Word: hoggett
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...than he does as a sequel. You can't blame the little porker; fame has not gone to his head. But his handlers, led by director George Miller, have succumbed to a desire to test the powers of his innocence against creatures more ferocious than those that inhabited Farmer Hoggett's essentially benign barnyard. Or maybe it was the powers of their special-effects wizardry that they wanted to strut, for the cast members of Babe: Pig in the City are larger, busier and--shall we say?--more emotionally complex than their predecessors. They are mostly residents of the Flealands...
...bull whose lineage might be traced back to The Godfather's family, and a game, crippled mutt that seems to have been inspired by old Lon Chaney roles. In short, they are knowing yet desperate inventions. So is the farcical but flat rescue that Babe and Mrs. Hoggett lead when their friends are impounded by motivelessly malign city authorities. Studio executives ordered last-minute fixes on the film because they found it too dark in tone, but its inherent, insoluble problem is that in its frenzy to top the original, it has lost touch with the first film's gently...
...voices were far too shrill and strident... I'm relieved I have the opportunity to get this [reworked], because it would have destroyed the film." To lighten the tone, some of the score will be softened. Miller says he is even tuning down the clank when Farmer Hoggett falls into a well, because "people thought he was dead...
...tale is simple. Farmer Hoggett wins Babe in a raffle, then leaves him to fend for himself in the barnyard. A motherly sheep dog adopts him, a fatherly sheep dog growls dubiously at him, and a kooky duck gets him in trouble. But Babe wins respect, animal and human, when he drives off some sheep poachers, in the process gaining his first sense of vocation: he'd like to herd sheep himself. The dogs think he's too nice a guy for that line of work. But the sheep, tired of being nipped and woofed at, take a shine...
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