Every emperor penguin attracts a mate by singing a unique "heartsong". If the male penguin's heartsong matches the female's song, the two penguins mate. Norma Jean, a female penguin, falls for Memphis, a male penguin and they become mates. They lay an egg, which Memphis cares for while Norma Jean leaves with the other females to fish. While the males struggle through the harsh winter, Memphis briefly drops the egg. The resulting chick, Mumble, is unable to sing but is nevertheless enamored with Gloria, a female penguin who is regarded as the most talented of her age. He attempts to show off his tap dancing as his alternative to singing, but is shunned. One day, Mumble is practicing his dancing in private, before encountering a group of hostile skua, with a leader who is tagged with a yellow band, which he says is from an alien abduction. Mumble narrowly escapes the hungry birds by falling into a crevice.
Now a young adult, Mumble is frequently ridiculed by the elders and their leader Noah. After escaping from a leopard seal attack, Mumble befriends five Adelie penguins named Ramón, Nestor, Lombardo, Rinaldo and Raul, known collectively as "the Amigos", who embrace Mumble's dance moves and assimilate him into their group. After seeing a hidden human excavator in an avalanche, they opt to ask Lovelace, a rockhopper penguin, about its origin. Lovelace has the plastic rings of a six pack entangled around his neck, saying that they have been bestowed upon him by mystic beings. Mumble draws a connection between the plastic rings and the skua bird's ankle tag, asking if Lovelace was also abducted, however Lovelace rejects the notion and sends him away.
For the emperor penguins, it is mating season and Gloria is the center of attention. The Amigos unsuccessfully attempt to help Mumble win her affection by having Ramón sing a Spanish version of "My Way" behind Mumble, with the latter lip syncing. After Mumble desperately begins tap dancing in sync with her song as a last-ditch effort to woo her, she falls for him and the youthful penguins join in singing and dancing to "Boogie Wonderland". The elders are appalled by Mumble's conduct, which they see as the reason for their lean fishing season; as punishment from their god, Guin, whom they believe rules the seasons. Mumble attempts to explain that the scarcity was caused by the mystic beings, aka. the aliens, but is decided to be insane, with Noah telling him to leave. Norma Jean attempts to stand up for her son, but Memphis begs Mumble to stop for his own sake and instead be devout and pray to their god so that the fish may return. Memphis admits to having dropped Mumble as an egg and likely causing his differences, taking the blame for his ways. Mumble refuses to stop, saying he can't, and is exiled, swearing to return once he finds out what's happened to the fish.
Mumble and the Amigos return to Lovelace to ask him where to find the aliens, only to find him being choked by the plastic rings. Lovelace, through charades, confesses they were snagged on him while swimming off the forbidden shores, beyond the land of the elephant seals. Not long into their journey, Gloria encounters them, wishing to become Mumble's mate. Fearing for her safety, he ridicules Gloria, driving her away, much to their mutual heartbreak.
They cross the land of the frightening, yet herbivorous, elephant seals, which warn them of a beast called 'The Annihilator' that kills everything in its path, even a blue whale. At the forbidden shore, Mumble, Lovelace and the Amigos are attacked by two orcas, during which Lovelace is accidentally freed from the plastic rings. After escaping, they encounter The Annihilator, a gigantic commercial fishing vessel, which crushes the glacier they're standing upon as they dive out of the way in terror. After climbing to the top of a icy mountain, they see many more of these vessels taking gargantuan numbers of fish, and decide to give up. Mumble, however, refuses to stop there, and dives off the cliff to chase them down.
After being knocked off a fishing net, Mumble exhaustingly pursues one of the ships alone for thousands of miles, eventually washing up on the shore of Florida. He is rescued and kept at Sea World with several other species of penguin; Adélie, Magellanic, and Little Blue penguins. After several long months of confinement, in addition to fruitless attempts to communicate with the humans, he begins to succumb to madness, hallucinating his family and friends. However, a little girl taps rhythmically on the glass, which encourages him to begin dancing again, gaining the attention of many of the humans who are all amazed.
He is released back into the wild, with a tracking device attached to his back. He returns to his colony and challenges the command of the elders, showing his proof that the aliens were real, saying they were coming soon and seemed to want to help. He encourages the other penguins to begin dancing, claiming that, for reasons unknown to him, the aliens seemed to like it. A revolution begins, with the elders humming hymns attempting to regain order and control, and with masses of younger penguins joining in the dance instead.
Memphis, having fallen into a guilty depression in Mumble's absence, reconciles with his son, with Mumble encouraging him to join in the dancing and sing his heartsong again. A human research team arrives, verifying Mumble's statements of "aliens" existing. The entire colony engages in dance in front of the research team in an attempt to forge a positive connection to the mysterious beings. The footage taken by the expedition team brings the penguins significant media coverage, prompting a worldwide debate on the ethics of meddling with their food chain, which eventually leads to the banning of all Antarctic fishing, finally ending the food shortage. The penguins begin to thrive again, now with dancing as a part of their culture, and with Mumble and Gloria finally becoming mates.
Elijah Wood as Mumble, a premature Emperor penguin who has a talent of tap-dancing but is unable to sing after his father's accident by drop, resulting to his freezing temperature in the midst of harsh winter.
Hugh Jackman as Memphis, Mumble's father and Norma Jean's mate. Memphis is named after Elvis Presley's hometown and is inspired by Presley himself.
Nicole Kidman as Norma Jean, Mumble's mother and Memphis's mate. Norma Jean is named after Marilyn Monroe's birthname and is inspired by Monroe herself.
Hugo Weaving as Noah the Elder, who opposes Mumble for his appearance.
As an initial inspiration for the film, George Miller cited an encounter with cinematographer Bill Grimmond during the shooting of The Road Warrior (Mad Max II). Grimmond had shot a documentary in Antarctica, and said that Miller should make a film set there, he compared to the "wasteland" desert they were filming in.[7]
In 2001, during an otherwise non-sequitur meeting, Doug Mitchell impulsively presented Warner Bros. studio president Alan Horn with an early rough draft of the film's screenplay, and asked them to read it while he and Miller flew back to Australia.[citation needed] By the time they had landed, Warner Bros. had decided to provide funding on the film. Production was slated to begin sometime after the completion of the fourth Mad Max film Fury Road, but geopolitical complications pushed Happy Feet to the forefront in early 2003.[citation needed]
According to Miller, the environmental message was not a major part of the original script. "In Australia, we're very, very aware of the ozone hole... and Antarctica is literally the canary in the coal mine for this stuff. So it sort of had to go in that direction". This influence led to a film with a more environmental tone. Miller said, "You can't tell a story about Antarctica and the penguins without giving that dimension".[10]
Technology
The animation is invested heavily in motion capture technology, with the dance scenes acted by human dancers. The tap dancing for Mumble was provided by Savion Glover, who was also co-choreographer for the dance sequences.[11] The dancers went through "Penguin School" to learn how to move like a penguin, and also wore head apparatus to mimic a penguin's beak.[12]
Happy Feet needed an enormous group of computers, and Animal Logic worked with IBM to build a server farm with sufficient processing potential. The film took four years to make. Lighting Supervisor and VFX Department Supervisor Ben Gunsberger said that this was partly because they needed to build new infrastructure and tools. The server farm used IBM BladeCenter framework and BladeCenter HS20 blade servers, which are extremely dense separate computer units, each with two IntelXeon processors. Rendering took up 17 million CPU hours over a nine-month period.[13]
Music
Happy Feet is a jukebox musical, taking previously recorded songs and working them into the film's soundtrack to fit the mood of the scene or character. Two soundtrack albums were released for the film; one containing songs from and inspired by the film, and another featuring John Powell's instrumental score. They were released on 31 October 2006 and 19 December 2006, respectively.
Prince's "Song of the Heart" won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. The film won Golden Trailer Award for Best Music.[14] The song was written by Prince specifically for Happy Feet shortly after he was given a private screening of the film to gain his approval for the use of his song "Kiss" in a musical number.[15] Prince enjoyed the film, gave his approval for the use of "Kiss" and offered to write an original song for the production, which he completed a week later.[15]
Happy Feet: Music from the Motion Picture is the lyrical soundtrack album from the 2006 animated film Happy Feet. As of March 2007, the original soundtrack sold more than 272,627 copies in the US.[citation needed]
The film opened at number one in the United States on its first weekend of release (17–19 November), grossing $41.6 million and beating Casino Royale for the top spot.[18][19] It remained number one for the Thanksgiving weekend, making $51.6 million over the five-day period, outgrossing the newly released Déjà Vu and Deck the Halls.[20] In total, the film was the top grosser for three weeks, a 2006 box-office feat matched by only Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.[21] As of 8 June 2008, Happy Feet had grossed $198.0 million in the US and Canada, and $186.3 million in other countries, making approximately $384.3 million worldwide. Happy Feet was the third-highest-grossing animated film of 2006 in the US, behind Cars and Ice Age: The Meltdown. The film was released in an estimated 35 territories at the close of 2006.[22][23]
Happy Feet received generally positive reviews from critics. On review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 76% approval rating, based on 170 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The site's consensus reads: "Visually dazzling, with a thoughtful storyline and catchy musical numbers, Happy Feet marks a successful animated debut from the makers of Babe."[24]Metacritic reports a 77 out of 100 rating, based on 30 critics.[25] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on a scale of A+ to F.[26]
Marjorie Baumgarten, film critic for The Austin Chronicle, wrote a positive review, saying, "Happy Feet treads material common to kids films and cartoons, most notably Dumbo: A young animal stands out from his herd or flock because of his inability to perform like the other animals, although he seemingly compensates for this defect by demonstrating a certain skill that sets him apart from the others, who ostracize him for his weirdness." Baumgarten also said that the CGI recreation of Antarctica is "stunning, allowing the film to shift among glorious long shots of the ice and penguin population and midshots and close-ups of the character interactions".[27]
James Berardinelli, film critic for ReelViews, praised its musical numbers (particularly "Kiss" and "Boogie Wonderland") and Robin Williams's performance by awarding the film three out of four, saying, "The ingredients for greatness are there. It's too bad the movie lost its way on the approach to the finish line. I recommend Happy Feet, but not as enthusiastically as I wish I could."[28]
Analysis
Film critic Yar Habnegnal wrote an essay in Forum on Contemporary Art and Society that examines the themes of encroachment presented throughout the film, as well as various other subtexts and themes, such as religious hierarchy and interracial tensions.[29] Vadim Rizov of IFC sees Mumble as just the latest in a long line of cinematic religious mavericks. Some Christians have also considered the film to be anti-Christian (or antireligious in general) due to the imagery and behaviours of various characters.[30][31]
On a technical or formal level, the film has also been recognised for its innovative introduction of Miller's roving style of subjective cinematography into contemporary animation.
Home media
Happy Feet was released on home media on 27 March 2007,[32] in the United States in three formats: DVD (in separate widescreen and pan-and-scan editions), Blu-ray, and an HD DVD/DVD combo pack.[33] Overall, Happy Feet was the third-best-selling film of 2007, with 12.2 million units sold, earning a revenue of $196.9 million.[34]
Among the DVD's special features is a scene that was cut from the film, in which Mumble meets a blue whale and an albatross while pursuing the fishing boat. The albatross was Steve Irwin's first voice role in the film before he voiced the elephant seal in the final cut. The scene was finished and included on the DVD in Irwin's memory. This scene is done in documentary style, with the albatross describing the other characters in the scene, and the impact people are having on their environment. Another special feature included on the DVD is the 1936 Merrie Melodies short I Love to Singa.
Accolades
The film appeared on numerous critics' top-ten lists of the best films of 2006.[35][36]
↑ Reid, Joe (14 November 2014). "Big Hero 6's Big Oscar Chances". The Atlantic. Retrieved 18 September 2015. Warner Brothers is far less pedigreed in this category, only having ever won with Happy Feet in 2006,
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