Babe (1995)
Directed by Chris Noonan
Babe is a little pig who doesn't quite know his place in the world. With a bunch of odd friends, like Ferdinand the duck who thinks he is a rooster and Fly the dog he calls mum, Babe realises that he has the makings to become the greatest sheep pig of all time, and Farmer Hoggett knows it. With the help of the sheep dogs, Babe learns that a pig can be anything that he wants to be.
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6 films that influenced Babe
What critics say influenced Babe
Babe deserves a proud place next to movies like: The Wizard of Oz, The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Muppet Movie, E.T., and The Witches.
In terms of concept, it's like a magical yoking of Charlotte's Web to The Muppet Movie, with a slew of real animals, so-called "animatronic" creations, and computer animation all collaborating on a fairy tale about finding one's rightful place in a harsh world.
Unlike in George Orwell's Animal Farm, here the pig is the instrument of unity and mediation.
The animated Animal Farm is darkly drawn and cynical in tone, and is remarkably faithful to George Orwell's dystopian fable of totalitarian times.
Not since George Orwell's novel "Animal Farm" has a community of critters been so efficiently harnessed to fantasy.
What's true in George Orwell's Animal Farm also applies to Babe.
A blurb on the video box from critic Dann Gire of The Chicago Daily Herald proclaims it "The Citizen Kane of talking pig pictures."
The box for the home video for Chris Noonan’s Babe (1995) makes the claim that the film is “the Citizen Kane of talking pig movies,” and while that’s a safer claim than many such comparisons (e.g., the now embarrassing assertion that Purple Rain was the ”Citizen Kane of rock movies"), I think George Miller’s darker sequel film, Babe: Pig in the City (1998), is probably more in the Wellesian realm.
Babe deserves a proud place next to movies like: The Wizard of Oz, The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Muppet Movie, E.T., and The Witches.
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As in other films he has nurtured ("Dead Calm," "Flirting"), Miller brings an A-list team of professionals.
It's a well-crafted stylistic violent B-movie exploitation picture that gave Aussie director George Miller ("Babe"/"Happy Feet"/The Witches of Eastwick") and actor Mel Gibson their starts (Mel becoming an international star with a future in Hollywood looming).
George Miller, the creator of the "Mad Max" series, produced and co-wrote "Babe."
Babe *** 1/2 (UA 6) Combining the best of "Milo and Otis" with "Charlotte's Web," "Babe" is a weird and wonderful charmer based on Dick King-Smith's popular children's story "Babe, the Gallant Pig." Producer and co-screenwriter George Miller (of "Mad Max" fame) has retooled "Babe" with a twisted sensibility and surprisingly hip attitude that gives it the unusual characteristic of playing as well for adults as it does for children.
Still, one sneaks out every now and then, and in the last 20 years, I'd be hard-pressed to name a single kids' movie - though that very phrase, "kids' movie", is an unfair and unjust ghettoisation - that triumphs more completely on more levels than Babe , a 1995 Australian film co-written by the director of the Mad Max franchise, and directed by a man who'd never directed a feature before, and wouldn't direct again for eleven years (breaking his drought with Miss Potter , of all things, but let's not go there).
But the co-producer and co-writer is none other than George "Mad Max" Miller.
(All in all, 48 different real piglets played the part of Babe!) Co-writer/producer George ("Mad Max") Miller and director Chris Noonan have transformed what could have been a passable kiddie picture into something alert and provocative.