Piglet's Big Movie

Piglet's Big Movie (stylized as Piglet's BIG Movie) is a 2003 American animated musical film released by Walt Disney Pictures on March 21, 2003. The film features the characters from the Winnie-the-Pooh books written by A. A. Milne, and is the third theatrically-released Winnie the Pooh feature. In this film, Piglet is ashamed of being small and clumsy and wanders off into the Hundred Acre Wood, leading all of his friends to form a search party to find him. Piglet's Big Movie was produced by the Japanese office of DisneyToon Studios, and the animation production was by Walt Disney Animation Japan, Inc. and Toon City Animation, Inc., Manila, Philippines, with additional animation provided by Gullwing Co., Ltd., and additional background by Studio Fuga and digital ink and paint by T2 Studio.

Plot
The film begins as Eeyore, Rabbit, Tigger, and Pooh are working on a plan to get honey from a beehive. Piglet wants to help too, 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 just as the bees escape from the decoy hive.

After escaping from the bees, Piglet's friends realize that he is missing, so they decide to go on a search for him by using a special scrapbook that Piglet had made of their past adventures as a guide. On the way to Kanga's house, they reminisce about when Kanga and her son 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 Piglet is Roo and gives him a dose of fish oil and a bath. She gives him a cookie afterwards and Piglet realizes she is actually very nice. Roo and Rabbit have become best friends and everyone agrees Kanga and Roo should stay.

Back in the present, Roo joins the search party and they head to their next destination in the scrapbook: the North Pole. They remember the story of their 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 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 Eeyore did not have a house to keep him warm. Pooh decides 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 "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 Eeyore has already built himself a house out of sticks, though it has gone missing. Pooh and Tigger realize they were 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 really is, but Rabbit insists they should read 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 once 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, which knocks Piglet's scrapbook into the river below. 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 mourn for their apparent loss 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. The film ends as the characters are throwing a party and Pooh shows Piglet the new sign for the renamed "Pooh and Piglet Corner."

Cast

 * John Fiedler as Piglet
 * Jim Cummings as Pooh and Tigger
 * Ken Sansom as Rabbit
 * Nikita Hopkins as Roo
 * Kath Soucie as Kanga and Christopher Robin (singing voice)
 * Peter Cullen as Eeyore
 * Andre Stojka as Owl
 * Tom Wheatley as Christopher Robin

Production
Piglet's Big Movie was produced by DisneyToon Studios, Walt Disney Animation (Japan), Toon City Animation, Inc., Manila, Philippines, Gullwing Co., Ltd, Studio Fuga, and T2 Studio.

Songs
American singer-songwriter Carly Simon wrote seven new songs for the film, and performed six of them, as well as recording her own version of the Sherman brothers' "Winnie the Pooh" theme song.

"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.

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


 * 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 (Exposition 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

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

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes the film received a "Certified Fresh" rating of 71% based on 76 reviews. The site's critical consensus is "Wholesome and charming entertainment for young children." Film critic Stephen Holden of New York Times called the film an "oasis of gentleness and wit." 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."

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." 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.