aren't fazed. Ginger prepares a new plan to go over the fence, calling in two rats, Nick and Fetcher, to sneak in new stuff. Inside the house, the humans have eaten Edwina and Mrs. Tweedy angrily looks over the amount of eggs and wants a new way to make money. An ad catches her eye about a giant pie machine, with a small cartoon character shouting "I'M RICH!". Mr. Tweedy is keeping watch outside and suspects the chickens' plot, but Mrs. Tweedy shouts at him "They DON'T plot, they DON'T scheme, and they are NOT organized!!". The idea about going over the fence dosen't go well with the other chickens, but Ginger reminds them about Edwina. Outside, a huge blast is heard and a rooster flies over the fence, smashing into the camp. The chickens eagerly hide him and he introduces himself as Rocky Rhodes, a "lone free ranger" from America. Ginger asks him if he can teach them how to fly, but Rocky isn't so thrilled at the idea. Eventually, he reconciles when he sees the circus has come back to take him.
The next day, training begins very bizarrely as Rocky seems to have no idea what he's doing. Eventually the day ends without a single chicken making it off the air. A huge "Poultry Products" truck appears and unloads huge amounts of equipment. Mrs. Tweedy explains the idea to her husband and the farm will now officially become an full automated factory. Mac (a genius-kind of chicken) looks over her notes and concludes that chickens simply weren't built for flying. Ginger confronts Rocky about their poor progress and Mac deduces that they require thrust. Ginger warns Rocky that if they do not see progress, the deal is off and they will reveal his presence to the farmers.
The next morning, Rocky gets a cable wire and prepares to sling-shot the chickens over the fence, but that doesn't work out. Roll call begins and Babs (a knitting-obsessed chicken) hasn't laid any eggs, focusing more on the flying. Instead of getting chopped, Mrs. Tweedy checks her weight and doubles their food rations. Ginger stops them from eating and tells them that the farmers are deliberately fattening them up to kill them all in one stroke. To help out for once, Rocky manages to bring them a radio to cheer them up and lose weight from dancing. Rocky's bandages fall off and Ginger eagerly announces that he can finally show them how to fly tommrrow. Outside, the pie machine has completed construction and Mr. Tweedy brings Ginger in as the first victim and Rocky breaks her out, surviving the innards and sabotaging the machine. Fowler gives him an RAF medal and apologizes for doubting him. Both Ginger and Rocky share a tender moment on the roof, overlooking the fields.
The following morning, all the chickens eagerly await the flying demonstration. Ginger goes to wake Rocky, but he's gone, leaving his RAF medal. She finds a torn piece of Rocky's promotional poster and slowly adds it, revealing her horror to everyone. Completed, the poster shows a cannon; Rocky could never fly at all.
Their plans shot, Ginger gives up and denies any chance of escaping and all the chickens start fighting. Fowler tries to calm them down and Ginger finally asks him what the RAF is. Fowler tells them it is the "Royal Air Force" and shows them pictures of the airplane they flew in. Filled with hope again, the chickens still plan to fly, but now by building the huge plane. Even the rats help out as they pull apart their own huts to build the plane, racing against Mr. Tweedy who is rapidly fixing the machine. Rocky is once again on the open road, but stops when he sees a promotional advertisement for "Mrs. Tweedy's Homemade Chicken Pies".
In the end, the chickens finish the plane just as Mr. Tweedy finishes fixing the machine. They attack and tie him under one of the houses and finish construction. Fowler, as pilot, starts up the plane as all the chickens pedal to start the string engines. Mrs. Tweedy attacks Ginger and Rocky returns at the last moment to help out. The plane takes off and all the chickens cheer. Mrs. Tweedy manages to grab on, but Ginger cuts her rope and she flies right into the pie machine, which explodes destroying the barn. As Mrs. Tweedy looks upon the wreckage, Mr. Tweedy reminds "I told you, they were organized." As Mrs. Tweedy growls at Mr. Tweedy, ready to blame him once again, Mr. Tweedy crushes his defenceless wife with the farmhouse door.
At long last, the chickens have reached peace in their own small haven. Mac gives some baby chickens some lessons while Fowler tells them some stories. Ginger has apparantly mated with Rocky and the rats are still trying to make an egg business.
Trivia
- The plot of Chicken Run is quite similar to George Orwell's Animal Farm.
- The Large Dogs employed by Mrs. Tweedy to keep the Chickens in check may be partially based on those belonging to Miranda Richardson, the actress who played her.
- The film spoofs Star Trek at one point where Mac says "A 'cling-on' (read "Klingon") Cap'n, and the engines can't take it!"
- The kazoo march has become popular with high school bands.
- A Chicken Run video game was released for the Sega Dreamcast, Game Boy Color, PC, and Sony PlayStation. As the film featured a prison-like setting, the game featured stealth-based gameplay, much like the Metal Gear Solid series.
- The sequence in which Rocky and Ginger are trapped inside Mrs. Tweedy's pie-making machine and encounter various mechanical dangers is a parody of the three Indiana Jones films' various cliffhanger dangers and subsequent escapes.
- When Rocky is asked about his homeland, he begins to say "Oh, a little place I like to call the Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave...", to which Mac replies "Scotland!", a reference to Mel Gibson's role in Braveheart.
- There was a heavy push by voters to get Chicken Run nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, a la Beauty and the Beast (1991). Its failure to earn the nomination led to the creation of a Best Animated Feature Film award the next year, for which Shrek (also made by DreamWorks) won.
- The promo title featured on posters for the film, "C:R-1", was spoof of the promo title "M:I-2" for the film .
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.