Midweek Mention... Babe

Babe

Dan: Babe.

Sidey: Yes.

Dan: This film has it took my family's heart, really. My mum loved it. The kids loved it. The missus hadn't seen it up until this viewing though. And she'd never even heard of it. She'd never heard of it.

Pete: I was like her, I'd never seen it before. But I had heard of

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: about the book that it's based on? Nope. Dick King Smith the Sheep Pig. I do remember reading that at school.

Sidey: Oh really?

Reegs: Yeah.

Pete: Your nickname at school was the Dick King.

Reegs: yeah,

Dan: But that's, yeah,

Sidey: separate story.

Dan: one.

Reegs: And it was apparently known as the Gallant Pig. In the United States.

Dan: it was just plain old Babe to us over here. And it did spin a reboot Babe, Pig in the

Sidey: city. Well, well it was a sequel. Sequel. Yeah.

Dan: A sequel. Yeah, a sequel reboot.

Sidey: I've never seen that one.

Dan: that one. I've not, no. I've peaked I think Pig's peaked here.

Reegs: Know it's good pig in the city is really

Dan: Is it? Yeah. Yeah,

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's more mayhem and madcap because it was George Miller who's only on the producing duties for this one, but George Miller of the Mad Max

Dan: Right.

Reegs: and he brings some of

Sidey: much the same thing as Fury Road.

Reegs: Yeah, very much. It's pretty much yeah,

Dan: got all that cyberpunk kind of stuff going on and everything.

Yeah, excellent. Well, this starts out very differently. It's kind of a traditional

Sidey: No. No. It's the abattoir first.

Reegs: Well, it's a book really, isn't it? We get the opening of a book

Dan: We're all wrong.

Reegs: Smith's book and, and the, and the title comes up, like the page of a leather bound book and it's opened and we get all of the, going through the, some like, Stuff on the walls, and it starts animating to give us this thing, and then it breathes.

Sidey: this yeah, because there's the pig and it's like, the side of it lifts up. Yeah. And it's all sausages and stuff. Yeah,

Dan: I thought that was the wall of the cottage of the house where they lived, but

Sidey: Well, anyway, I was watching it with my daughter and she went, Oh!

Dan: yeah.

Sidey: And then she said it was rude. She didn't like that at all. That was, that really freaked her out. Oh. Yeah.

Reegs: Well, it's a good indication that this movie is not going to shy away from You know, the real aspects of a pig on a farm. And it starts, like you said, really, in the abattoir. And Really quite dark scenes. A pig that's feeding its piglets is replaced by a robotic suckler. It looked like Anything to say about that? A robotic Yeah.

Dan: kind of stunned out there with one of those

Sidey: that thing reminded me of the interrogation droid from. Episode four of star wars. Yeah Yeah and then the

Reegs: runt is selected,

Sidey: being it's being narrated by a pig Probably.

Saying about they're not worried about the pigs being taken away because they're going to a better place. Pig paradise. And so it's not they don't freak out about they're like they're just waiting their turn. So they're selected to go to pig

Dan: know, we know it's just one day closer, until we all go there and follow the footprints,

Reegs: But we are very definitely in an abattoir and there's a meatpacking, like, if you didn't know, then a meatpacking lorry drives off literally with the pigs in it, and one pig is selected as a, a, a runt and we're not really sure why, but it'll be, become abundantly clear because we move to a county fair where Farmer Hogget played by James

Sidey: Cromwell.

Oliver's brother.

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: Looking about 50 in this. I

Sidey: I think he's just eternal, he just looks the same to me all the time,

Dan: yeah. 50? 60. 70 maybe. He looks old farmer type.

Sidey: His wife, his wife was only 30 when she was cast.

Dan: was cast. Was

Pete: He was four. He was 45.

Dan: was, he Oh dear me. Yeah.

Reegs: five. He

Sidey: 10 years really quickly.

Pete: Yeah.

Reegs: And he meets Babe. Guess the weight thing. Yeah. He guesses sixteen pound five ounces.

It's a pound of fare kind

Dan: And there's lots of little prizes and games and things going on and he's called over by somebody.

Oh, Mr. Hoggett, come out, Farmer Hoggett, have a guess at this one. And he's, he's, you can see he's a man of few words. He's a man who probably doesn't stop working lots of the time, but everybody knows him. He would have had dealings and, and that's how he comes across and they beckon him over and he

Sidey: He's good at knowing the weight of things because he adjusts his

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah, he does,

Sidey: pig takes a huge slash.

Dan: a huge slash. That's

Reegs: three ounce piss, yeah.

Sidey: yeah,

Dan: And and he, he puts him down as, as a wait, and then gets a phone call the next day, because lo and

Reegs: yeah, we do, each section of the film is divided into sort of chapters as they would have been in the book. And you get some singing mice come up.

Sidey: Yeah, did you see why that was? Because none of the kids in the test screenings could read what was on the screen, so they got the singing mice to say what the chapter was called

Reegs: All right, well the first chapter is called pigs are stupid. Maybe it should have said children are stupid, but

Sidey: are

Reegs: And it's a female sheepdog taking babe under it under his wing eventually

Sidey: a

Dan: Yeah, pig

Reegs: yeah under the paw

Sidey: was Miriam Margolis, was it?

Reegs: Yeah And there's an alpha dog, Rex, Hugo, weaving, channeling Agent Smith and spending a lot of time talking about purpose and stuff, so, yeah, and, and, you know, in this initial section of the farm where initial section of the movie when Babe, yeah, he's won the competition, Babe has been moved in, taken under the wing of Fly the sheepdog it's the threat of Babe being eaten, and what happens on the farm to animals is always there, it's always being discussed,

Dan: and what is also? Always there is this initial connection that Farmer Hoggett and Babe have right from the offset They seem to connect their eyes and they they the narrator says it didn't he there was some some fleeting kind of exchange between them

Sidey: I think he just doesn't give them any shit, any hassles. It is just like,

Dan: Yeah, there's just something an intelligence in his eyes I think that The farmer hog it can see and and he's welcomed onto the farm and, and the missus is already eyeing him up for food at some point. She's thinking, oh, that crackling will be nice and you know, bacon and we

Reegs: being fattened up,

Sidey: Every time she fills the trough, she's like, let's get you all fattened

Dan: That's right. Yeah. And and the farm has got his characters. We've got all different kinds of animals in and around.

Reegs: sorry, just before we move on, I just think it's really brave of a movie that is a kids film to up front just deal with the idea that these animals are here on a farm to be eaten. And then one of the movies main themes is, you know, if, unless animals have a purpose then they'll be eaten.

And, you know, that will play out time and time again because it's sort of used as a joke in a character that we're going to meet, Ferdinand, who's got an identity crisis. He's a duck who

Dan: He wants

Reegs: wants to be a rooster so he can be useful because he knows that if he doesn't, he'll be eaten.

Dan: Yeah, he's had that kind of moment of realization where he realizes ducks get eaten But roosters don't because they have a purpose and and there's a few animals in and around The farm that don't even question anything because they have their purpose.

You've got the sheep. You've got the dogs You've got the cows. They've all there for a reason And the chickens are there for

Reegs: Eggs,

Dan: eggs and, and potentially being eaten as well. But

Pete: Thanks for explaining what farm

Dan: are. Thanks Peter. That's okay. Thanks for thanking me. And yeah, babe is still trying to find his, his feet really his little trotters.

Reegs: I mean he's fully ingratiated with the dog pack. To the extent that he's not allowed in the hou like, except he's not allowed in a house like the rest of the dogs are and he's not allowed onto the farm with the sheep.

'cause he meets Mar ma . Yeah. And Mar's not a big fan of dogs at all. She thinks

Pete: say, but like right from the get go Rex isn't really having him is he? No.

Reegs: he? no.

Sidey: No. he's like, he's a very proud

Pete: Well, he's like, he's probably he's probably realized that they're all mad because this is a pig who's like basically, you know, trying to

Sidey: but he wants, he wants to identify as a dog. It's clearly a trans allegory.

Reegs: Re Rex has a really interesting arc in this movie, but, which come, you know, we come to find out a few things out about him, but mostly he's surly and testy at the

Dan: beginning. Yeah. Well, he he's the boss's dog, isn't he? He's the, the alpha animal there. He's man's best friend. And he's the one that. Controls the sheep and and with a couple of whistles can have him into into the pen or back out the other side of the field. So he knows his worth.

He rides in the cab alongside the farmer and and he. You know, he's, everybody respects him for that, and they're looking when he's on top of, you know, the crate there at one point, they're all waiting on his word, and he says, Okay, the pig can stay until he finds his feet, but, you know, you're not gonna put pigs under your wings too much.

Reegs: Well it's, that's the harsh reality of sheepdogs because it's not long before, I, it may, it's probably skipping on a bit but it's relevant to it because Fly's own puppies, she's got puppies and they're gonna go, aren't they?

They're gonna be sold off.

Dan: yeah, it's not, it's not long after we see that. We see one guy takes three of them.

A little boy comes along, a little girl, they take one each.

Sidey: I would imagine that a properly trained sheepdog like that would be very

Dan: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they're getting them right from the source there. I mean,

Reegs: descended from a long line, as we'll

Sidey: lineage. Lineaggio.

Dan: Yeah and and so Yeah, you think that farmer might have kept one of them or two of them back but he's obviously got lots of life in fly and wrecks and and the little pig is is starting to You know show signs of getting his feet and becoming more

Sidey: He's got a very plucky, can do attitude.

Reegs: He does.

Dan: bit of confidence.

Reegs: So the next occasionally as well. So he, he goes off, he talks to Ma the sheep and she, he doesn't really know what's going on in the field with the sheep all day. And he's puzzled by like, why do the sheep have such a negative view of the dogs? Why do they hate them so much? He doesn't understand it and he will learn that anyway.

And occasionally it'll cut to a human. I like this. Like, and you just hear the sheep like barring and the pig oinking and stuff as they're having their conversations. Because they do actually speak in these pigs. We can understand them. I don't know whether we've said that

Dan: Yeah. No, we, we haven't.

But they can, they can all be understood and we find out that there's a little, there's a lot of misunderstandings actually because the dogs who are called wolves by the sheep think that sheep are really, really stupid. And and they believe that wolves are ignorant. Yeah, something like that.

Reegs: Very much that. So the next section is called Crime and Punishment. This goes a bit heisty in this section. This is where Ferdinand the Duck is it's another good theme. It's a rooster being replaced by a a machine, an alarm clock that's waking everybody up and suddenly everybody's feeling a little bit under threat and Ferdinand wants to get rid of this alarm

Dan: of this alarm clock. Yeah. Well, Ferdinand the, the, the duck is climbing on top of the roof. To impersonate a rooster before the rooster wakes up and the missus has said a couple of times We've got to get rid of that duck because she's fed up of waking up earlier than she needs to by the sound of a straining duck, and so she's Bought this alarm clock and Ferdinand once he gets wind of it decides that the mission to to get that clock out

Sidey: Well, we've got ducks just by where we live by the duck pond and they do fucking make a load of racket first thing in the morning when the sun comes up.

They're fucking loud as fuck and it sounds like they're laughing at you.

Dan: Mm-hmm.

Reegs: maybe they are.

Sidey: Yeah, I think they are, genuinely.

Reegs: nice. So yeah, he Ferdinand needs babe's help to grab this alarm clock and it kicks off. He would do it himself, but he's allergic to cats.

Dan: Grab the, the farmer's bedroom bedside table, grab the clock, walk it out the house and bury it or hide it or

Reegs: Should be simple, shouldn't it, Dan? But there's loads of yarn, and paint pots, and

Dan: And you're a pig and a duck. You're not a person. So yeah.

Reegs: And it goes completely wrong. We don't, we hit, I think Ferdinand sneezes, which wakes up Duchess the Cat, who's kind of the enemy, and then we cut to the outside, and

Dan: Douglas, the

Reegs: hear all the noises, and the crashing, and all that stuff.

Dan: cat, who's kind of yelling, and the Hoggarts coming back, and they've come back from church, and they're, you know... Getting into the house and putting out all this stuff and they're shopping or wherever they've been and the cat is just on the table Covered in paint like just one of those It looks awful, doesn't it?

It's just a paint covered oily cat

Pete: they actually covered a cat in

Reegs: paint.

It was almost certainly a model, a lot of, there was loads of model work Henson's creature, and it's great, I mean considering how old it is, it's very difficult to tell.

Dan: Absolutely, really good. Yeah, they should be. I mean, they're farm yarn animals,

Pete: of the close ups of the duck were quite obvious

Sidey: Do you want a stat about how many pigs we used? Please. While

Dan: I would say about 45. Yeah. Mmm.

Sidey: Forty eight

Reegs: forty. eight. pigs.

Sidey: pigs, yeah. Because, because they age so quickly.

Pete: of the pig as well. 'cause

Sidey: You can guess the weight age so quickly, they had to keep,

Reegs: Age out the

Sidey: like, euthanizing one and moving on

Reegs: Euthanizing one and moving on.

It's like the cast of Strange. These days, they de age them. They de age one pig, wouldn't they? Using CGI.

Dan: pretty sure no pigs were harmed in the making of this movie. But you, you've got then this scene where the cat is obviously enemy.

Reegs: all Well, Smith lays down the Agent Smith No, it's not, is it? Rex lays down the law to Babe, doesn't he?

He's covered in blue paint, and he's and Ferdinand is banished from the farm, and he's forbidden to have contact with Yeah, and

Dan: He's covered in blue paint and Ferdinand is banished from the farm and he's forbidden to have contact with him.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: You can't ever speak to that duck again. I don't know where he is But if you find him or see him just ignore him because he's bad news and he's ready for the chop

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: Hijinks, indeed.

Reegs: in fact, inside, the Hoggetts are discussing whether or not to have pork for Christmas dinner.

Pete: But doesn't Farmer Hoggett kind of talk her out of it, talk the wife out of it by

Dan: Not at that stage, but he does a little bit later on.

Reegs: on. We might as well skip to that, because the next bit is all with the puppies and stuff, so, Babe is taken under, when the puppies go, Babe is taken under Fly's more adopted wing, and he asks, asks her, can you call me mum? Can I call you

Dan: A little, a little teary moment because the, the voice of baby is so cute and it's so, innocent and vulnerable. And

Reegs: Cavanaugh is that

Sidey: Yes. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. yeah.

Dan: Well, eventually

Reegs: get to Christmas.

Dan: we, well, we get on onto the farm and he gets an opportunity to to go and see what's happening because he hears a load of.

Noise and everything, whether the sheep something's going on. There's some sheep rustling going on. And so, somehow he manages to force these three dogs that are chasing and these guys away runs back. If he goes to get fly and the other dog, they're making a big noise. Farmer hog, it comes in and runs through and understands that, you know that there's I think it's Ma is been killed at this stage. There was two there was two wasn't it? Okay, so there was there was two so this first one

Reegs: This is when he realizes that Babe can be useful, because he saw that Babe was the one who alerted Rex to come back and all that sort of stuff, so he gives him, he says I don't know, he gives him some little term of him, Dearman or whatever, and it also,

Dan: Yeah,

Reegs: one of those, yeah, and also, you know, just before this, we've had the thing with they've had duck à l'orange for Christmas dinner,

Dan: it

Reegs: and you thought it was Ferdinand for a little while, but thankfully it was Rosanna, his friend, instead.

Pete: thankfully,

Sidey: Some duck got it. Bit one way or the other.

Dan: Yeah, Ferland kind of turns up looking through the window, doesn't he?

Around Christmas time and goes, it was roanna.

Reegs: So it's this, this is now the chapter. It's got a pig that thinks it's a dog, and this is when the Hogg's son and daughter-in-law and and their daughter are, are staying with them around Christmas and there's a load of.

Gently mocking the proud father for his farm being not quite solvent and him being a little bit out of touch with modern technology, even though he's this proud, quiet man who's taking the time to build this beautiful house for,

Dan: Thatch roof and everything, yeah.

Reegs: daughter as well. He's made her a little toy

Dan: but she's bought him a a fax machine. Yeah. Which will come in

Sidey: whatever

Reegs: as, as she's talking to him about that, he looks out the window and babe has sorted the chickens into brown ones and white ones, and it's given him an idea. And I, it's another theme in the movie I really like where

Sidey: it's racial segregation.

Reegs: No . Is that what was going on?

Yeah. No, he, he's like, he gets the idea to take babe out and it's just this crazy lunatic idea that he just goes with like, you know, come on Rex, come on fly. Come on Pig. Up onto the truck and Babe doesn't really know but up he goes so he's promoted to

Dan: the truck, and babe doesn't really know, but up he goes, so he's promoted to being a dog. Mrs. Hoggart's looking on top kind of shaking her head thinking he's he's having a moment here like, you know, and She's not a hundred percent confident.

He isn't There's there's another scene. I'm not sure this there's a moment where they believe Babe has killed a

Reegs: Yeah, that does come up a little bit, yeah.

Dan: we're, we're almost kind of there and, and it's the last kind of moment of doubt then, then because the wrestlers have come back and, and babe knows there's no time to, to leave. They've attacked ma biting on her leg or something,

Reegs: Yeah, also

Dan: run full speed and, and sort of but nose butted this dog.

Yeah.

Reegs: T boned it.

Dan: yeah. And let it. Gone off squealing and everything just in time for the other dogs and farmer Hoit to come back. But

Reegs: Well, no, because Rex is out of the picture at this point. He, he got offended by Babe being trained and, like, his

Sidey: proud.

He's a very proud dog.

Reegs: Yeah. And he thinks, you know, I come from a great lion lineage of,

Dan: and he really

Reegs: he's making a mockery of it.

And he has a fight with Fly and he ends up biting Hogget, which he ends up being kind of permanently sedated, which is why Babe ends up being the one who's...

Dan: Yeah, that's right, yeah, he's sedated flies been bitten so poor is out of action in and layman and then Yeah, nobody's really left apart from as I say the pig that was once almost It's not going to be for the chopping block, but Fly goes to the sheep, it finds an explanation that actually, No, no, you know, babe saved us.

He didn't bite anybody, which seemed to me quite obvious. What's a pig mauling a sheep

Pete: quite obvious.

What's a like, I don't know how many, like, vicious pig attacks there are.

Sidey: Loads.

Dan: there are loads,

Pete: some, they're like... But like, on a, like a pig, a piglet of that size, like, like mortally wounding a, a, a large sheep, a large

Sidey: Happens all the time, Pete.

Pete: Happens, okay, maybe, Yeah,

Sidey: Yeah, I saw one in town today.

Dan: is, yeah, it does happen more often than you think, you know. But, just at the last sort of moment The, the dogs, well the dogs are running before the wife because he's got his gun out and he's aimed it and leveled it and babe's kind of narration is like, oh it looks like those feeding tubes, so I wonder what I'm gonna get, must be a nice surprise for me doing such a good job and

Reegs: away from death.

Dan: and the dog start barking, grabs Hoggett's attention and as he goes out to see where the dogs is, misses Hoggett saying, oh more rustlers about, they've had it on the other farm and he realizes, wait a minute.

Old pig ear is actually,

Reegs: He's innocent.

Dan: He's innocent. Not only innocent,

Sidey: so he turns the gun on himself.

Dan: Yeah, he, and that's the end of the film.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: a sad

Sidey: being so

Reegs: What a film.

Pete: for being so fucking stupid that you thought a piglet had done that to the

Dan: yeah. Yeah. But now he's gonna be even more stupid, Pete, because he's gonna train that piglet to become a sheep.

Pete: it coming?

Dan: A sheep dog pig.

Sidey: Yeah, he's going to actually enter him in the,

Dan: the sheep dog trials.

Sidey: What's it called? Herding

Dan: he's gone through the books the rules books and everything. It's the next day

Reegs: the form. It doesn't say it has to be a

Dan: What

Sidey: but this is disrespectful name dog.

Dan: it just says name of animal so

Sidey: disrespectful to the competition,

Dan: Well, we we go through that

Pete: in the spirits

Sidey: competition. Exactly. Well, we

Dan: we'll go through that point of view later, but first, Babe is realized, actually, they do kill and eat

Reegs: pig. I was gonna say the night before. He has a horrible realization.

He's, it's a real stormy night and he's brought into the

Dan: is.

Sidey: She's a fucking bitch.

Dan: He's

Reegs: He's bought into the house. He's allowed to come into the house, babe. And he's settled, settled down by the fire, and the cat is booted out after it scratches him. Yeah. And so Duchess reveals what pig's function is are

Dan: David, well, we have the talk on purpose.

Don't we? An animal is here for a purpose and we find out that she's there to make everybody look and feel fabulous. That. The dogs, the, yeah, she is. The dogs she knows it.

Pete: And the the, what all the animals do again. Don't do it. Don't do it like the, the, the, and the chickens give eggs. No, no, don't do it again,

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: no, don't do it again, please. But, but, Pete, you know,

Reegs: He's mostly horrified to understand that Farmer Hogger himself Eat would Eaton. Yeah. And he goes off to get that

Sidey: It's like cannibalistic,

Reegs: fly is just brutal about it. She's like, yeah, he will. Yeah. You are tasty.

Dan: just as a

Sidey: wrong, though. Suckling pig.

Dan: Cromwell Oliver and his brother in this film turned vegan

Reegs: after film. Yes. yeah,

Dan: So,

Sidey: I got a stat about that.

But yeah, he goes, he goes to the, the cemetery.

Reegs: Yeah. He goes really sad and he gets cold and it more, the docs like basically, oh, his heart's broken pretty much. I mean he doesn't say it 'cause he stopped eating and all that and it's the morning of the competition.

Dan: Yeah, it's like you've got a heartbroken pig, but a little bit of farmer hoggart singing seems to bring him some joy and you can see the connection and the love for the pig. He even does a little jig and, and suddenly he's got his appetite again and... He's restored

Reegs: his faith in humanity, I think, through doing a dance.

But it's like Flashdance,

Dan: a little bit, Lord, lord of the dance.

Pete: watching the jig.

Sidey: Little bit.

Pete: I was cringing

Sidey: hard. But it's really, like, ultimately a state of execution. I mean, he's gonna be eating at some point.

Pete: to be eating

Dan: hard there. Ultimately

Reegs: Yeah, the National Grand Challenge Sheepdog

Dan: state of execution. I mean, he's going away with the ladies guild. She's only

Sidey: Oh, what a fucking tear up that is going to be. Dillies

Reegs: fucking

Dan: and she is the

Sidey: and everything all over the place.

Dan: She's the Northeast Regional Manager, so she's got to go and what trouble can he get up to in three days? So,

Reegs: She leaves him the most hideously complicated instructions on how to cook liver for various animals.

Dan: cook liver for various he fancies

Pete: I couldn't stop following her with all the instructions. Oh, and do that and that on a Tuesday. He's not writing it down. Like, that's exactly like my life. Like, with like, my missus went away last weekend, and it was giving me all these instructions.

I'm not listening to you. I'm not gonna do any of that.

Sidey: We'll get by, it'll be fine.

Yeah,

Pete: Yeah, McDonald's. It's fine.

Reegs: So, but she's watching it on the telly, from afar. cause it's, obviously everybody's watching the National Sheepdog.

Dan: Did you watch this when you were kids? Yes. Yeah,

Sidey: One Man and His Dog. Do you not remember

Reegs: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pete: there was nothing else that was good on. I wasn't,

Sidey: we had four channels.

Reegs: to remember the theme tune.

It a bit whistly? I

Pete: just thought of the theme tune to Ski Sunday, but

Sidey: So did I!

Pete: Yeah,

Dan: the

Pete: no way! Duh duh duh, duh duh duh,

Sidey: Because they were both Sunday night

Pete: It must have been, yeah, bloke Yeah,

Dan: were both Sunday nights. Kind of commanding an animal to command other

Sidey: Some

Dan: do what they wanted

Pete: kumbay,

Sidey: being really northern. It's amazing, love it, love it.

Dan: And so we all had this kind of memory and you see these sheepdog trolls and it was set up as a very kind of Professional setup.

I remember it being on the Dales and Kind of, but this was a much

Reegs: What, as opposed to like a car parkour?

Sidey: park. An arena. Urban,

Pete: park. Urban, urban sheepdog trials

Sidey: machine gun grass.

Reegs: Parkour dogs.

Dan: The cat

Sidey: when it kicks off and it's obviously not going to go to plan because it's a fucking pig, right?

Reegs: Well, but also there's been this thing. So he, we haven't actually talked about it, but the way he was able to coerce the sheep into doing things was being polite and being nice.

He didn't have to be an arsehole like the dogs and Rex, who's also got this backstory that he was a champion poised to be the greatest sheep dog, whatever of all time. And then one night, a bunch of stupid sheep drowned themselves basically, and trying to save them and stay with them and be loyal to his master.

He lost his hearing. With never the same again, couldn't compete. So he's got all this emotional baggage behind it. So when we come to the final sheepdog trials and babe has to get the sheep who he doesn't know to do anything, they won't even listen to him. So now at this point, Rex seizes the initiative to be the hero to, he wants to help his master and.

Babers won his respect and he goes back and talks to the sheep and says, how can, you know, tells them

Sidey: there's a secret like,

Dan: and what is

Reegs: There's a secret deus ex machina that

Dan: there's a password isn't there that he he knows that if He tells that password to other sheep.

That's kind of the big signal to get on board and collaborate and and agree and do everything. And they're doing this because Fly and Rex realize that the farmer could lose all credibility here. They realize in an animal, animals in the human world, they realize that he's going to be ridiculed because the entire counties, they're watching.

It's on TV and he's last on. There's been a big kind of commotion and a,

Sidey: a Well, it's a big story,

Dan: where they, they've just said this is going against the rules. This is against the spirit of the rules, like, but we don't actually have any official rules says he can't. So it's kind of up to you, but you're going to be a real dick if you do this.

But he goes and does it anyway. He has faith in the pig. Unbeknownst to him that he, the... Rex is running all the way out there and coming back.

Pete: a secret

Sidey: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah. He did not know that the pig had been given the ram. What was it? Rambam, thank you ma'am. Thank you. Rambam, thank you ma'am. Bah, Bah, Ram, you.

Yeah, it was. And when he gets this password, it cuts to the television, actually. And the commentary on the television

Sidey: is just,

Dan: they're all laughing. And you know,

Pete: wive's having to be fanned

Dan: the wife's kind of... You know, with all her friends, she's beyond embarrassed.

Reegs: Hasn't one of them, like, fainted backwards, and you can see up her bloomers?

Dan: that's right.

Her, she's had a nervous breakdown and on the bed because she's been absolutely

Reegs: And what are bloomers?

Dan: They're undergarments

Sidey: undergarments.

Reegs: giant

Pete: Giant undergarment.

Reegs: Yeah.

Dan: Yeah, and the sheepdog Rex runs on and the commentator says doesn't he goes it looks like this sheepdogs giving the pigs some lessons there. Ha ha ha and Nothing happens, like the clock starts, babe trots over to the pen, and they just start laughing at him, the pigs the sheep, sorry, they just start Heart's broken at this point. Not sure it's gonna what's gonna happen, but he gives her the password! And... All of a sudden, just as the clock is kind of ticking and everybody's laughing,

Sidey: Everyone

Dan: in perfect form, two pigs two sheep, sorry lead the rest of them around this course, go into the circle, step out the circle, the ones with

Reegs: on,

Dan: red on. Three have got red ribbons on and he asked very politely. Would you mind stepping out please with a red ribbon? Oh, thank you very much. It's perfect. And the pigs just trotting alongside of

Reegs: And there's the stunned silence of the

Dan: done silence of the crowd and It's perfect. They all give 10. Even the guy who's really opposed on the pig being involved, he has to, there's absolutely nothing wrong

Pete: flawless

Dan: It was a flawless routine.

Sidey: Like Nadia Comanecia in the old

Dan: and, and Farmer Hoggard has done nothing. He's just simply stood, he says

Sidey: the immortal words, doesn't he?

That'll do,

Dan: That would do pig and they've won it. Oh,

Reegs: What a brilliant ending as well, because everything, all of

Sidey: stuff, the difference,

Reegs: a difference, all of the emotional arcs building and paying off all at the last minute and it's so sincere as well.

Dan: Did

Sidey: I came.

Dan: that it's just about this

Reegs: Did you? And the fact that it's just about this guy who had a crazy idea and the faith in someone else to do it and bring that side of someone else out of them as well.

Dan: flashes back to the missus who suddenly sat upright with tears of happiness streaming through her face and she realizes I really don't have enough faith in my husband. Why did I ever

Sidey: he should leave her. Doubt him.

Pete: Yeah, you should cheat on

Sidey: her.

Dan: Yeah with that pig

Reegs: That'll do pig, that'll do.

Dan: But that's it it kind of just is it ends in that big circle that goes into Into nothing doesn't it?

It's just kind of that

Sidey: Into nothingness, into the veil.

Dan: pigs. They're the little mice come and sing

Sidey: Let's find out what Pete thought.

Pete: Let's find out what Pete thought. I thought it was rubbish. I really didn't like it at all. I, I don't like talking animals?

Sidey: going to be my first one. Do you just generally dislike talking animal movies?

Pete: no,

Dan: you like puppets though.

Pete: yeah. Yeah, like Team America, which you liked, which is class. No, don't like talking animals.

I don't mind it in cartoon form, but not like actual animals. No, it's, it's like, fucking like, soppy, predictable. Like, it's so, it's,

Reegs: not! It's all those

Pete: well, I'll tell you how predictable it was. The second that they first had the interaction where, like, Fly was like, Oh, let's kind of, like, take this pig under our wing.

And Rex was like, No, he's a pig, and everything. I was like, Oh, right, so he's gonna win his, like, his, like, you know,

Reegs: Love.

Pete: Yeah, but, like,

Reegs: Yeah. Maybe

Pete: not, like, he's gonna win his respect. And then as soon as, like, the first time they went out in the field, I was like,

Sidey: Right,

Pete: so now he's gonna like herd

Reegs: I know, but this is the story of a...

Pete: levels.

I mean for what I

Reegs: becoming a sheep dog though.

Pete: What I would say is this film is for children. It is only and exclusively for

Dan: Well, it is rated all, isn't it? Universal.

Sidey: everyone, Pete, for

Pete: and so I I would what I would do is is let my kids watch it and find out what they thought about it, but I wouldn't watch it again with them I got, I got, I got next to nothing from it.

It's, it's all really like,

Reegs: heartwarming at all?

It's really

Pete: twee and cliche and predictable and... There's a fucking mice! The mice! Oh, I hate that kind of like, high pitched like, Alvin and the Chipmunks fucking sound

Reegs: They sing Blue Moon at one point. I can still hear it in

Pete: irritating, serving no purpose whatsoever, other than like, breaking up the predictable

Sidey: I would agree with you in the sense that yes, it is predictable, but only because, like...

That's, it sets it's stall out right from the get go,

Reegs: it's structured like a sports movie.

Sidey: I, it's

Pete: It's not ten out of ten! it great?

Reegs: yeah,

Sidey: it's one of the best films we've ever seen on the pod,

Pete: Ha

Dan: I'm with you 95.

Pete: 90, 95, what sort of Tarantino's

Sidey: one of Tarantino's favourite ever movies, if you want some credence, yeah.

Pete: care. Yeah. Yeah, but Tarantino, wasn't he like friends with Weinstein and stuff?

Sidey: got a great

Pete: made mistakes in his

Sidey: I've got a great stat about one of the animal handlers, if you want to know.

Reegs: Yeah, please. This might

Pete: He's anime.

Sidey: Brett Lee. Is one of the animal handlers on this

Pete: one

Sidey: He's one of the pig handlers, yeah. Fact.

Reegs: the cricketer? Are you being serious? Yes.

Pete: How has that happened?

Sidey: I don't know, but it's true.

Reegs: Well, it's an

Pete: is it just a guy called Brett Lee?

Sidey: No, it's actually him. I had to, because I read it. In a book, and then I had to Google it to find out if it was just some guy called Brett Lee. And it is actually Brett Lee, Australian Cricket.

Reegs: Well, the guy who directed it was a guy called Chris Noonan, who basically has only done this, he did one other movie, I think,

Pete: Well he didn't get another

Sidey: I think George Miller might have like fucked him over. Oh really? Yeah. There was some beef, there's some bad law

Pete: and some

Sidey: there was some bad beef between the two of them. And he felt that George Miller was trying to take all the credit. He's like, wow. He did spend 10 years trying to get it on the screen, so.

Reegs: Yeah

Sidey: so that, that potentially is a shame. But it's literally one of the best films ever made. USA pork sales dropped 20 percent after this movie came out because people didn't want to eat bacon. I, I was more keen to eat bacon, I have to say.

Pete: Yeah,

Sidey: It's James Cromwell's only ever Oscar nominated performance.

Reegs: Oscar! Yeah, and it was Best Supporting Actor.

Supporting a pig! It was Best Supporting Actor, that's the amazing thing. There were Oscar

Sidey: I know, I know. And when I read that I was like, Mmm, L. A. Confidential, come on.

Reegs: I know, yeah. Yeah, and he's got a few other bangers in his career as well. But he's brilliant in this as well. Character like, so, like, very little on the page.

Everything is through the

Sidey: well. So he got the script and he is like, oh, sound.

I've only got like 170, literally 170 words to say. Yeah. But he is like, it's all his screen time. It's all him. Because he say he chose it, thinking it would be like weekends work, you know, sound. I just fucking run through this in no time. But no, he is, yeah.

Reegs: I can run through this in no time, but that

Dan: Well, for me Pete, this is a snorter. This is an absolute, yeah. Went massive on the, on the box

Sidey: bigger than that

Dan: Bigger than

Pete: I missed the boat the first time. I don't know what it, like, I remember my mom, my mom's got, I think she used to have like pig ornaments everywhere. She still kind of has, she's less fat, like, you know, obsessed with pigs.

Now, but I think I, and I just used to look at her and go, what the fuck are you doing?

Reegs: I don't know, but the

Pete: and then as soon as the film came out, she was like all over it. It was like, watch it.

Sidey: of course she was, it's a classic.

Pete: What was I in

Sidey: A dick.

Pete: Like, 17? Yeah, I would have been, like, way too sound and cool to have watched this. 100

Sidey: it. No you weren't, you weren't. 100 17.

Pete: yeah, I was a fucking abso I was the Fonz at 17.

Dan: This. is one of Henry Winkler's favorite films.

Sidey: He, he played the pig. It's, it's a legitimately strong recommend for me. Yeah. Vastly

Dan: Yeah, it's, if you haven't seen it, go and check it out. And if you've listened to this pod before,

Sidey: It's weird that I've not seen the sequel. I must say, I don't understand why I haven't seen that.

Pete: I

Sidey: I don't know. I think maybe because this is too good, I didn't want to, I think, I, I think it didn't, it didn't get quite as good a reception and I thought, oh, I don't want to watch it in case it's not as good as this.

Reegs: to

Pete: the masterpiece that

Sidey: But Riggs, Riggs whose opinion I respect sometimes says that it's good, so I will check it out.

Reegs: Yeah, it's worth checking

Dan: Okay, well this definitely is.