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Piglet's Big Movie
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Wikipedia article
{{Infobox film
| name = Piglet's Big Movie
| image = Piglets big movie teaser.jpg
| caption = Theatrical release poster
| director = Francis Glebas
| producer = Michelle Pappalardo-Robinson
| screenplay =
| based_on =
| starring =
| music =
| editing = Ivan Bilancio
| studio = DisneyToon Studios
Walt Disney Pictures
| distributor = Buena Vista Pictures
| released =
| runtime = 75 minutes
| country = United States
| language = English
| budget = $46 million
| gross = $62.9 million
}}
'Piglet's Big Movie' is a 2003 American animated musical comedy-drama film released by Walt Disney Pictures on March 21, 2003. The film features the characters from the 'Winnie-the-Pooh' books written by A. A. Milne and is the third theatrically released 'Winnie the Pooh' feature. In this film, Piglet is ashamed of being small and clumsy and wanders off into the Hundred Acre Wood, leading all of his friends to form a search party to find him.
'Piglet's Big Movie' was produced by the Japanese office of Disneytoon Studios and the animation production was by Walt Disney Animation Japan, Inc. with additional animation provided by Gullwing Co., Ltd., additional background by Studio Fuga and digital ink and paint by T2 Studio.
Plot
Eeyore, Rabbit, Tigger and Pooh are trying to get bees to move into a new hive so they can get the honey. Piglet arrives and is told that he is too small to help, but he manages to trap the bees in the new hive. The others take the credit and Piglet leaves dejectedly. When the bees break free, Pooh, Rabbit, Tigger, and Eeyore escape to Piglet's house where they are joined by Roo. Noticing Piglet's absence, they decide to find him using Piglet's scrapbook as a guide. The five tell the stories of the pictures therein, leading to several flashbacks.
The first story is of Kanga and Roo's arrival in the Hundred Acre Wood. Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Rabbit are afraid of the newcomers, and Rabbit plans to use Piglet as a decoy to ransom Roo to force Kanga to leave. Kanga sees through the plan and plays along, pretending that Piglet is Roo, Piglet sees how nice she is while Roo and Rabbit get along well. Kanga and Roo are allowed to stay.
The second story is of the expedition to find the North Pole. Roo falls in the river and Piglet uses a long stick to flip him into the air. His heroism is overlooked when he gives the stick to Pooh to try to catch Roo, who is actually caught by Kanga, and Christopher Robin credits Pooh with finding the North Pole. Back in the present, the friends felt guilt and regret for not crediting Piglet for his part in the rescue.
The third story concerns building The House at Pooh Corner. Piglet has the idea to build Eeyore a house, and is joined by Pooh and Tigger to build it. Piglet struggles to keep up as Tigger and Pooh try to build the house using some neatly stacked sticks. Their attempts fall apart. Tigger and Pooh leave Piglet and go to tell Eeyore the bad news, but Eeyore says he already built himself a house of sticks, revealing that the sticks Pooh and Tigger used had been his house. Piglet arrives and leads them back to Eeyore's newly completed house. Once again, Piglet's contribution is overlooked as the wind is given the credit for moving Eeyore's house.
Back in the present, an argument between Rabbit and Tigger ends with the scrapbook falling into a river. Without their guide, the friends return to Piglet's house and, after making drawings of Piglet's heroism to celebrate his bravery, they again resolve to find Piglet. They come across some scrapbook pages which have floated downstream, and find the book's bindings suspended on a hollow log looming over a waterfall. Trying to retrieve it, Pooh falls into a hole in the log. The others cannot reach to rescue him. Piglet arrives and helps but the log breaks in half. Eeyore, Rabbit, Roo and Tigger escape, and grieve the loss of Piglet and Pooh. However, Piglet and Pooh had escaped into the bottom half of the log, and reunite with their friends. The friends apologise to Piglet for the loss of his journals and their disregard of his good deeds.
Piglet's friends take him back to his house to show him their new drawings celebrating his befriending of Kanga and Roo, rescuing Roo with the North Pole, and building Eeyore's house at Pooh Corner. Pooh takes Piglet to Eeyore's house to show him he changed the sign to "Pooh and Piglet Corner". When everyone else arrives, Pooh says "it's the least [they] could do for a very small Piglet who has done such very big things." Piglet casts a very large shadow.
Cast
* John Fiedler as Piglet
* Jim Cummings as Winnie the Pooh / Tigger
* Andre Stojka as Owl
* Kath Soucie as Kanga
* Nikita Hopkins as Roo
* Peter Cullen as Eeyore
* Ken Sansom as Rabbit
* Tom Wheatley as Christopher Robin
Production
'Piglet's Big Movie' was produced by Disneytoon Studios, Walt Disney Animation (Japan), Gullwing Co., Ltd, Studio Fuga, and T2 Studio.
Music
American singer-songwriter Carly Simon wrote seven new songs for the film, and performed six of them ("If I Wasn't So Small", "Mother's Intuition", "Sing Ho for the Life of a Bear", "With a Few Good Friends", "The More I Look Inside", and "Comforting to Know"), as well as recording her own version of the Sherman brothers' "Winnie the Pooh" theme song.
"The More It Snows" features Jim Cummings and John Fiedler, as Pooh and Piglet. Simon was accompanied by her children Ben Taylor and Sally Taylor on many of the songs. Rene Fleming accompanied Simon on the song "Comforting to Know". On "Sing Ho for the Life of a Bear" Simon was accompanied by the cast.
The soundtrack also features five tracks of the film's score by Carl Johnson, as well as five of Simon's original demonstration recordings.
Songs
Original songs performed in the film include:Reception
Box office
'Piglet's Big Movie' was number seven on the box-office charts on its opening weekend, earning $6 million. The film domestically grossed $23 million, half the amount of what 'The Tigger Movie' earned, and it grossed nearly $63 million worldwide.Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a "Certified Fresh" rating of 70% based on 77 reviews, and an average rating of 6.2/10. The site's critical consensus is "Wholesome and charming entertainment for young children." On Metacritic the film has a score of 62/100 based on reviews from 23 critics. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A, on a scale of A+ to F.Film critic Stephen Holden of 'New York Times' called the film an "oasis of gentleness and wit." Nancy Churnin of 'The Dallas Morning News' stated that 'Piglet's Big Movie' was "one of the nifty pleasures in the process", despite her belief that "Disney may be milking its classics."
Accolades
Games
In 2003, Disney released 'Piglet's Big Game' for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, and Game Boy Advance, as well as a CD-ROM game, which was also entitled 'Piglet's Big Game'. The latter is developed by Doki Denki Studio and involves helping Piglet assist in the preparation for a "Very Large Soup Party."
In their review, Edutaining Kids praised various features including the adventure/exploration aspect (the game is linear instead of using a main screen) and many of the activities (such as the color mixing, which they said offers an incredible variety of hues), but noted that it is much too brief and that Kanga and Roo are absent.
Sources
The film's plot is based primarily on five A. A. Milne stories: "In which Piglet meets a Heffalump," "In which Kanga and Baby Roo Come to the Forest, and Piglet Has a Bath," and "In which Christopher Robin Leads an Expedition to the North Pole" (chapters 5, 7, and 8 of 'Winnie-the-Pooh'); and "In which a house is built at Pooh Corner for Eeyore" and "In which a search is organized and Piglet nearly meets the Heffalump again" (chapters 1 and 3 of 'The House at Pooh Corner').
Releases
The film is released on VHS and DVD on July 29, 2003. Close captioned by the National Captioning Institute with the new Disney National Captioning Institute Close Captioning first used in 'Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure'.
References
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