Piglet's Big Movie

Piglet's Big Movie

Theatrical teaser poster
Directed by Francis Glebas
Produced by Michelle Pappalardo-Robinson
Written by Brian Hohlfeld
A.A. Milne (Books)
Starring 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 (premiere)
  • March 21, 2003 (United States)
Running time
 75 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Box office $62.8 million

Piglet's Big Movie is a 2003 American animated film produced by DisneyToon Studios, 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 after believing that his friends belittle his presence 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. Edited to make Piglet the hero of the stories and to conform to the characters' idiosyncrasies as Disney has portrayed them, they nevertheless retain much of Milne's original plot. In this film, Pooh changes the name of Pooh Corner to Pooh and Piglet Corner, something that he was originally going to do, but the name did not sound small or much like a corner, which was in fact what it was. Besides the Carly Simon songs, Sherman Brothers music is also featured.

Plot

The film starts with Piglet making a scrapbook with pictures of his friends when Eeyore, Rabbit, Tigger, and Pooh were all working on a plan to get honey from a beehive. This involves Rabbit playing a violin to lure the bees out and Eeyore, disguised as a bee salesman, getting them to move into a new hive. Tigger and Pooh would hold up a fake paper hive while disguised as a tree and will collect the honey from their old hive. Piglet comes up to them during the attempt, but is effectively told that he is too small to help. The plan goes awry when the bees do not fall for it (since the music only angered them), but Piglet manages to divert the bees into the new hive using a funnel and then seals the hive shut, trapping the bees.

However, no one has realized or seen what Piglet had done to help out with the plan and take all the credit for themselves, having Piglet feeling uncared for; Piglet sadly wanders away. Eventually, Eeyore, Pooh, Rabbit, and Tigger notice that the bees escaped from the fake hive and they all ran to Piglet's house they discovered Piglet's scrapbook and found out Piglet is gone. So they started to use the scrapbook to find Piglet by going to Owl's house first and Owl told them Piglet went by and they quickly left as Owl kept on talking. Meanwhile Piglet sees the honey harvest as a terrible mess and found out his friends are gone so he went of to find them. Later Pooh, Tigger, Rabbit and Eeyore went on and they remembered that Kanga's house was on the next page. Then they started to remember about a story that involved Piglet when Kanga and Roo first moved in. The first story is of when Kanga and Roo first came to the Hundred Acre Wood. Rabbit hated the newcomers on sight and convinced himself and the others that Kanga and Roo were fierce monsters that needed to be driven away. Consequently, it was planned that they would kidnap Roo and put Piglet in Kanga's pouch to demand that Kanga and Roo would leave in exchange for his safe return, so Pooh and Tigger distracted Kanga while Rabbit placed Piglet in her pouch and ran off with Roo. After Kanga got home, she quickly figured out what was going on (having seen Roo playing with a reluctant Rabbit through the window) and decided to teach Piglet a lesson by pretending she didn't realise he wasn't Roo by giving him strengthening Medicine and gave him a bath. Then Kanga gave Piglet a cookie and a kiss and Piglet later told Rabbit, Tigger and Pooh that Kanga and Roo were very nice indeed. Back in the present, the group arrive at Kanga's house and told her Piglet was missing and they are joined by Roo as they carry on looking for Piglet. On the next page of the scrapbook showed everyone at the North Pole which is another story about Piglet.

This story told about Christopher Robin, Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Rabbit, Kanga, Roo, Owl, and Eeyore, who all went on an expedition to find the North Pole. While they were on the way Roo fell into a river so Pooh, Tigger, Rabbit and Eeyore tried to save him but failed. So Piglet used a very long stick to save Roo. His heroism is overlooked when he gives the stick to Pooh and tries to catch Roo, who has been catapulted into the air during the rescue attempt Roo was then caught by Kanga. When Christopher Robin arrived he found out Pooh was carrying the stick Piglet gave him and then credits Pooh with finding the North Pole, which was the stick that Pooh was holding. Back in the present the others knew they didn't celebrate for Piglet for saving Roo until they found Piglet's scarf (which Piglet left behind when he went to return to his friends earlier in the movie). Then Eeyore and Pooh told Roo about the time Piglet and Pooh built a house for Eeyore at The House at Pooh Corner.

The next story started with Pooh, Piglet, and Tigger making a new house for Eeyore in a place Pooh and Piglet called Pooh Corner, even though Piglet wanted to be called Pooh and Piglet Corner, but Pooh decided Pooh Corner is perfect. So they got to work on making Eeyore's house with sticks but they failed every time. When Pooh and Tigger went to see Christopher Robin and Eeyore, Piglet came by and wanted to show them the new house for Eeyore and hold up a sign that said Pooh Corner and Eeyore loved his new house.

The search for finding Piglet went on until it started to rain and the rain drops ruined the drawings in the book. Tigger and Rabbit started fighting over the book until they lost their grip of the book as it fell off the bridge and landed in the river. Without their guide, the friends sadly return to Piglet's house and, after a time, start to draw new pictures of Piglet and his adventures on paper with crayons, some which look exactly like the ones from the scrapbook and some of which are new. Some of the pictures come to life and tell short stories of Piglet saving Pooh, Rabbit and Tigger by fighting a swarm of bees, Kanga giving Piglet a bath, saving Roo from a sea heffalump, and stopping a living snowman. Then, Piglet's friends again resolve to find their missing friend and go back out to find him. They come across several pictures from the scrapbook, which have floated downstream and then find the book bindings, suspended on a broken hollow old log, overhanging a raging waterfall. Pooh goes to retrieve it, but falls into a hole in the log.

Eeyore, Rabbit, Roo, and Tigger managed to make it to the edge of the ravine by using Tigger's tail as a rescue rope but it wasn't long enough. Just then Piglet appeared and grabbed onto Tigger's tail and grabs Pooh to save him. However, the log started to break in half and falls down the waterfall and Pooh and Piglet were seemly gone. Tigger, Rabbit, Roo and Eeyore begin to cry but they are joined by Pooh and Piglet, who have managed to escape from the other side of the log., They were all happy that Pooh and Piglet were okay, but the scrapbook has been destroyed after it fell down the waterfall. Happily, the friends take Piglet to show him their new drawings, including a large one of Piglet dressed as a knight in shining armour. Piglet loved them so much they later threw a nice party for him. The film ends with Pooh showing Piglet a new sign that said Pooh and Piglet Corner then the others come out and looked at it with them and Pooh said that it's great a small Piglet can do very big things as the camera zooms out and shows Piglet's huge shadow behind them. During the end credits Carly Simon sings the song With a Few Good Friends while parts of the movie are shown.

Cast

Home media

Shortly after the film was released, a DVD and a VHS of the film was released. The VHS contained a bonus commercial of Walt Disney World's Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh attraction, as well as the DVD, which contained more special features. The film was the only theatrical Pooh film presented in widescreen on DVD on VHS in pan-and-scan full screen format, as the two VHS releases of Pooh's Heffalump Movie and Pooh's Heffalump Halloween Movie were both presented in the pan-and-scan format. Due to VHS was ending in the year of 2005.

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
Source Rating
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]

References

  1. ↑ "AllMusic review". Retrieved April 11, 2015.
  2. ↑ "Carly Simon Official Website - Piglet's Big Movie". Web.archive.org. Retrieved 2015-04-01.
  3. ↑ "Piglet's Big Movie". AllMusic. Retrieved April 1, 2015.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "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: |accessdate= (help)
  10. ↑ "Children's Software Review: Disney: Piglet's Big Game". Edutaining Kids.com. April 2009. Retrieved 2009-08-05.

External links