Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Chicken Little Movie

Directed by
Mark Dindal

Writing credits
Mark Dindal (story)
Mark Kennedy (story)
Steve Bencich (screenplay)
Ron J. Friedman (screenplay)
Ron Anderson (screenplay)
Robert L. Baird (additional story material) (as Robert Baird)
Daniel Gerson (additional story material)
Sara Parriott (additional screenplay material)
Josann McGibbon (additional screenplay material)
David Reynolds (additional dialogue)
Sandra Tsing Loh (additional dialogue)

Release Date :
USA 30 October 2005 (Los Angeles, California) (premiere)

Genre:
Animation | Adventure | Comedy | Family | Sci-Fi

Cast :
* Zach Braff as Ace "Chicken Little" Cluck, a young rooster who suffers under a reputation for being crazy since he caused a panic saying the sky was falling. He makes up for his small size by being extremely creative, for example, using a roller blind to get into his high locker. Little is constantly trying to impress his Dad.
* Joan Cusack as Abby Mallard (aka the Ugly Duckling), a female duck (implied swan) with buckteeth, and wearing a purple shirt and some hairbands. A slight speech impediment and a long, asymmetrical face earned her an unfortunate nickname from the less polite children. She is accustomed to being teased for her appearance, and takes a generally optimistic approach to life. She is Chicken Little's best friend and harbors a secret crush on him.
* Dan Molina as Fish Out of Water, a goldfish who wears a scuba helmet filled with water and lives on the surface. He is unable to speak properly, instead making gurgling sounds and acting out what he feels. He isn't very shy around others and he will perform brave stunts without fear.
* Steve Zahn as Runt of the Litter, a large pig with a huge heart, Runt is much larger than the other children, but is far smaller than the other massive members of his family. Runt is easily frightened and prone to panic.
* Amy Sedaris as Foxy Loxy, a vixen who is a baseball star and the "home town hero", she is a tomboy and one of the "popular kids" at school. She bullies Little throughout the movie for causing the panic at the beginning of the film. Her mind is altered during the alien attack, turning her into a much nicer Southern belle, and she is later seen in a romantic relationship with Runt.
* Mark Walton as Goosey Loosey, a goose, and Foxy Loxy's best friend. Usually helps Foxy Loxy do her bullying. She speaks in quacks, honks and squawks. She usually teases Chicken Little, but becomes his friend when he wins the baseball game.
* Garry Marshall as Buck "Ace" Cluck, Chicken Little's widowed father, a former high school baseball star who has a hard time coming to terms with what it means being a good parent. Most of the time he tries instead to apologize for his son's behavior and encourage him to keep a low profile.
* Don Knotts as Turkey Lurkey, the city mayor. Sensible but not very intelligent.
* Sean Elmore, Matthew Michael Joston, and Evan Dunn as Kirby, a lost alien child whose parents, out of concern, trigger an alien invasion (which turned out to be a search party). In the end, he is returned to his family.
* Fred Willard as Melvin, Kirby's father and Tina's husband. He is the character that triggers an alien invasion and at the end is reunited with his son, and has something called the "Big Voice".
* Catherine O'Hara as Tina, Kirby's mother and Melvin's wife. She and Melvin land on Earth once a year on the way to her parents, and to collect acorns, but when Kirby went missing, Melvin triggered an invasion to retrieve their son.
* Mark Dindal as Morkupine Porcupine, one of the cool kids.
* Patrick Stewart as Mr. Woolensworth, a sheep teacher to the class, who is amazingly boring.

Additional Voices included Brad Abrell, Tom Amundsen, Steve Bencich, Greg Berg, Julianne Buescher, David Cowgill, Terri Douglas, Chris Edgerly, Amanda Fein, Caitlin Fein, Patrick Fraley, Eddie Frierson, Jackie Gonneau, Archie Hahn, Jason Harris, Brittney Lee Harvey, Brian Herskowitz, Amanda Kaplan, Nathan Kress, Anne Lockhart, Connor Matheus, Mona Marshall, Scott Menville, Rene Mujica, Jonathan Nichols, Paul Pape, Aaron Spann, and Pepper Sweeney.

In the Australian version of the film, Buck Cluck is voiced by an Australian, Mark Mitchell, who used an American accent.

Original Sound Track :
1) Stir It Up - Patti LaBelle and Joss Stone
2) One Little Slip - Barenaked Ladies
3) Shake a Tail Feather - The Cheetah Girls
4) All I Know - Five for Fighting
5) Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Diana Ross
6) It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) - R.E.M.
7) We Are the Champions - Chicken Little
8) Wannabe - Abby Mallard and Runt of the Litter
9) Don't Go Breaking My Heart - The "Chicken Little" Cast
10) The Sky is Falling - Score
11) The Big Game - Score
12) Dad Apologizes - Score
13) Chase to Cornfield - Score
14) Dodgeball - Score
15) Driving with Dad - Score

Plot :
In the small town of Oakey Oaks, Chicken Little rings the school bell and cries for everyone to "run for your lives!" This sends the whole town into a frenzied panic that causes so much havoc that it destroys a small part of the town and Oakey Oaks Tower; eventually they calm down enough to ask him what's wrong, and Chicken Little explains that a piece of the sky shaped like a stop sign had fallen on his head when he was sitting under the big Oak tree in the town square. He's unable to find the piece now. His father, Buck Cluck, ashamedly assumes that this "piece of sky" was just an acorn that had fallen off the tree and had hit him on the head. Chicken Little becomes the laughing stock of the town.

A year later, Little has become infamous in the town for being crazy (his popularity continuing to a book, Compact Cassette audiobook, board game, spoons with pictures of his face on it, a website, a brand of commemorative places an upcoming movie entitled Crazy Little Chicken, billboards and bumper stickers), which has led to people avoiding him because of his supposed insanity, his only friends are outcasts like himself: Abby Mallard, who is called "Ugly Duckling" (who has a crush on Chicken Little); Runt of the Litter, who is extremely large despite being the smallest in the family; and Fish out of Water, who wears a helmet full of water and does not speak, except in gurgles. All have been mocked and teased by neighborhood bully Foxy Loxy and her friend Goosey Loosey.

While on the way to Elementary School, he misses to bus and tries to get to school by sticking a lollipop to a car. He manages to go to school, but loses his pants in the process.He replaces his pants with an origami pants made from his math homework.

During a dodgeball game, Abby tells Little to talk to his dad, when Little wants his dad to be proud of him. To help Little, Abby hands Little magazines about talking to your parents. Soon after, Abby is hit with a dodgeball thrown by Foxy Loxy. Little, fed up with being bullied, tries to stand up to Foxy. Goosey Loosey grabs Little, and flings him into a window. Little accidentally pulls the fire alarm while sliding down the window. The sprinkler system goes off and his paper pants fall off. He gets in trouble with the principal, and his father is more ashamed than ever.

Chicken Little joins his school's Little League baseball team in an attempt to recover his reputation and his father's pride, but is unfairly made last, while Foxy Loxy impresses spectators and the newspapers (headlines including "Foxy, our hero!" and "Foxy does it again!") with her pitches and "miracle catches"—until the ninth inning of the last game. Chicken Little is reluctantly called to bat by the coach, who tells him not to swing as he's certain that if Chicken Little tries to swing, he'll lose the game for them. Little scores an inside-the-park home run, and is hailed as a hero.

But that night back at home, while celebrating his victory by singing "We Are The Champions" in his own style, and his father's praise, he is hit on the head—by what appears to be a hexagon shaped chunk of the sky—only to find out that it is not a piece of the sky, but something else. It is a device which has chameleon characteristics—it's not invisible, but it blends into the background (which would thereby explain why Chicken Little was unable to find it last time). He calls his friends over to help figure out what it is.

When Fish pushes a button on the back of the hexagon, it flies back up into the sky, taking Fish with it. It turns out to be part of the camouflage of an invisible alien spacecraft. They chase the flying ship until it lands; they go inside, encounter a small orange alien, find Fish, and are about to escape when two aliens in robotic suits spot them. A chase ensues that goes outside the ship and into town (the orange alien still following in secret). Little manages to ring the bell to warn everyone, but the aliens see the crowds coming and manage to escape, leaving the orange one behind. No one believes the story of an alien invasion; Little is ridiculed all over again, and everything seems to be going down the tubes for him, until the next day. He and his friends discover the orange alien, and a few minutes later a whole fleet of alien ships descends on the town and start what appears to be an invasion staged to "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)".

The invasion is actually a misunderstanding, as two aliens (who are red and yellow making their child orange) are looking for their lost child (whose name is Kirby) and attack only out of concern. It's not an invasion, it's a rescue mission. As the aliens rampage throughout Oakey Oaks, vaporizing people and objects (among them Foxy Loxy and the mayor) seemingly at random, Little realizes he must return Kirby to his parents to save the planet. At first he tries to do it covertly but once the aliens attack, he's forced to confront his father and regain his trust first. They share a caring moment in a movie theater until Abby interrupts them and requests that they hurry up. Little and Cluck are seen leaving the theater, but before leaving, Chicken Little straightforwardly admits his romantic feelings for Abby and kisses her.

In the invasion, Buck Cluck, now regaining his pride and trust in Little, defends him from the aliens, even going as far as deflecting an incoming vaporizer ray with a garbage can lid, throwing the lid at the creatures, and punching them away at the top of town hall. Abby, Runt and Fish also aid Chicken Little in his quest to return Kirby to his parents. It is then discovered that the aliens weren't vaporizing people, the ray guns teleported them aboard a spaceship. Afterwards, the aliens return everything to normal (though Foxy Loxy's mind was slightly scrambled after she was restored, making her more girly and kind), and Hollywood makes a heavily dramatized film about Chicken Little which ends up as, a cross of Star Trek and Star Wars with, a ship that resembles the Enterprise. At the end of the movie, Little and Abby are seen secretly holding hands in their popcorn bucket, and everyone cheers for Chicken Little's efforts to save the town.

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