Disney Era Analysis – Chicken Little
As mentioned in the first blog post in this series, I’ll be writing analysis content on all 60+ Disney animated feature films and their film making eras.
The sixth era is the Post-Renaissance Era, which ran from 1999 to 2008 and started with Fantasia 2000. As mentioned in a previous blog post, the Post-Renaissance Era is known for: its experimentation with both computer-generated (CG) animation (and alternating between traditional hand-drawn and CG animation), and its experimentation with storytelling.
The Post-Renaissance Era is also referred to as Disney’s Second Dark/Bronze Age and Experimental Era.
So how well did Chicken Little measure up to these famous features?
Experimentation with computer-generated (CG) animation (and alternating between traditional hand-drawn and CG animation):
This film was Disney’s first fully computer-animated feature film. According to the film’s IMDb page, the shift to CG animation occurred about halfway through production.
According to the film’s Wikipedia page, Disney selected half of its 2D animation staff to put them on a CG animation team, and placed them through a rigorous 18-month training program with Industrial Light and Magic.
The film’s Wikipedia page also states that for the background designs, the background layout artists used digital matte paintings to render out the naturalistic elements and were retouched using Adobe Photoshop as background cards featured in the film. Lumiere software was used to enhance virtual lighting and render shadowing. In terms of the character design and animation style, Disney aimed to capture the “roundness” seen in their animated works from the 1940s to 50s.
Due to the switch to complete CG animation, there were many software and technological developments during the film’s production. The technical team built a program called “Shelf Control”, which allowed the animators to see the whole model onscreen, while having direct access to any chosen area of the characters. The technical team also built a digital tool called “Chicken Wire”, which is a geometric wireframe model of the characters that the animators could squash, stretch, and smear, with the goal of emulating a 2D animation style in 3D animation. This was also the first film made in the Dimensionalisation process by Industrial Light and Magic for the 3D version.
Experimentation with storytelling:
This film is classified as a science fiction comedy film and is loosely inspired by the European folk tale, Henny Penny, also known as Chicken Little.
According to the film’s Wikipedia page, the initial story was about a paranoid female chicken that went to summer camp to reduce her anxiety, as well as repair her relationship with her father. Whilst at the summer camp, she would uncover a plot that her camp counsellor was planning to use against her hometown. However, then-CEO, Michael Eisner, hated the idea and demanded that Chicken Little be changed to a male character. The film’s story was eventually rewritten to what would be the final film – the tale of a boy trying to save his town from space aliens.
My overall thoughts:
Overall, I felt that this film suffered similar issues to its predecessor, Home on the Range – a film with a story that had a lot of potential but was poorly executed. Despite the film’s title and inspiration, the adaptation of the original tale only took up a small portion of the film’s plot and run time, with the rest of the film focusing on the sci-fi subplot. I felt that the combination of Chicken Little’s underdog/redemption story and the sci-fi subplot didn’t work, it felt like they were two films joined together and the genre change was jarring.
There were some clever writing and animation moments in the film that I enjoyed, which included: the narration at the beginning of the film light-heartedly poking fun of Disney’s past film openings, the inclusion of the live-action footage of Indiana Jones at the town movie theatre, and the inclusion of animals as traffic control signs (a chameleon being a red/green traffic light, and a turtle in and out of its shell as a walk/don’t walk sign).
On a smaller note, I felt that the film’s soundtrack was a little on the nose.
Despite the fact that I felt that this film suffered similar issues to Home on the Range, I felt that this film’s focus on the father-son relationship between Buck Cluck and Chicken Little, as well as a general focus on friendships and family, and its clever writing and animation moments, for me it ranks higher than its predecessor.
The next part of the Disney Era Analysis series will focus on Meet the Robinsons.
Fun Facts and Trivia (according to the film’s IMDb page):
- This film is one of very few Disney animated feature films to utilise product placement. Products featured in the movie are Tic-Tac mints and Jolly Time popcorn.
- This is the fifth Disney animated feature film to not feature any humans.
- This is the first Disney animated film in Disney Digital 3D.
- There are 250,000 feathers on Chicken Little.
- Chicken Little was originally going to be female.
- In the scene where Buck Cluck is driving Chicken Little to school, they stop at a red light. In the background, you see a bird walking into a storefront window twice. The store owner comes out to investigate. He’s a bull, the store is full of China, i.e. it’s the cliche “bull in a China shop”.
References:
Loveday Writing 