Talk:Chicken Run

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The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jun/22/how-we-made-chicken-run-nick-park-jane-horrocks

Is it just me, or is the kazoo-theme a bit based on the theme of The Great Escape? I think that it is exactly like the theme the great escape.

I don't believe that the kazoo theme is *exactly* that in the great escape, but it is reminiscent of it (intentionally, I'm sure). --Umrguy42 07:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The page says: "The plot of Chicken Run is quite similar to George Orwell's Animal Farm" but other than the fact that it's on a farm, I don't see a great deal of similarity. 144.32.128.113 14:07, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree. The chickens aren't trying to take over the farm and there aren't any power struggles among the animals. Elipongo 16:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unless you include Mrs.Tweedy as an animal....... IncrediVi

It's a tad confusing and seems to be missing important bits. I think it needs a re-werite, but I'm not very good at it. Could I get some help on it? --Gerkinman TNG 09:08, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is it Mrs Tweedy or Miss Tweedy? Is this Mr Tweedys sister or husband? The article has one section refering to Miss Tweedy being the sister and another as Mrs Tweedy, being the wife. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.88.39.42 (talk) 06:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I'm pretty sure that it's Mrs. Tweedy, with the assumption that she's the wife of Mr. Tweedy (although that *is* an assumption that I would say is never made explicit in the film). --Umrguy42 07:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's more than an assumption; there's a wedding photo in the house, Mr Tweedy calls her "love", which would be rather odd if she was his sister, and in any case he also calls her "Mrs Tweedy" (e.g. when he is being mobbed by the chickens near the end).Riedquat 21:28, 3 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's Mrs. too. Actually I know it is-I have this Chicken Run book from the good old days, and it did say Mrs. IncrediVi

It is common for British to call someone of the opposite sex "love" casually, even strangers, so Mr. Tweedy using that term doesn't necessarily mean they're married or even related. On the other hand, Mr. Tweedy once refers to "my father" which would be an odd way to say it if they were siblings. KevinBTheobald (talk) 06:02, 29 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Err... as a native English speaker she's called Mrs Tweedy in the dialogue. Plus the poster declares "Mrs Tweedy's Chicken Pies". 80.6.132.137 (talk) 23:55, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm adding in the nod to "Stalag 17" made by the fact that one of the huts prominently shown in the movie is #17. --Umrguy42 07:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The 'references to popular culture' section of this article has had a "trivia" tag added by RobJ1981. However, I do not believe this is a "trivia" section at all. Cultural references are an integral and essential part of this film and one of the sources of its humour. Identifying and explaining those references is a useful encyclopedic role. I therefore propose removing the "trivia" tag, but also restructuring this section slightly, combining it with the 'historical references' section and moving it up the document. The new section would begin with an explanation of the role cultural references play in the film, and would then have subsections:

• Film references (I think the many movie references are important enough to deal with separately)
• World War II references (including the current contents of the 'historical references' section
• Music references (identifying some of the music references that are mentioned, but not detailed, elsewhere in the article)
• Other cultural references (people, places, etc)

Comments/suggestions on this would be welcome. Mooncow 12:27, 26 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Notable example: Gert and Daisy's Wartime Cookery Book on the wall. 80.6.132.137 (talk) 00:08, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen the film but parts of the plot in this article are incorrect. I tried correcting it myself but they were changed back by someone else. Is it possible to correct those errors without interruptions? (Tk420 (talk) 18:14, 27 November 2008 (UTC))[reply]

Historical and cultural references

* The conditions and mood of the chicken farm is similar to that of the German camps for Allied Prisoners of war during World War II and The Extermination camps in The holocaust. One of the escape attempts shown in the opening credits is of the chickens tunnelling, and travelling on trolleys down the tunnel. This is a reference to The Great Escape, in which the escapees also travel on trolleys through the tunnel. Ginger is seen to bounce a Brussels sprout off the wall of the bin in which she is held in solitary confinement. This is a parody of "Cooler King" Hilts (Steve McQueen), in The Great Escape, who does the same with his baseball while in the cooler. The coop that Ginger lives in is numbered 17. Stalag 17 was an early POW movie. Edwina, the chicken who is killed by the Tweedies at the beginning of the film, is a reference to politician Edwina Currie. Currie was a Junior Health Minister under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher when in 1988 she issued a warning about salmonella in eggs. This caused a collapse in the British egg market and Currie was forced to resign. ("Facing the axe" or "getting the chop" are terms often used to refer to people who are forced to resigned or been sacked.)[1] Rocky is introduced shouting "Freedooooommm!" in a slightly comedic manner. This alludes to a line of Mel Gibson's portrayal of William Wallace in the movie Braveheart. The scene where Ginger tells Rocky that she wants to get all the chickens out at the same time, and he thinks she is mad, is a reference to a similar scene in The Great Escape between Roger Bartlett and Hilts. Fetcher's line "It's raining hen" during the scene where Rocky is teaching the chickens how to fly is a reference to the song "It's Raining Men" Nick's reference to "Attila the Hun" during the same scene when he says "Attila the hen" When Rocky enters the barn to find the chicken pie-making machine, he is awed by it and says "Look at the size of that thing" — a similar remark to that made by Wedge Antilles when he sees the Death Star in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. The sequence in which Rocky and Ginger are trapped inside Mrs. Tweedy's pie-making machine and encounter various mechanical dangers is a parody of the three Indiana Jones films' various cliffhanger dangers and subsequent escapes, as well as Ginger rescuing her hat. The propeller of the escape plane is made of road signs sharing names with famous RAF bombers of World War II — Stirling Lane, Lancaster Avenue and Blenheim Place. Furthermore, the model aeroplane is of a moderately successful RAF bomber of the early war period, the Whitley. The concept of escaping a prison camp by aeroplane is loosely based on the attempt to escape Colditz Castle by glider in World War II. Fowler repeatedly refers to his years as a member of the No. 644 Squadron RAF. This was a real squadron; it was formed on February 23, 1944, several months before D-Day. 644 squadron was based at RAF Tarrant Rushton airfield in Dorset,[2] and exclusively flew Handley Page Halifax heavy bombers. The 644's primary missions were "special operations" over occupied Europe, such as making supply drops to various resistance movements, and towing troop transport gliders.[3] After the plane has been assembled, the order is given: "Chocks Away!!". This refers to the triangular wedges used to hold an aeroplane back once its engines are running, which are then removed. In Chicken Run these are represented by bars of the triangular chocolate Toblerone, hence "Chocs Away". During the flight, the Scottish chicken Mac shouts a few quotes from Scotty of Star Trek: The Original Series, such as "I cannot work miracles cap'n", "I'm giving her all she's got!", "A 'cling-on' (Klingon) cap'n," and "The engines can't take it!" The Great Escape also includes a Scotsman called "Mac", played by Gordon Jackson, who acts as Bartlett the escape leader's second-in-command, much like this Mac is to Ginger. The promo title featured on posters for the film, "C:R-1", was a spoof of the promo title "M:I-2" for the film Mission: Impossible II. A teaser trailer included on the DVD spoofed Mission: Impossible II with scenes from Chicken Run.

I have removed trivia from the article and placed it here. Please integrate them into sections if you are going to re-include them. BOVINEBOY2008 18:36, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And the parody of McQueen's bike jump over the wire. Smuggling dirt in trousers.

Reverse parody... Timothy Spall plays rat, and goes on to play a character (Wormtail) who assumes the form of a rat (Scabbers) in the Harry Potter movies. 80.6.132.137 (talk) 00:05, 15 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How did you miss this? 180.200.149.128 (talk) 04:44, 22 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wasn't this movie one giant parody of that book/movie? Cid SilverWing —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.166.178.16 (talk) 08:01, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure its mostly an adaptation of "Logan's Run" yuowin ^tawk 21:58, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

!? Apart from one word, where is the connection?91.111.14.86 (talk) 21:58, 5 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Logans run is about people who live in a society where after a certain age, they kill you, and the main characters try to escape. Chicken run is about chickens who live in a society where after a certain age, they kill you, and the main characters try to escape.

The parodies of The Great Escape are numerous: some obvious, some more subtle. Shouldn't there be a section on this in the article, not just these discussions in the Talk page?Pete unseth (talk) 20:07, 15 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ask and you shall receive. (OK, 6 years later...) In the BBC interview I found (and added to the refs), the producers said the movie started out as a spoof of The Great Escape, but they added other references too. So I added "... and other films" to the title. KevinBTheobald (talk) 05:23, 27 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Yes many references. The coal bunker is the "cooler". Fowler's trousers full of nuts. The bike jump over the wire by Rocky. And many minor elements. 80.6.132.137 (talk) 23:59, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The film is a parody of prison camp movies in general and WW2 prison camp movies in particular. I believe the creators said as much, and the critical reception to the movie focused on this point. That the current "Reception" section make zero mention of this, while referencing dubious links to "feminism, revolution, Marxism, [and] veganism" per citation to two articles published 20 years after the movie was released suggests this article needs some work. 2601:C2:1600:5E0:8C46:FA55:5E7:C3CF (talk) 15:04, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Could the last name of Tweedy and the fact that the chickens were being made into pies have anything to do with the musical "Sweeney Todd?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.118.115.82 (talk) 19:21, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

We don't have a source discussing the last name. Anything else we might say on it would be speculation, which is not what Wikipedia is for. - SummerPhD (talk) 20:37, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are some very unnecessary repetitions of various things in this article, most notably the fact that Babs like to knit, mentioned at least twice in the the plot section. Can someone fix this? I don't have time. Thank you.Hawkrawkr (talk) 23:55, 10 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A BBc article from 2000 claims that negotiation for that new category began 3 or 4 years before Chicken Run [1]. Rmhermen (talk) 19:11, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

QuentinUK (talk) 18:13, 21 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

if this is a british movie, what does "domestic" mean? does it mean American like most movies mean when they say that, or does it mean actually domestic, british in this case? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bumblebritches57 (talk • contribs) 00:36, 25 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The usage here meant United States and Canada even though for a British film it does not make sense to use. I have changed to make it more specific as that terminology should not be used on Wikipedia. Sudiani (talk) 23:11, 21 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Mac is a GIRL?Trisha Gaurav (talk) 08:11, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Mac is voiced by a woman and is depicted as a hen, not a rooster. - SummerPhD^v2.0 15:32, 5 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't roosters a separate species from chickens? --Trisha Gaurav (talk) 20:03, 10 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Are you being serious?--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 04:06, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

But... but... Hens are from Venus, roosters are from Mars! KevinBTheobald (talk) 05:28, 27 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mac is Ginger's civil engineer and designer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.162.93.130 (talk) 17:31, 23 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I want to edit Chicken Run source by changing it to Chicken Run is a 2000 British stop-motion animated film.

etc — Preceding unsigned comment added by Readerofmanga80 (talk • contribs) 19:31, 25 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We've already got a source that says it's an American-British co-production. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 19:56, 25 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The prose states that the chickens are caged in the style of a Nazi concentration camp, but I always believed it to be based more on a POW camp, especially as the film is essentially an analogy of The Great Escape. Thoughts? Wikibenboy94 (talk) 17:12, 16 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I had the same thought, and changed it before seeing your post (GMTA). I also mentioned The Great Escape. While I wouldn't go so far as to call the cartoon "an analogy of The Great Escape," the opening scenes clearly reference the latter. (Of course, someone might quibble and say there's not much difference between a concentration camp and a POW camp...) KevinBTheobald (talk) 05:16, 26 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Not much difference": Are you serious? Or just in denial? Swanny18 (talk) 19:18, 6 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See Chicken run in the German wikipedia --Stephanie Do (talk) 17:42, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What genre is the film considered? I feel that it is so conflicting here.2605:6000:1526:450B:BD13:6FE7:BE7B:ACBA (talk) 23:32, 8 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ever since Mel Gibson was fired from his original voice role as Rocky in the Chicken Run sequel, who do think is available for his replacement successor for Rocky's second voice actor, Zachary Levi --Thomas Wiencek (talk) 20:02, 18 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As any viewing of the movie should tell you, these themes are present. I have provided three reliable sources that directly invoke Karl Marx as well as one now-removed "non-reliable" source Zavvi (retailer)^[1] which generally discusses revolution. As to why Zavvi is non reliable but something like IGN (which is chock full of affiliate links these days) is fine I suppose I'll have to learn sometime. The assertion that alleged Marxism is "extraordinary" is itself an extraordinary claim. A movie whose objective, undeniable plot involves a group of chickens trying to escape their farm to avoid being killed by their literal owners for profit may end up with some class politics. There are also some YouTube videos which argue the same - where a YouTube video with a million views, or by someone with a million subscribers, fits on the WP:RS spectrum, a few quick ctrl-Fs couldn't tell me.

Anonymous-232 (talk) 01:42, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note also, the official tie-in Chicken pies for the soul : grade-A parody opens with a quote attributed to Che Guevara. Quite an odd coincidence for a movie with no Marxist themes. The quote, in part: "Ginger ... join[] the socialist cause[.] Property is theft. Long live the glorious struggle against capitalist pie-makers!" https://archive.org/details/chickenrun00jayf/page/n3/mode/2up Anonymous-232 (talk) 20:56, 3 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Because of recent changes to sourced content, I loaded up all the sources to see what they say. The country of origin was fairly different across them, so I looked up what a few other sources said, too:

• British Film Institute (link): UK, US
• American Film Institute (link): UK, France, US
• The Numbers (link): US
• Lumiere (link): UK, US
• Allmovie (link): France, United Kingdom, Netherlands, United States
• Variety (link): US, UK

The template suggests to "list only the common published nations". Maybe we should just call it a UK-US co-production. I can see an argument for including France, but it seems like an outlier. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 14:59, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

After the explosion of the machine:

Mr. Tweedy opens the door of the destroyed building and says to Mrs. Tweedy this quote "I told you they was organized", then Mrs. Tweedy gets angry before the door with no walls supporting it, falls on top of her. 124.190.12.234 (talk) 01:11, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think that is just unneeded in the plot summary. Not to mention it would be plot bloating. --82.1.70.56 (talk) 06:52, 5 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The quote "I told you they was organized" has been listed in the quotes. 220.240.180.166 (talk) 08:01, 17 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The current page explains the film is set in the 1950s but i dont believe it is though. Rocky sings and listens to The Wanderer by Dion DiMucci which wasnt released until 1961 and the trailer for the sequel shows the farm has gained new technologies far beyond the 50s. I do not believe the film takes place in the 50s but rather the late 80s/early 90s. LuckTheWolf (talk) 10:01, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If a year is not defined in the film, it needs to be removed altogether. Mike Allen 11:44, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done LuckTheWolf (talk) 13:35, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There has been many edits from users adding in periods after Mr and Mrs as this page is supposed to be written in British English. Shouldn't we add a template on the page to remind users that the page is written in British English? TPercival (talk) 06:28, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That would be helpful. Mike Allen 14:24, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The template {{Use British English}} was added June 2020 and added the article to the hidden category Category:Use British English from June 2020. Geraldo Perez (talk) 15:39, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I see. I didn't notice that, but thank you for pointing that out for me. TPercival (talk) 17:48, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]