Hacker Cinema
Chicken Run
2000 · Film · 84 min
Part of Chicken Run Collection
Directed by Peter Lord, Nick Park
The creators of Wallace & Gromit bring you an exciting and original story about a group of chickens determined to fly the coop–even if they can’t fly! It’s hardly poultry in motion when Rocky attempts to teach Ginger and her feathered friends to fly…but, with teamwork, determination and a little bit o’ cluck, the fearless flock plots one last attempt in a spectacular bid for freedom.
2 positive1 negative8 neutralfrom 11 commenters
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11 comments on Hacker News
I might know the one you're talking about, did it have a fan as a rudder?
Oh speaking of dragonfly-like ornithopter this one is hardcore https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCrS52sM3Zs
Reminds me of that Chicken Run movie ha
There is a pretty good[0] movie about that. They'll be fine :)
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Run
It's fine on most screens for most content on an average TV screen even. Sure, not good enough if you are sitting down in a home cinema for the latest blockbuster, but totally OK for Chicken Run, Dawn of the Nugget or just tuning out with some tolerable series.
As a fan of post-modern movies, I would love if this was the case. However I’m afraid that you are misremembering history a bit here. Postmodern movies heydays have long passed. I’m afraid the reached their peak in the 90s with e.g. the Danish dogma movies (pun intended), independent American movies like Clerks, etc. In fact Pulp fiction was a counter punch to the scene by taking elements of postmodern movies, telling a pulp story and dressing it in a Hollywood film. Ironically it is a long running joke among postmodernists to over-analyze Pulp Fiction with a postmodern reading.
Postmodern films got a tiny resurgence around 2007, but never with the same popularity as the pomo scene of the 90s.
So Lord of the Rings is made between those two modes. The movie industry is living in the wake of the unexpected Titanic success, and the studios are trying to create the next big hit. Movies like Gladiator, Pearl Harbor, Cast Away, Meet the Parents, The Mummy, Moulin Rouge! or Chicken Run etc. is what most people are seeing. The themes of the post modern movies is indeed far away.
If your narrative was true, we would always see critics scores lower than the audience (assuming statistically significant number of critics reviewing a given movie). But we see so many counterexamples with radically different ratings: Spy kids, Ad Astra, Noah, King Kong (2005), Babe, The Blair Witch Project, Chicken Run, and thousands of others.
> Jeff Katzenberg, the co-founder, has been 'making content and selling to kids' for 40 years to the tune of literally Billions. Star Trek films, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Shrek, How to Train your Dragon etc. etc. - just huge, monster titles.
My argument against this point is simple: few of those were original content conceived by Katzenberg/DreamWorks/Disney. They were existing stories (most already successful as books). The only things I can see in his filmography that are possibly original and hugely successful are Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Kung Fu Panda, and Madagascar, Road to El Dorado, and _maybe_ Chicken Run.
That's great! I'll be sharing that site with my homestay family, who have kids aged 6 and 9. On Monday this week I asked the older one to read a Wikipedia list of Disney films and Dreamworks Animation movies and here's the list she made, which you can compare with the ones on your site:
Alice in Wonderland; Toy Story 3; Incredibles; Pinocchio; Lion King; The Tale of Despereaux; Winnie the Pooh; Maleficent; Cinderella; Frozen; Frozen II; Moana; The Santa Clause; Coco; Pirates of the Caribbean; The Princess and the Frog; Brave 2012; Beauty and the Beast; Born in China; The Boss Baby; Abominable; Trolls World Tour; Gift of the Night Fury; Shrek (all); The Grinch; Book of Dragons; Kung Fu Panda; Puss in Boots; Dawn of the Dragon Racers; Marooned ; Prince of Egypt; Peter Rabbit; Aladdin 1992; Aladdin 2019; Shark Tale; Wallace and Gromit; Chicken Run; Bee Movie; Turbo 2013; Home 2015; Captain Underpants; Tangled 2010; Harry Potter; Despicable Me; Despicable Me 2; Minions; The Secret Life of Pets; The Little Ghost; Waking Sleeping Beauty; Cleopatra in Space; My Neighbour Totoro
I remember experiencing this with the stop-motion movie 'chicken run' from 2000 [0].
The movie has a rather low frame-rate (due to the stop-motion production) and when I started watching my immediate thought was: I can't watch this, this is terribly stuttery. But after about 10 minutes or so my brain adjusted and I no longer noticed the stuttering.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Run
> no one watches a movie because it's made by Aardman
That's exactly why we took the kids to Chicken Run, having seen no trailer.
Aardman Animation, the stop-motion studio behind the Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit shorts and Chicken Run, has brokered a new deal that puts ownership of the studio in the hands of its devoted team of employees. Founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton, who started the company in 1972, has ordered 75% of shares [1] placed into a trust, where they will be held for Aardman’s workers.
Lord and Sproxton have no plans for retiring anytime soon, but they wanted to shift their priorities at the company. Lord said, “We’ve spent so much time building this company up and being so profoundly attached to it. It’s not a business to us, it’s everything, it’s our statement to the world. Having done that for so many years, the last thing we wanted to do was to just flog it off to someone.”
Sproxton added, “And we wanted to make sure they are all engaged in this employee ownership as well,” assuring their team that they won’t be in danger of a big studio buyout. Both men are committed to keeping Aardman’s uniquely close-knit culture. “There’s no real concern about the culture of the people, it’s just an asset that can be sold on in years to come,” he said of a corporate acquisition.
The studio is located in Bristol, U.K., where a team of 130 staffers run the beloved stop-motion animation company. During production, that number can swell to nearly three times that size for a feature-length film. Aardman is currently in production on <em>Farmageddon: A Shaun the Sheep Movie, which will be followed by the long-awaited Chicken Run 2.
Sproxton and Lord will join director Nick Park on Aardman’s new executive board of directors. Park, who has been with the company since its early days, directed the Oscar winning Wallace & Gromit shorts, which include The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave and the film The Curse of The Were-Rabbit, which won Best Animated Feature in 2005. Park and Lord co-directed 2000’s Chicken Run, which remains the highest-grossing stop motion animated film of all time.
Lord said of his and Sproxton’s future with the company, “We’re not quitting yet, we are doing this because we love the company and because we love it we think this will be the best things for it. This is not about David and I leaving. It is a continuity deal. We always believed that independence was our strong suit. We didn’t have to dance to anybody else’s tune and could make our own decisions.”
This move towards continued independence and self reliance follows Aardman’s carefully hand-made approach their projects. Their films are beloved for their handcrafted aesthetic and their commitment to British humor and culture. Their latest move to share ownership ensures that Aardman will remain as charming and unique as they always have been.
[1] href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/nov/10/wallace-gromit-producers-hand-stake-in-business-to-staff
Cars and Cars 2 suffer from some of the same problems that Shrek 2 & 3 suffered from: creating a self-consistent universe based on adult puns based on characters of modern society.Unless it is done with restraint and real skill it soon behinds to feel insincere and contrived (see Sharks Tail, Chicken Run).
Toy Story & Shrek did something far cleverer. Shrek especially is smart, sophisticated humour for smart, sophisticated kids. The references are all from children's literature and culture. Kids know the references and are able to understand the clever puns.
Shreks 2&3 are dumb adult humour forced into the Shrek world. Many of the puns are above children's heads and are not sophisticated enough for the adult audience. Adding plot-lines about lawyers, unions etc just confuse small kids and leave adults slightly cringing.
Pixar and Dreamworks are at their best when they choose their target audience and focus on it. Toy Story & Nemo are for smart young kids; Ratatouille & The Incredibles are for smart older kids. Then enough is added for the rest of the family: everyone gets a clever joke every few minutes; the stories are understandable by all. Wall-E and Up are very adult in the big story (but full of great fun in the small story) I thought they were wonderful but I do understand your point (although they are I no way 'awful'—even if you are 5).
I'm not convinced that Pixar have mad a bad film yet. Cars grows on me the more I see it (and believe me if you have kids you end up seeing these films any times). Nemo (by far the funniest film Pixar have made) still makes me laugh despite having seen it 20+ times.
{I'm told that Cars 2 is relentless: too fast and too complicated for young kids, but as I haven't seen it I can't judge. The fact that I haven't seen it says something: I normally see every Pixar film the week it comes out.}
The problem that Pixar has had is that we have had to judge Pixar by Pixar standards as until recently no-one was making anything as good. This has now changed. Wonderfully for us Pixar now has serious competition. Dreamworks has made a number of films that are as good as Pixar's. Some of them are as good as Pixar's best: How to Train Your Dragon, Megamind, Kung Fu Panda. Walt Disney Animation Studios is back on form with Tangled (Monsters v Aliens wasn't bad either).
How to Train Your Dragon & Tangled are thankfully free of transfer-modern-society-into-cartoon-world puns. Instead you are given a detailed, self-consistent world that complements the story (rather than being the story). This is a very good thing—something I hope that Pixar will move back towards (although I don't hold out much hope for Monsters Inc 2).