I was 10 years old when I saw this movie at the theaters. Looking back, little did I know that I will raise and breed some of its kind. Now, after stumbling on a link that led me to this movie, I feel amused and happy knowing that back then, I had this undescribable connection with pigs. And I figured that it would be such a nice idea to feature a moving picture in this relatively new blog.
So, without further due, ladies and gentlemen, one of my best liked movie of all time, 'Babe'.
Babe is a 1995 comedy-drama film, co-written and directed by Chris Noonan. It is an adaptation of Dick King-Smith's 1983 novel The Sheep-Pig, also known as Babe: The Gallant Pig in the USA, which tells the story of a pig who wants to be a sheepdog. The main animal characters are played by a combination of real and animatronic pigs and Border Collies.[1]
After seven years of development,[2] Babe was filmed in Robertson, New South Wales, Australia.[3] The talking-animal visual effects were done by Rhythm & Hues Studios and Jim Henson's Creature Shop.
The film was a box office success and grossed $36,776,544 at the box office in Australia.[4] It has received considerable acclaim from critics: it was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, winning Best Visual Effects. It also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film.
In 1998, Babe producer and co-writer George Miller directed a sequel, Babe: Pig in the City.
Plot
An orphaned piglet named Babe is chosen for a "guess the weight" contest booth at a county fair. The winning farmer, Arthur Hoggett, brings him home and allows him to stay with a female border collie named Fly and her pups.
A duck named Ferdinand poses as a rooster in order to keep from being eaten and wakes the farm each morning by crowing. He persuades Babe to help him destroy the alarm clock because it threatens his mission. Although they succeed in this goal, they startle the Hoggetts' cat, Duchess, awake, and in the confusion that ensues, all three accidentally destroy the living room, leaving them covered in paint. Fly's mate Rex orders Babe to stay away from both Ferdinand (now a fugitive) and the house. When Fly's puppies are put up for sale, Babe asks if he can call her ‘Mum’.
Christmas time brings a visit from the Hoggetts' relatives. Babe is almost chosen for the Christmas dinner but a duck is picked instead after Arthur remarks to his wife Esme that Babe may bring a prize for ham at the next County Fair. The day after Christmas, Babe alerts the farmer to some sheep rustlers. The following day, Arthur sees Babe sort the hens, separating the brown ones from the white ones. Impressed, he takes the pig to the fields and tells Babe instead of Rex to herd the sheep. Encouraged by an elder ewe named Maa, the sheep cooperate, but Rex sees Babe's actions as an insult to sheepdogs and eventually confronts his mate for "putting ideas in Babe's head". Fly's right front leg is injured and Arthur's right hand is bitten by Rex while trying to intervene. Rex is then chained to the dog house and sedated, leaving the sheep-herding job to Babe.
One morning, Babe is wakened by their cries and sees three feral dogs attacking the herd. He bravely scares them away, but Maa has been mortally injured. Arthur arrives, sees Babe standing over Maa, and thinks that he killed her because Babe has blood on his snout from when he had nuzzled Maa earlier in an attempt to comfort her during her death. While Arthur prepares to shoot Babe for being a sheep-killer, Fly is so anxious to find out whether Babe is guilty or innocent that, for the first time in her life, instead of barking orders at the sheep, she tries talking with them to find out what happened. The sheep tell her that Babe is innocent and that he in fact saved them. Fly then barks to distract Arthur from shooting Babe, which she succeeds in doing long enough for Esme to come out and say she has heard from the police that feral dogs have been killing sheep on neighboring farms, whereupon Arthur realizes just in time that Babe is innocent.
When Esme leaves on a trip for a few days, Arthur signs Babe up for a local sheep-herding competition. The night before the competition, it is raining hard outside that Arthur lets both Babe and Fly in the house. However, Duchess scratches Babe while trying to converse with her, and Arthur confines her outside. When Duchess is let back inside the house later on, she gets revenge on Babe by revealing that humans eat pigs. Agitated, Babe runs out back into to the barn and speaks and asks to Fly if it is true and she confirms this.
The next morning, Fly discovers that Babe has run away. She and Rex alert Arthur and all three go searching for him. Rex eventually finds him, and Arthur brings him back home. However, Babe is still in a bad mood that he refuses to eat, despite encouragement from Rex, who has now softened his attitude and calls him 'Son'. Arthur gives him a drink from a baby bottle and sings "If I Had Words" to him, and eventually dances a jigs for him. This restores Babe's faith in the farmer's affection for him, and he begins eating.
Once having arrived at the sheep-herding competition, Babe meets the sheep he'll be herding, but unlike the sheep back home, they ignore Babe's attempts to speak with them and refuse to listen to him. Rex runs back to the farm to ask the sheep what to do. The sheep give him a secret password, first extracting a promise from Rex that, in return, he will treat them better from now on. Rex gets back to the competition just in time and conveys the password to Babe. The audience picks up laughter as Arthur has entered a pig into the contest, but when Babe recites the password to the sheep and politely ask for their help, they immediately take notice of him and agree to do what he asks. They follow his instructions crisply and he is wildly acclaimed by the crowd and unanimously given the highest score. At that, Babe sits down quietly next to Arthur, who praises him affectionately, in his understated way, by saying, "That'll do, Pig. That'll do."
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Citations
1Chanko, Kenneth M. (1995-08-18). "This Pig Just Might Fly | Movies". EW.com. Retrieved 2010-05-31.
2"Interview with Chris Noonan", 9 September 1999 accessed 19 November 2012
3 "Robertson – New South Wales – Australia". The Age. 2008-04-10. Retrieved 2008-07-20.
4 Film Victoria - Australian Films at the Australian Box Office
5 Film Score Monthly 53-64, Los Angeles CA 1995, page 70
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