Piglet's Big Movie

Piglet's Big Movie

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Francis Glebas
Produced by Michelle Pappalardo-Robinson
Written by Brian Hohlfeld
A.A. Milne (Books)
Starring Roy Dotrice
John Fiedler
Jim Cummings
Nikita Hopkins
Ken Sansom
Peter Cullen
Kath Soucie
Andre Stojka
Tom Wheatley
Music by Carl Johnson (score)
Carly Simon (songs)
Edited by Ivan Bilancio
Production
company
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures
Release dates
  • March 16, 2003 (2003-03-16) (premiere)
  • March 21, 2003 (2003-03-21) (United States)
Running time
 75 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Box office $62.9 million

Piglet's Big Movie is a 2003 American animated film produced by DisneyToon Studios at Munich Animation in Germany, and released by Walt Disney Pictures on March 21, 2003. It is based upon the characters in the Winnie-the-Pooh books written by A. A. Milne. It is the second in a recent series of theatrically released Winnie the Pooh films, preceded by The Tigger Movie (2000) and followed by Pooh's Heffalump Movie (2005). In the film, Piglet is ashamed of being small and wanders off into the Hundred Acre Woods, leading his friends to form a search party to find him.

The three flashback sequences are the first adaptations of original A.A. Milne stories since The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore. The stories are modified to make Piglet the hero, to include Tigger and to conform to Disney versions of the characters, but retain much of Milne's original plot. Besides the Carly Simon songs, Sherman Brothers music is also featured.

Plot

Eeyore, Rabbit, Tigger, and Pooh are working on a plan to get honey from a beehive. Piglet wants to help, but his friends tell him that he is too small. When the plan goes awry, Piglet saves the day by trapping the bees in a decoy hive; but nobody notices what Piglet has done. Feeling ignored and unappreciated, Piglet sadly wanders away.

Piglet's friends realize that he is missing, so they search for him by using a scrapbook Piglet has made of their past adventures as a guide. On the way to Kanga's house, they reminisce about when Kanga and Roo arrived in the Hundred Acre Wood. Everyone is afraid of the newcomers and Rabbit concocts a plan to use Piglet as a decoy so they could kidnap Roo. Kanga pretends to believe that Piglet is Roo and gives him a dose of fish oil and a bath. She gives him a cookie afterwards and Piglet realizes that she is actually very nice. Roo and Rabbit have become friends and everyone agrees that Kanga and Roo should stay.

Back in the present, Roo joins the search party and they head to the next destination in the scrapbook: the North Pole. They remember the story of the expedition to find the Pole. Partway through the expedition, Roo falls into the river. Tigger, Rabbit and Eeyore try to save him but to no avail. Piglet uses a very long stick to catapult Roo out of the river and hands it off to Pooh as he runs to try and catch Roo. Christopher Robin arrives on the scene, sees Pooh holding the stick, and declares that Pooh has discovered the North Pole; Piglet's role in both Roo's rescue and the Pole's discovery went unacknowledged.

Back in the present, Piglet's friends express their regrets for not celebrating Piglet's heroism. They become increasingly worried as a storm rolls in; to reassure Roo, Eeyore and Pooh tell him about the time Piglet built a house for Eeyore. Piglet has pointed out to Pooh that Eeyore did not have a house to keep him warm. Pooh decides that they should build Eeyore a house on that very spot, which he names "Pooh Corner." Pooh briefly considers calling it "Pooh and Piglet Corner" before deciding that "Pooh Corner" sounds nicer. Tigger joins Pooh in trying to build the house while Piglet struggles to keep up; eventually, Pooh and Tigger give up. Then they learn that Eeyore has already built himself a house out of sticks, though it has gone missing. Pooh and Tigger realize that they are using Eeyore's old house to build Eeyore's new house. As they struggle to explain, Piglet arrives and leads them back to Eeyore's newly completed house. Once again, Piglet's contributions are overlooked as the wind gets the credit for moving Eeyore's house.

As the rain begins to fall, Tigger wants to skip to the end of the book to find where Piglet is, but Rabbit insists that they go through it in order; they begin fighting over the book, which falls in the river. The friends sadly return to Piglet's house to keep Roo from catching a cold. They draw new pictures of Piglet, then set out to look for him again. They find the scrapbook bindings, suspended on a hollow log, overhanging a raging waterfall; Pooh goes to retrieve it, but falls into a hole in the log.

Pooh's friends form themselves into a rescue rope, but it is not quite long enough and Pooh is stuck hanging precariously over the waterfall. Piglet appears and pulls Pooh to safety, but the log begins to break. Rabbit, Eeyore, Tigger, and Roo all make it to solid ground, just in time to see half of the log plummet to the water below. Tigger, Rabbit, Roo and Eeyore begin to cry and almost fail to notice Pooh and Piglet emerging from inside of the other half of the log. Piglet's friends take him home and show him the drawings they have made of him, demonstrating their appreciation for everything Piglet has done. They have a party and Pooh shows Piglet the new sign for the renamed "Pooh and Piglet Corner."

Cast

Songs

Piglet's Big Movie (Soundtrack)
Soundtrack album by Carly Simon
Released March 18, 2003
Length 43:02
Label Walt Disney Records
Producer Matt Walker, Carly Simon, Rob Mathes, Michael Kosarin
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic [1]

American singer-songwriter Carly Simon wrote seven new songs exclusively for the film, and performed six of them, as well as recording her own version of the classic Winnie The Pooh theme song.[2]

"The More It Snows (Tiddely-Pom)" 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. Renée Fleming accompanied Simon on the song "Comforting to Know". On "Sing Ho, for the Life of a Bear (Expotition March)" Simon was accompanied by Kath Soucie and Jim Cummings.[3]

The soundtrack also features five tracks of the film's score by Carl Johnson, as well as five of Simon's original demos.

Track listing
  1. "Winnie the Pooh" - Carly Simon featuring Ben Taylor
  2. "If I Wasn't So Small (The Piglet Song)" - Carly Simon
  3. "Mother's Intuition" - Carly Simon
  4. "Sing Ho for the Life of a Bear (Expotition March)" - Carly Simon featuring Kath Soucie and Jim Cummings
  5. "The More It Snows (Tiddely-Pom)" - Jim Cummings and John Fiedler
  6. "With a Few Good Friends " - Carly Simon featuring Ben Taylor and Sally Taylor
  7. "The More I Look Inside" - Carly Simon
  8. "Comforting to Know" - Carly Simon featuring Renee Fleming
  9. "Scrapbook Pages" - Carl Johnson
  10. "River Roo" - Carl Johnson
  11. "Roo Joins the Quest" - Carl Johnson
  12. "Losing the Scrapbook" - Carl Johnson
  13. "Pooh and Piglet Corner" - Carl Johnson
  14. "Winnie the Pooh (Demo)" - Carly Simon
  15. "If I Wasn't So Small (Demo)" - Carly Simon
  16. "Mother's Intuition (Demo)" - Carly Simon
  17. "The More It Snows (Demo)" - Carly Simon
  18. "The More I Look Inside (Demo)" - Carly Simon

Reception

Box office

Piglet's Big Movie was #7 on its opening weekend, earning $6 million. The film domestically grossed $23 million[4]—half the amount of what The Tigger Movie earned.[5]—and $63 million worldwide.[4]

Critical response

The film received a "Certified Fresh" 71% rating from Rotten Tomatoes.[6] Film critic Stephen Holden of New York Times called the film an "oasis of gentleness and wit."[7] 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."[8]

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." [9] 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.[10]

Sources

The film's plot is based primarily on three A. A. Milne stories: "In which Kanga and Baby Roo Come to the Forest, and Piglet Has a Bath, In which Christopher Robin Leads an Expedition to the North Pole and In which a house Is built at Pooh Corner for Eeyore.

References

  1. ↑ "AllMusic review". Retrieved April 11, 2015.
  2. ↑ "Carly Simon Official Website - Piglet's Big Movie". Web.archive.org. Archived from the original on January 14, 2012. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  3. ↑ "Piglet's Big Movie". AllMusic. Retrieved April 1, 2015.
  4. 1 2 "Piglet's Big Movie 2003". boxofficemojo.com. May 29, 2003. Retrieved 2009-03-06.
  5. ↑ "The Tigger Movie 2000". boxofficemojo.com. Retrieved 2009-03-06.
  6. ↑ http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/piglets_big_movie/
  7. ↑ Holden, Stephen (March 21, 2003). "Film in Review; 'Piglet's Big Movie'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-03-06.
  8. ↑ Churnin, Nancy (March 18, 2003). "Piglet's Big Movie". The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved 2009-03-06.
  9. ↑ "Disney Piglet's Big Game (CD-ROM)". Children's Software Online. Retrieved 2009-08-067. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  10. ↑ "Children's Software Review: Disney: Piglet's Big Game". Edutaining Kids.com. April 2009. Retrieved 2009-08-05.

External links

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