After years of success together, Disney and Pixar had a little squabble over whether they needed each other. Pixar was a computer animation powerhouse that possessed some of the best CGI technology, and Disney tried to prove they didn’t need Pixar by creating their own CGI technology. It sure seems like somewhere along the line to prove that they had the technology to equal Pixar, Disney forget to make sure their story was any good.
Chicken Little takes a classic fable about misconceptions and miscommunication and distorts it into a flashy piece of eye candy filled with sight gags, self-aware post-90s sensibilities, and pop culture references for the adults. Lest I forget, it’s dripping with smarmy psychobabble focused on parent-child relationships. Instead of one great big misunderstanding that is the original fable (which is covered in the first 5 minutes), it turns out the sky really is falling...and it’s because of aliens!
Honestly, I was fairly insulted by this film. While there is enough humor and silliness to keep the kids at bay for an hour twenty, the real message of the film is aimed at parents. Are we that hopeless as a society that we need to trick parents into seeing a public service announcement by disguising it as a kid’s movie? And ever since Shrek came along, “kids” movies seem to be required to contain humor for mom and dad to pick up on, and that’s annoying. Either make an adult-oriented animated film or be true to your core audience- the kids.
While there were parts that I laughed at (despite being inappropriate and unnecessary for a “kids” movie) and the computer animation was rather good, the story still sucks. I couldn’t decide which pun was more fitting for Chicken Little- I was torn between “This egg is a dud” and “This bird’s flown the coop” because they are both so apt.
After years of success together, Disney and Pixar had a little squabble over whether they needed each other. Pixar was a computer animation powerhouse that possessed some of the best CGI technology, and Disney tried to prove they didn’t need Pixar by creating their own CGI technology. It sure seems like somewhere along the line to prove that they had the technology to equal Pixar, Disney forget to make sure their story was any good.
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