Chicken Little (2005 film)
(2005) is a computer-generated imagery (CGI) animated film and the forty-fifth animated feature made and produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures and Buena Vista Distribution on November 4, 2005. It was written by Mark Dindal and Mark Kennedy with the screenplay by Steve Bencich, Ron J. Friedman, and Ron Anderson and directed by Mark Dindal. The film was animated in-house at WDFA's main headquarters in Burbank, California.This was Disney's first all-CG picture, and the start of their ceasing production of traditionally-animated films (Pixar's films were distributed but not produced by Disney, and Dinosaur was a combination of live-action and computer animation). However, the company has since announced that they will return to traditional animation with The Princess and the Frog in 2009.
- 1 Plot
- 2 Characters
- 3 Impact
- 4 Crew
- 5 Innovations
- 6 Box office
- 7 3D Digital format introduced
- 8 Soundtrack
- 9 Trivia
- 10 Voice Cast
- 11 References
- 12 See also
- 13 External links
Plot
The film is loosely based on the fable Chicken Little, otherwise known as The Sky is Falling. In the small suburban town of Oakey Oaks, Chicken Little rings the school bell and cries for everyone to "run for your lives!" This sends the whole town into a frenzied panic; eventually they calm down enough to ask him what's wrong, and Chicken Little explains that a piece of the sky shaped like a stop sign had fallen on his head when he was sitting under the big oak tree in the town square. He's unable to find the piece now. His father, Buck Cluck, ashamedly assumes that this "piece of sky" was just an acorn that had fallen off the tree and had hit him on the head. Chicken Little becomes the laughing stock of the town.
A year later, Little has become famous in the town for being crazy, which has led to people avoiding him because of his supposed insanity, his only friends are outcasts like himself: Abby Mallard, who is called "Ugly Duckling" (Who has a crush on Chicken Little); Runt of the Litter, who is extremely large despite being the smallest in his family; and Fish out of Water, who wears a helmet full of water and does not speak. All have been mocked and teased by neighborhood bully Foxy Loxy and her friend Goosey Loosey.
During a dodgeball game (the coach pits the popular vs. the unpopular), Abby tells Little to talk to his dad, when Little wants his dad to be proud. While Little, Abby and Fish are dodging, Runt is getting hit by every ball thrown at him. To help Chicken, Abby hands Little magazines about talking to your parents, but he hands them to Fish, who immediately starts ripping pages out of each one, making a miniature building and airplanes. Fish then proceeds to pull a King Kong impersonation. Foxy and Goosey bully Little and Friends soon after.
Chicken Little joins his school's Little League baseball team in an attempt to recover his reputation and his father's pride, but is unfairly made last, while Foxy Loxy impresses spectators and the newspapers with her pitches and "miracle catches" -- until the ninth inning when Chicken Little, reluctantly called to bat by the coach, who tells him not to swing as he's certain that if Chicken Little tries to swing, he'll lose the game for them, scores an inside-the-park home run after two strikes.
But that night back at home, while celebrating his victory, he is hit on the head by what appears to be a chunk of the sky "shaped like a Stop sign" with a glowing star on it, only (after narrowly avoiding telling his father about it) to find out that it is not a piece of the sky, but something else. It has chameleonic characteristics- it's not invisible, but it blends into the background (which would thereby explain why Chicken Little was unable to find it last time). While his friends are singing karaoke to the Spice Girls' "Wannabe", interrupting their fun, He summons his friends to help figure out what it is.
When Fish pushes a button on the back of the octagon, it flies back up into the sky, taking Fish with it. It turns out to be part of the camouflage of an invisible alien spaceship, apparently part of an invading force. It is up to Chicken Little and his friends to save the day. They decide to ring the bell and alert the townspeople to the aliens, but it is out of their reach.
The invasion is actually a misunderstanding, as two aliens (who are red and yellow making their child orange) are looking for their lost child (whose name is Kirby) and attack only out of concern. Little realizes he must return the lost alien to save the planet. At first he tries to do it covertly but once the aliens attack, he's forced to confront his father and regain his trust first. They share a caring moment in what appears to be a stage or theater. Abby interrupts them and requests that they hurry up. Little and Cluck are seen leaving the theater. but before leaving, Chicken Little admits his romantic feelings for Abby and kisses her.
In the invasion, Buck Cluck, now regaining his pride and trust in Little, defends Little from the aliens, even going as far as deflecting an incoming vaporiser ray with a garbage can lid, throwing the lid at the creatures, and punching them away at the top of town hall. Abby, Runt and Fish also aid Chicken Little in his quest to return the child to the alien invaders. After the aliens get the kid, the aliens return everything to normal (though Foxy Loxy's mind was scrambled after she was restored, making her more girly and kind), and Hollywood makes a heavily dramatized film about Chicken Little. During the movie, the actor portraying Little is a handsome, muscular rooster while Abby is an attractive looking goose and/or duck. While runt is a brutish hog with horns who most probably dies in the movie while fighting the aliens and the actor for fish is the same in the same appearance but is now able to converse in English. At the end of the movie, Little and Abby are seen secretly holding hands in their popcorn bucket, everyone cheers for Chicken Little's efforts to save the town.
[edit] Characters
- Chicken Little
- Abby Mallard: A female duck with buckteeth, and wearing a purple shirt and some hairbands. A corresponding speech impediment, and a long, asymmetrical face; she has been nicknamed Ugly Duckling by the other children. She is accustomed to being teased for her appearance, and takes a generally optimistic approach to life. She is Chicken Little's best friend.
- Fish Out of Water: A goldfish who wears a scuba helmet filled with water and lives on the surface. He is unable to speak proper English, instead making gurgling sounds and acting out what he feels. He isn't very shy around others and he will perform brave stunts without fear.
- Runt of the Litter: A giant pig, Runt is easily frightened and is prone to panic. He also makes references to various 70's music; Stayin' Alive by The Bee Gees, Barbara Streisand (name only), It's too late by Carole King, I will survive by Gloria Gaynor.
- Foxy Loxy: A vixen who is a baseball star and the "home town hero", she is a tomboy and one of the "popular kids" at school. She teases Chicken Little throughout the movie for being a "loser". Her mind is altered during the alien attack, turning her into a Southern Belle, and she is later seen in a romantic relationship with Runt.
- Goosey Loosey: A goose, and Foxy Loxy's best friend. Usually helps Foxy Loxy do her bullying. She speaks in quacks, honks and squawks.
- Buck "Ace" Cluck: Chicken Little's father who has a hard time coming to terms with what it means being a good parent. Most of the time he tries instead to apologize for his son's behavior and encourage him to keep a low profile.
- Turkey Lurkey: The city mayor. Sensible but not very intelligent.
- Kirby: A lost alien child whose parents, out of concern, trigger an alien invasion (which turned out to be a search party). In the end, he is returned to his family.
[edit] Impact
At the time of the release of Chicken Little, the co-production deal between Disney and Pixar Animation Studios was set to expire with the release of Cars in 2006. The end result of the contentious negotiations between Disney and Pixar was viewed to depend heavily on how Chicken Little performed at the box office. If successful, the movie would have given Disney leverage in its negotiations for a new contract to distribute Pixar's films. A failure would have allowed Pixar to argue that Disney could not produce CG films without aid from Pixar. Discussions to renew the deal in 2005 were held off until both sides could assess Chicken Little's performance at the box office.
It is not known how the two sides regarded Chicken Little's modest success. While it underperformed compared to Pixar's product, it was more successful than Disney's recent output and was much more profitable for the company, since they did not need to share the revenue. Regardless, both sides decided that they were better off with each other than separate. However, instead of negotiating a new contract, on January 24, 2006, Disney announced their intent to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 Billion USD. (Note that Pixar had roughly $1 Billion in cash, making the effective cost closer to $6.4 Billion.) The purchase was completed on May 5, 2006.
[edit] Crew
| Crew Position | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Mark Dindal |
| Produced by | Randy Fullmer |
| Original Story by | Mark Dindal Mark Kennedy |
| Screenplay by | Steve Bencich Ron J. Friedman Ron Anderson |
| Original Score by | John Debney |
| Associate Producer | Peter Del Vecho |
| Production Designer Designer | David Womersley Mac George |
| Art Driector Co-Art Director | Ian Gooding Dan Cooper |
| Film Editor | Dan Molina |
| Visual Effects Supervisor | Steve Goldberg |
| Computer Graphics Supervisor | Kevin Geiger Kyle Odermatt |
| Technical Supervisor | Eric Powers |
| Story Supervisor Animation Supervisor Layout Supervisor Effects Supervisor | Mark Kennedy Eamonn Butler Terry Moews Dale Mayeda |
| Supervising Animator | Jason Ryan (Chicken Little) Nik Ranieri (Buck Cluck) Dick Zondag (Mayor Turkey Lurkey & Aliens) Mark Anthony Austin (Foxy Loxy & Goosey Loosey) Doug Bennett (Runt of the Litter & Fish out of Water) Tony Smeed (Abby Mallard) |
| Character Design | Mark Dindal Joe Mosier Tom Ellery Don Hall Jeffrey R. Ranjo |
| Production Manager | Paul Lanum |
[edit] Innovations
New software and hardware tools were introduced for the production of this movie:
- "Chicken Wire", a geometric wire frame model of the characters that the animators can stretch and squeeze as they please.
- "Shelf Control", which makes it possible to see the whole model on the screen while having a direct access to any chosen area of the character.
- New electronic tablet screens that allow the artists to draw digital sketches of the characters to rough out their movements, which is then transferred to the 3D characters.
[edit] Box office
 | This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can (October 2007). |
In its opening weekend, Chicken Little debuted at number one, the first Disney animated film to do so since Tarzan (1999) taking $40 million and tying with The Lion King (1994) as the largest opener for a Disney animated film (not including Pixar's films). It also managed to claim the number one spot again in its second week of release, earning $31.7 million beating the Columbia Pictures' sci-fi/family flop, Zathura. With a drop of only 20 percent on the second week, that brought its two week total to $80.4 million. In the end Chicken Little grossed $135,386,665 in North America alone. This is good news for Disney, for not only is it its first CGI movie by its own means, but it also reversed a slump that the company was facing since 2000, during which time it released several flops, most notably Treasure Planet (2002) and Home on the Range (2004), the former credited for destroying Disney's animation department. Overall, critical reception to the film was mediocre at best, with critics such as A.O. Scott, Richard Roeper, and many others panning the movie's narrative weakness.
The movie has a Rotten 37% at Rotten Tomatoes.
[edit] 3D Digital format introduced
The movie was also released in Disney Digital 3D along with the 2D version. Unlike many recent 3D movies which only show selected segments in 3D, the entire length of Chicken Little including the credits is presented in 3D. The 3D did quite well in the 79 theaters (84 screens) that showed the film.
The DVD was released on March 21, 2006.
[edit] Soundtrack
[edit] Trivia
| | Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones. |
- The role of Turkey Lurkey in this film is Don Knotts's second to last movie role before he died in 2006, before the DVD version of this film was released. Air Buddies was his last movie.
- The fifth feature Disney film ever to consist of no humans (or at least, visible humans) whatsoever, and the first to do so since 1994's The Lion King.
- In the Italian version, Mayor Turkey Lurkey is voiced by Walter Veltroni, a famous political leader and currently Mayor of the city of Rome. In the German version, he was voiced by Munich's mayor Christian Ude, in Austria by former mayor of Vienna Helmut Zilk. [citation needed]
- In the Latin American version (except Argentina and Brazil) , singer Kalimba Marichal is the voice of Chicken Little. He has done dubbing many times before.
- Originally, Chicken Little was supposed to be a girl, voiced by Holly Hunter (voice of Elastigirl from The Incredibles), but the character was switched to a boy, voiced by Zach Braff.[citation needed]
- Fish Out of Water's dialogue was recorded from editor Dan Molina blowing through a hose into a 5 gallon water barrel.[citation needed]
- In the beginning when Buck trying to decide on an opening, the storybook opening was actually an alternate opening.[citation needed]
- As major studios continue to phase out VHS, this was the first film in the Disney animated features canon and the first computer-animated Disney film to only be released on DVD.
- In the trailer for this movie, Chicken Little was dancing to a sped up version of O-Zone's hit song "Dragostea din tei," in what is possibly a parody of the Numa Numa dance.
- Chicken Little makes an appearance in the popular PlayStation 2 game, Kingdom Hearts II, in the form of a summon (armed with baseballs) that the player can call upon for aid during battle.
- The scene where Runt of the Litter tries to put in the dollar for a soda may be a reference to the 1995 Super Bowl commercial where a guy tries to get a Pepsi machine to accept his dollar. When it finally accepts it, the dollar goes back out.
- In the opening scenes of the movie, the movie parodies a scene from Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark as the town's ball-shaped water tower (named Oakley Oaks) crashes through a theater screen just as it is showing the boulder scene closeup from that movie.
- The Acorn as seen on the exterior of Buck Cluck's laptop is a parody of the Apple Inc. logo.
- When Chicken Little kissed Abby Mallard, she "popped" her right foot; a possible reference to Princess Diaries.
- In various scenes, Morkubine Porcupine only says three rhyming words in total: "Yo", "No" and "Whoa". The character was voiced by Mark Dindal, the film's director.
- References to other scifi movies:
- The alien's tripod resembles that of War of the Worlds.
- The aliens create a crop circle, a reference to Signs.
- The DVD cover shows Chicken Little wearing sunglasses and sitting in a broken egg shell. This is an obvious reference to Men in Black.
- Runt's rambling about Fish being host to the aliens' "face-hugging embryo babies" is a nod to the movie Alien.
- Towards the end of the movie, the alien's father mentions the numbers '90210', a possible reference to the show of the same name.
[edit] Voice Cast
- Zach Braff .... Chicken Little
- Garry Marshall .... Buck "Ace" Cluck
- Joan Cusack .... Abby Mallard
- Steve Zahn .... Master Runt Of The Litter
- Don Knotts .... Mayor Turkey Lurkey
- Dan Molina .... Fish Out Of Water
- Harry Shearer .... Dog Announcer
- Wallace Shawn .... Principal Fetchit
- Patrick Stewart .... Mr. Woolensworth
- Sean Elmore .... Kirby - Alien Kid
- Evan Dunn .... Kirby - Alien Kid (voice
- Matthew Michael Josten .... Kirby - Alien Kid (as Matthew Josten)
- Amy Sedaris .... Foxy Loxy
- Mark Walton .... Goosey Loosey
- Adam West .... Ace - Hollywood Chicken Little
- Mark Dendil .... Morcupine Porcupine/Coach
- Joe Whyte .... Rodriguez/Acorn Mascot/Umpire
- Fred Willard .... Melvin - Alien Dad
- Catherine O'Hara .... Tina - Alien Mom
- Patrick Warburton .... Alien Cop
- Dara McGarry .... Hollywood Abby
- Will Finn .... Hollywood Fish
- Mark Kennedy .... Hollywood Runt
- Kelly Hoover .... Mama Runt
- Additional Voices by Brad Abrell, Tom Amundsen, Steve Bencich, Greg Berg, Julianne Buescher, David Cowgill, Terri Douglas, Chris Edgerly, Amanda Fein, Caitlin Fein, Patrick Fraley, Eddie Frierson, Jackie Gonneau, Archie Hahn, Jason Harris, Brittney Lee Harvey, Brian Herskowitz, Amanda Kaplan, Nathan Kress, Anne Lockhart, Connor Matheus, Mona Marshall, Scott Menville, Rene Mujica, Jonathan Nichols, Paul Pape, Aaron Spann, Pepper Sweeney
- In the Australian Version of Chicken Little, the voice of Buck Cluck was played by an Australian, Mark Mitchell, who put on an American accent.[citation needed] Although released in Australian Cinemas, this voiced version of the film has not been released on the Australian DVD.
- Charlene Choi provided the voice of Abby Mallard in the
References
- Brown, Sandy (5 November 2005). "Disney, Pixar Playing Chicken". Mickey News.
- Holson, Laura M. (30 October 2005). "Much rides on 'Chicken' for Disney and Pixar". New York Times.
- Tyler, Joshua (4 November 2005). "Movie Review: Chicken Little". Monsters and Critics.
See also
[edit] External links
- The Official Chicken Little Website
- Chicken Little at the Internet Movie Database
- The Big Cartoon DataBase entry for Chicken Little
- Chicken Little DVD Review/Article at UltimateDisney.com
- Chicken Little Info – presented by chickenlittle-movie
- Chicken Little (2005) – presented by MovieWeb
- Chicken Little at Disney Movies List
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