MovieChat Forums > Chicken Run (2000) Discussion > 'Chicken Pies' make no sense

'Chicken Pies' make no sense


So, the villain has the 'evil idea' (of course it IS an evil idea, but not more evil than what she's already doing, just a different pace. Remember how the chickens are still murdered, just at a lower pace) of making 'chicken pies'.

The audience isn't even supposed to question her rationale for using a 'woman's touch' - she's right, of course, but the implications are not explored whatsoever (hint: equality has to be murdered for the truth to come out).

However, she has a very small amount of chickens, so how many pies can she get before she has exactly ZERO chickens left? Probably not enough to make any kind of profit that would cover even half the price of that enormous mini-factory (or 'the machine').

For this evil idea to work, she would have to FIRST really and truly 'farm chickens', not by such a tiny handful, but by vast amounts, the way they actually do in the real world, sadly.

Then they would have to also create a system of breeding and selecting - as the real 'chicken factories' do to the tiny chicklets - males are separated from females, and often just discarded (=murdered) as waste, because they can't lay eggs to produce more chickens to make pies out of (and sell).

Of course it doesn't really have to be 'pies', evil people buy brutally murdered chicken corpses for their flesh (talk about the flesh of the innocent) anyway, but that's beside the point.

She would also have to have huge storages, freezers and such for storing all the other stuff needed to make the dough for the pies, not to mention humongous water tanks and such (making pie dough isn't that simple, you can't just add ingredients randomly, you have to have the exact right amounts of everything and mix them together in a very specific way).

In any case, the whole plan ends so soon exactly because there are only a handful of chickens instead of thousands upon thousands.

This means, before she kills even ONE of them, she would, by necessity, have to have a system in place to make sure the eggs are fertile (or whatever the correct word here is), so they can be hatched to breed more chickens.

So she basically needs to have a rooster or few to have 'relations' with all the chickens first, then wait to get enough fertilized eggs to then either artificially make them hatch or let the chickens do it, and when this kind of system has been automatized or semi-automatized and it's going well, and the amount of chickens start to reach some specific quota, then, and ONLY then, can she start actually murdering the chickens to make the stuffing for the pies.

It would be just so much easier if she simply killed the chickens and sold their corpses, but even then, she'd have to have this 'perpetual chicken machine' going, or the whole production would end before it can truly start.

So her just starting to 'test' the machine by introducing ONE chicken to it, although the machine is CLEARLY already set up (what a waste of all those vegetables, sauces, dough and other resources, not to mention gas for the oven flames and such), makes NO SENSE from any angle I can think of.

I mean, she wants to TEST the machine and she already has it prepared with so much dough and chickenless pies..? What kind of sense does that make?

In any case, if she simply kills the chickens for the pies, it's game over, because now she has no more chickens to make pies out of. She'd probably be better off just using all the OTHER stuff she seems to have an infinite quantity of to just make veggie pies or something.

I love Wallace&Gromit and this movie to an extent, but even these 'beloved classics' make no sense for some reason. Couldn't someone independent some day make a movie that makes sense?



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You do know that this is an animated family movie with talking chickens? It's not a documentary. Calm down... It's Christmas Eve!

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I agree entirely with your critique of this so-called entertainment film. The Tweedys were clearly woefully out of their depth in the business world, and had no business being involved in animal husbandry.

Mrs. Tweedy's purchase of the pie machine was no doubt one of many poor business decisions which caused great stress to her loving husband. Not only was it enormous and prone to mechanical faults, which her long-suffering husband was able to rectify in astonishing time with his intelligence and good grace, but not once did we see a scene where Mrs Tweedy discussed the financial implications of owning such a sophisticated piece of machinery with her husband: the Cost of Goods Sold, the net profit, and of course, the ever-important Earnings Before Interest and other Depreciations. This is quite simply unthinkable, nay, irresponsible even!

I propose a reading of Chicken Run contrary to prevailing message of the day: this is a masculinist film. All of the problems come from the toxic femininity of Mrs Tweedy and her scheming ways, as she hides behind a veneer of selling pies with a "Woman's touch". It is female privilege that enables the continued exploitation of her avian sisters. And it is only her greed that finally causes her to have her comeuppance. Meanwhile, Ginger, via her repeated escape attempts, creates trouble for poor Mr Tweedy, who only wants to please his wife and earn a good living, but is repeatedly hit, belittled, and made a fool of. It is Mr Tweedy who is forced to assemble the monstrous pie machine - a slave to the demands of his controlling wife. This is a clear metaphor for men being the actors for women's dirty work. And it is Rocky - played by the well known diplomat Melvin Gibson - who ultimately inspires the chickens and paves the way for their freedom.

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