Happy Feet is a 2006 American-Australian
computer-animatedComputer animation is the process used for generating animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computer generated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images, while computer animation only refers to moving images....
family filmA family film is a film genre that is designed to appeal to a variety of age groups and, thus, families.In December 2005, Steven Spielberg's 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial came first in a poll of the 100 Greatest Family Films. The genre today generates billions of dollars per annum.Family...
with music, directed and co-written by George Miller. It was produced at
SydneySydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
-based
visual effectsVisual effects are the various processes by which imagery is created and/or manipulated outside the context of a live action shoot. Visual effects involve the integration of live-action footage and generated imagery to create environments which look realistic, but would be dangerous, costly, or...
and
animation studioAn animation studio is a company producing animated media. The broadest such companies conceive of products to produce, own the physical equipment for production, employ operators for that equipment, and hold a major stake in the sales or rentals of the media produced...
Animal LogicAnimal Logic is an Australian digital visual effects company based at Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia and Santa Monica, California. Established in 1991, Animal Logic's core business has traditionally been the design and production of high-end visual effects for commercials and television programs,...
for
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. Animation is the animation division of Warner Bros., a subsidiary of Time Warner. The studio is closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters, among others. The studio is the successor to Warner Bros...
,
Village Roadshow PicturesVillage Roadshow Pictures is an Australian motion picture production company. It is a subsidiary of Village Roadshow Entertainment Group, an Australian entertainment company. Most of its films are co-produced in partnership with Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema...
and Kingdom Feature Productions and was released in
North AmericaNorth America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
on November 17, 2006. It is the first animated
feature filmIn the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
produced by Kennedy Miller in association with visual effects/design company
Animal LogicAnimal Logic is an Australian digital visual effects company based at Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia and Santa Monica, California. Established in 1991, Animal Logic's core business has traditionally been the design and production of high-end visual effects for commercials and television programs,...
.
Though primarily an animated film, Happy Feet does incorporate
motion captureMotion capture, motion tracking, or mocap are terms used to describe the process of recording movement and translating that movement on to a digital model. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, and medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robotics...
of live action humans in certain scenes. The film was simultaneously released in both conventional theatres and in
IMAXIMAX is a motion picture film format and a set of proprietary cinema projection standards created by the Canadian company IMAX Corporation. IMAX has the capacity to record and display images of far greater size and resolution than conventional film systems...
2D format. The studio had hinted that a future IMAX 3D release was a possibility. However, Warner Bros., the film’s production company, was on too tight a budget to release Happy Feet in IMAX digital 3D.
Happy Feet won the
Academy Award for Best Animated FeatureThe Academy Award for Best Animated Feature is one of the annual awards given by the Los Angeles-based professional organization, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
and was nominated for the
Annie Award for Best Animated FeatureThe Annie Award for Best Animated Feature is an Annie Award, awarded annually to the best animated feature film and introduced in 1992. In 1998 the award was renamed Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Theatrical Feature, only to be reverted back to its original title again in 2001...
.
The film was dedicated in memory of
Nick Enright-Life:He was drama captain of St Ignatius' College, Riverview in 1964, where, like Gerard Windsor and Justin Fleming, he was taught by Melvyn Morrow. At that school, he won the 1sts Debating Premiership in both 1966 and 1967....
, Michael Jonson, Robby McNeilly Green, and
Steve IrwinStephen Robert "Steve" Irwin , nicknamed "The Crocodile Hunter", was an Australian television personality, wildlife expert, and conservationist. Irwin achieved worldwide fame from the television series The Crocodile Hunter, an internationally broadcast wildlife documentary series which he co-hosted...
.
Plot
Every
penguinPenguins are a group of aquatic, flightless birds living almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere, especially in Antarctica. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have countershaded dark and white plumage, and their wings have become flippers...
sings a unique song called a "heartsong" to attract a
mateIn biology, mating is the pairing of opposite-sex or hermaphroditic organisms for copulation. In social animals, it also includes the raising of their offspring. Copulation is the union of the sex organs of two sexually reproducing animals for insemination and subsequent internal fertilization...
. If the
maleMale refers to the biological sex of an organism, or part of an organism, which produces small mobile gametes, called spermatozoa. Each spermatozoon can fuse with a larger female gamete or ovum, in the process of fertilization...
penguin's heartsong matches the
femaleFemale is the sex of an organism, or a part of an organism, which produces non-mobile ova .- Defining characteristics :The ova are defined as the larger gametes in a heterogamous reproduction system, while the smaller, usually motile gamete, the spermatozoon, is produced by the male...
's song, the two penguins mate. A penguin named Norma Jean (
Nicole KidmanNicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
) sings the song "
KissIn 1988 Art of Noise released a cover of the song, featuring Tom Jones on vocals. The song became the band's biggest hit to that point, reaching number eighteen on the U.S. dance charts and number five on the UK Singles Chart, higher than the original in that country...
", whereupon a male penguin named Memphis (
Hugh JackmanHugh Michael Jackman is an Australian actor and producer who is involved in film, musical theatre, and television.Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as action/superhero, period and romance characters...
) sings "
Heartbreak Hotel"Heartbreak Hotel" is a song recorded by American rock and roll musician Elvis Presley. It was released as a single on January 27, 1956, Presley's first on his new record label RCA Victor. His first number-one pop record, "Heartbreak Hotel" topped Billboards Top 100 chart, became his first...
". Norma Jean chooses him as her mate. Norma Jean lays an egg, which is left with Memphis while Norma Jean leaves with the other females to
fishFish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
. While the males struggle through the harsh
winterWinter is the coldest season of the year in temperate climates, between autumn and spring. At the winter solstice, the days are shortest and the nights are longest, with days lengthening as the season progresses after the solstice.-Meteorology:...
, Memphis accidentally drops the egg, briefly exposing it to the freezing Antarctic
temperatureTemperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot...
s. The resulting chick - the film's protagonist, Mumble (
Elizabeth DailyElizabeth Ann Guttman , better known by her stage names of Elizabeth Daily and E.G. Daily, is an American voice actress, actress, singer-songwriter, and musician...
) - has blue eyes, ever-lasting down feathers, and a terrible singing voice. However, Mumble has a talent that no other penguin has ever seen before:
tap dancingTap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
. One day Mumble wanders into a secluded area, where he is free to dance without any complaints. Mumble is interrupted when Boss Skua and his posse Dino, Frankie, and Vinnie attempt to eat him. Mumble stalls by asking the leader of the pack about a
yellow bandBird ringing or bird banding is a technique used in the study of wild birds, by attaching a small, individually numbered, metal or plastic tag to their legs or wings, so that various aspects of the bird's life can be studied by the ability to re-find the same individual later...
that is attached to his right ankle. The Boss Skua tells Mumble that he had been abducted by
"aliens".Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
Mumble narrowly escapes the hungry birds by falling into a crevice.
Mumble grows into an adult (
Elijah WoodElijah Jordan Wood is an American actor. He made his film debut with a minor part in Back to the Future Part II , then landed a succession of larger roles that made him a critically acclaimed child actor by age 9. He is best known for his high-profile role as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's...
), still half-covered in
fluffy downThe down of birds is a layer of fine feathers found under the tougher exterior feathers. Very young birds are clad only in down. Powder down is a specialized type of down found only in a few groups of birds. Down is a fine thermal insulator and padding, used in goods such as jackets, bedding,...
. Mumble joins his class graduates on their first trip into the ocean, where they find a large
icebergAn iceberg is a large piece of ice from freshwater that has broken off from a snow-formed glacier or ice shelf and is floating in open water. It may subsequently become frozen into pack ice...
to rest on. After interrupting the graduates' song, Mumble is forced to leave, and finds a smaller iceberg. A
leopard sealThe leopard seal , also referred to as the sea leopard, is the second largest species of seal in the Antarctic...
chases him off the iceberg. After escaping the leopard seal, he befriends a small group of bachelors which are Adele Penguins who form a club called "the Amigos": the leader Ramon, the brothers Raul and Nestor, and twin brothers Rinaldo and Lombardo. The Amigos quickly embrace Mumble's dance moves and assimilate him into their misfit group. Mumble's joy is cut short when he accidentally starts an
avalancheAn avalanche is a sudden rapid flow of snow down a slope, occurring when either natural triggers or human activity causes a critical escalating transition from the slow equilibrium evolution of the snow pack. Typically occurring in mountainous terrain, an avalanche can mix air and water with the...
and causes a hidden human
excavatorExcavators are heavy construction equipment consisting of a boom, stick, bucket and cab on a rotating platform . The house sits atop an undercarriage with tracks or wheels. A cable-operated excavator uses winches and steel ropes to accomplish the movements. They are a natural progression from the...
to tumble out from a
glacierA glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...
. Driven by curiosity, he sets out to find the "aliens" responsible for the machine. Mumble has a lot of questions, and the group suggests that he ask Lovelace (a Rockhopper or Macaroni Crested Penguin) who answers questions in exchange for stones and is known as the guru. Lovelace has the plastic rings of a six pack entangled around his neck, which he uses to project his guru image. When asked if the rings were from the aliens, Lovelace denies that aliens exists and claims that the plastic rings were bestowed upon him by mystic beings.
In Mumble's old home, it is mating season, and Gloria (
Brittany MurphyBrittany Anne Murphy-Monjack , known professionally as Brittany Murphy, was an American actress and singer. She starred in films such as Clueless, Just Married, Girl Interrupted, Spun, 8 Mile, Uptown Girls, Sin City, Happy Feet, and Riding in Cars with Boys...
) is the center of attention. Although she is surrounded by a large horde of suitors, none of their heartsongs interest her. Ramon tries to help Mumble by singing a Spanish version of "
My Way"My Way" is a song popularized by Frank Sinatra. Its lyrics were written by Paul Anka and set to music based on the French song "Comme d'habitude" composed in 1967 by Claude François and Jacques Revaux, with lyrics by Claude François and Gilles Thibault. Anka's English lyrics are unrelated to the...
". Gloria is not fooled, however, for she knows Mumble cannot sing. She then notices Ramon behind Mumble's back. Gloria becomes angry and turns her back on Mumble. Gloria continues towards the other males visibly distraught. As a last resort, Mumble tries to persuade her to sing along to his tapping rhythm. Because of her affection for him, she complies. As Mumble's beat speeds up, Gloria finds the chorus to her heartsong, and realizes it is "
Boogie Wonderland"Boogie Wonderland" is a 1979 hit single by Earth, Wind & Fire featuring The Emotions. Boogie Wonderland was written by Allee Willis and Jon Lind, and included on the album I Am...
". Overcome with happiness that they can now be mates, the pair begin dancing, along with the other penguins.
Noah the elder sees their lack of
fishFish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
as punishment from the Great 'Guin for Mumble's dancing. Mumble tries to explain about the mysterious "aliens", and that they are the cause of the scarceness of fish, but only his mother and Gloria believe him. Noah exiles Mumble from the colony. Mumble vows that he will find the real cause of the famine. He and the Amigos return to Lovelace only to find him being choked by the plastic rings. Lovelace confesses that he got stuck in the rings while swimming near the forbidden shores. He reveals that the forbidden shores are located past the land of elephant seals and beyond the blizzard country. Mumble, the Amigos and Lovelace start their journey. Gloria tries to come, but Mumble, fearing for her safety, drives her off by insulting her singing talents. They travel across vast territories till they reach the shore.
Mumble sees a boat and swims after it. He swims far, and is washed up exhausted onshore. He is rescued and kept at Marine World. He tries to communicate with the "aliens", but when his pleas fail, Mumble nearly succumbs to
madnessInsanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others, though not all such acts are considered insanity...
after long confinement. When a girl attempts to interact with Mumble by tapping the glass, he starts dancing, and soon a large crowd gathers. He is released back into the wild, with a
Tracking systemGenerally tracking is the observing of persons or objects on the move and supplying a timely ordered sequence of respective location data to a model e.g...
on his back. He leads the humans to his colony. The other penguins are skeptical, but when Gloria notices the device, they realize that the "aliens" exist. Convinced, the penguins, along with the elders, dance with Mumble to get the humans' attention.
A research team arrives and film the penguins dancing. They bring the footage back and a worldwide debate ensues. The governments realize they are
overfishingOverfishing occurs when fishing activities reduce fish stocks below an acceptable level. This can occur in any body of water from a pond to the oceans....
. Antarctic fishing is banned, and the fish population recovers. At this, the Emperor Penguins and the Amigos celebrate. A dancing baby penguin seen at the end is implied to be the child of Mumble and Gloria.
In the
end credits"End Credits" is the first single from Drum and Bass duo Chase & Status' second studio album No More Idols. The single was co-written, co-produced and features vocals from Plan B and was released on 29 October 2009, reaching a peak position of No. 9 in the UK Singles Chart...
, the characters reunite to dance for the final number, "The Song of the Heart."
Cast
- Elijah Wood
Elijah Jordan Wood is an American actor. He made his film debut with a minor part in Back to the Future Part II , then landed a succession of larger roles that made him a critically acclaimed child actor by age 9. He is best known for his high-profile role as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's...
as Mumble
- Brittany Murphy
Brittany Anne Murphy-Monjack , known professionally as Brittany Murphy, was an American actress and singer. She starred in films such as Clueless, Just Married, Girl Interrupted, Spun, 8 Mile, Uptown Girls, Sin City, Happy Feet, and Riding in Cars with Boys...
as Gloria
- Hugh Jackman
Hugh Michael Jackman is an Australian actor and producer who is involved in film, musical theatre, and television.Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as action/superhero, period and romance characters...
as Memphis
- Nicole Kidman
Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, singer, film producer, spokesmodel, and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman's breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm...
as Norma Jean
- Hugo Weaving
Hugo Wallace Weaving is a Nigerian born, English-Australian film actor and voice artist. He is best known for his roles as Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy, Elrond in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, "V" in V for Vendetta, and performances in numerous Australian character dramas.-Early...
as Noah the Elder
- Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
as Ramón and Lovelace
- Carlos Alazraqui
Carlos Jaime Alazraqui is an American actor, comedian, impressionist and voice actor. He is best known for his role as Deputy James Garcia on the Comedy Central series Reno 911!. His voice-over work includes the role of Bobbi Fabulous on Phineas and Ferb, the Taco Bell chihuahua, Denzel Q...
as Nestor
- Steve Irwin
Stephen Robert "Steve" Irwin , nicknamed "The Crocodile Hunter", was an Australian television personality, wildlife expert, and conservationist. Irwin achieved worldwide fame from the television series The Crocodile Hunter, an internationally broadcast wildlife documentary series which he co-hosted...
as Trev
- Lombardo Boyar
Lombardo Boyar is an American character actor and has been active in television, animation, cinema, and video games since 1996. Some of Boyar's notable performances include a brief part as convenience-store robber Ramon Garcia on Fox's 24 and a starring role as burglar Eddie Tesoro in the movie P.S...
as Raul
- Jeffrey Garcia as Rinaldo
- Johnny Sanchez
Johnny Sanchez is an American actor, writer, and film producer who graduated from High School of Performing Arts in New York City.-Early years and education:...
as Lombardo
- Miriam Margoyles as Mrs. Astrakhan
- Fat Joe
Joseph Antonio Cartagena , better known by his stage name Fat Joe, is an American rapper, CEO of Terror Squad Entertainment, and member of musical groups D.I.T.C. and Terror Squad....
as Seymour
- Elizabeth Daily
Elizabeth Ann Guttman , better known by her stage names of Elizabeth Daily and E.G. Daily, is an American voice actress, actress, singer-songwriter, and musician...
as baby Mumble
- Alyssa Shafer as baby Gloria
Production
Miller cites as an initial inspiration for the film an encounter with a grizzled old camera-man, whose father was Frank Hurley of the Shackleton expeditions, during the shooting of Mad Max 2: "We were sitting in this bar, having a milkshake, and he looked across at me and said, ‘Antarctica.’ He’d shot a documentary there. He said, ‘You’ve got to make a film in Antarctica. It’s just like out here, in the wasteland. It’s spectacular.’ And that always stuck in my head.”
Happy Feet was also partially inspired by earlier documentaries such as the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's
Life in the FreezerLife in the Freezer is a BBC nature documentary series written and presented by David Attenborough, first transmitted in the UK from 18 November 1993....
. In 2001, during an otherwise non-sequiter meeting, Doug Mitchell impulsively presented
Warner Bros.Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
, 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. By the time they'd 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 geo-political complications pushed
Happy Feet to the forefront in early 2003.
An earlier cut of the film seems to have included a large subplot regarding aliens in the extraterrestrial sense, whose presence was made gradually more and more known throughout, and who were planning to siphon off the planet's resources gradually, placing the humans in the same light as the penguins. At the end, through the plight of the main character, their hand is stayed and, instead, first contact is made. This was chopped out during the last year of production, and has yet to see the light of day in a finished form, although concept art from these sequences were showcased at the
SiggraphSIGGRAPH is the name of the annual conference on computer graphics convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization. The first SIGGRAPH conference was in 1974. The conference is attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals...
2007 demonstration, and are available online, as well.
The animation in
Happy Feet invested heavily in
motion captureMotion capture, motion tracking, or mocap are terms used to describe the process of recording movement and translating that movement on to a digital model. It is used in military, entertainment, sports, and medical applications, and for validation of computer vision and robotics...
technology, with the dance scenes acted out by human dancers. The tap-dancing for Mumble in particular was provided by
Savion GloverSavion Glover is an American tap dancer, actor, and choreographer. As a learning prodigy, he was taught by notable dancers from previous generations. Glover is currently interested in restoring African roots to tap...
who was also co-choreographer for the dance sequences. 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.
Happy Feet needed an enormous group of computers, and Animal Logic worked with
IBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
to build a server farm with sufficient processing potential. The film took four years to make. Ben Gunsberger, Lighting Supervisor and VFX Department Supervisor, says this was partly because they needed to build new infrastructure and tools. The server farm used IBM BladeCenter framework and BladeCenter HS20
blade serverA blade server is a stripped down server computer with a modular design optimized to minimize the use of physical space and energy. Whereas a standard rack-mount server can function with a power cord and network cable, blade servers have many components removed to save space, minimize power...
s, which are extremely dense separate computer units each with two Intel
XeonThe Xeon is a brand of multiprocessing- or multi-socket-capable x86 microprocessors from Intel Corporation targeted at the non-consumer server, workstation and embedded system markets.-Overview:...
processors. Rendering took up 17 million CPU hours over a nine month period.
Music
Happy Feet is a
jukebox musicalA jukebox musical is a stage or film musical that uses previously released popular songs as its musical score. Usually the songs have in common a connection with a particular popular musician or group — either because they were written by, or for, the artists in question, or were at least...
, taking previously recorded songs and working them into the film's soundtrack to fit with 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 PowellJohn Powell is a British composer, best known for his scores to motion pictures. He has been based in the United States since 1997 and has composed the scores to over fifty feature films. He rose to fame in the late 1990s and 2000s, scoring numerous animated films, and collaborating with...
's instrumental score. They were released on October 31, 2006 and December 19, 2006, respectively.
Won
Academy AwardsAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
- Best Animated Feature
The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature is one of the annual awards given by the Los Angeles-based professional organization, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
60th British Academy Film AwardsThe 60th British Film Awards, given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts took place on 11 February 2007, and honoured the best films of 2006....
- Best Animated Feature Film
Golden Globes
- Best Original Song
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song was awarded for the first time in 1962 and has been awarded annually since 1965 by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.-1960s:...
- "Song of the Heart"The Song of the Heart" is a song written and performed by Prince especially for the 2006 film Happy Feet.The song came about when Prince was approached to allow his music to covered for the film. Prince initially refused, but was so impressed by the film that he not only gave his permission, but...
" by PrincePrince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
American Film Institute Awards 2006The AFI Awards 2006 honored the best 10 Movies and 10 Television Programs of the year.-Films:*Babel *Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan*The Devil Wears Prada...
- Honored as one of the Top Ten Best Films of the Year
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards
New York Film Critics Circle AwardsNew York Film Critics' Circle Awards are given annually to honor excellence in cinema worldwide by an organization of film reviewers from New York City-based publications. It is considered one of the most important precursors to the Academy Awards....
Golden Trailer Awards
Heartland Awards
- The Truly Moving Picture Award
Kids' Choice AwardsThe Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, also known as the KCAs or Kids Choice Awards, is an annual awards show that airs on the Nickelodeon cable channel, which airs live and is usually held and telecast live on a...
British Academy of Film and Television Arts - Children's Awards
Nominations
Golden Globe AwardThe Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
Annie Awards
- Best Animated Feature
- Best Writing in an Animated Feature Production
Satellite AwardsThe Satellite Awards are an annual award given by the International Press Academy. The awards were originally known as the Golden Satellite Awards.- Film :*Best Actor – Drama*Best Actor – Musical or Comedy*Best Actress – Drama...
- Best Motion Picture, Animated or Mixed Media
Grammy Awards
- Best Score Soundtrack Album for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, John Powell
John Powell is a British composer, best known for his scores to motion pictures. He has been based in the United States since 1997 and has composed the scores to over fifty feature films. He rose to fame in the late 1990s and 2000s, scoring numerous animated films, and collaborating with...
, nominee
- Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media: "The Song of the Heart", Prince
Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...
, nominee
American Film InstituteThe American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
- AFI's 10 Top 10
AFI's 10 Top 10 honors the ten greatest American films in ten classic film genres. Presented by the American Film Institute , the lists were unveiled on a television special broadcast by CBS on June 17, 2008....
- Nominated Animated Film
Top ten lists
The film appeared on numerous critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2006, including AFI's Annual list, which is listed above. AFI's jury said:
"
HAPPY FEET is a one-of-a-kind motion picture experience. George Miller continues to paint outside the lines of traditional filmmaking, and his genius expands upon the animated art form to illuminate a world where penguins embrace dance and differences to survive and thrive. But that is just the tip of the iceberg, as the environment, religion and the chasm between generations enrich this sweet and subtle tale - one that is fun and funny, brilliant and beautiful, groundbreaking and global in its message."
- 1st - Jack Matthews, The New York Daily News
- 1st - Stan Urankar, Sun News
For other meanings see Sun News The Sun News is a daily newspaper published in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in the United States. It serves the Grand Strand region of South Carolina with a daily circulation of 50,000 and a Sunday circulation of 60,000...
- 2nd - William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...
- 2nd - Mark Palermo, The Coast
The Coast is a free weekly newspaper in Halifax Regional Municipality, Canada. The paper distributes 24,000 copies per week throughout the Halifax Regional Municipality. The paper is owned by Coast Publishing Limited....
- 3rd - Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter
- 4th - Edward Douglas, ComingSoon.net
- 5th - Scott Foundas, Village Voice
- 5th - Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor
- 5th - Matthieu Santelli, Critikat (Film review, in French)
- 5th - Kurt Loder, MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
- 5th - Missy Thompson, Tooele Transcript Bulletin
- 6th - Constance Garfinkle, The Patriot Ledger
The Patriot Ledger is a daily afternoon newspaper published in Quincy, Massachusetts and serving the South Shore. Its circulation is 55,000 on weekdays and 63,000 for its Weekend edition which is published on Saturday mornings....
- 6th - Carole Wrona, Critikat (Top 10 lists for 2006 films, in French)
- 6th - Lou Lumenick, New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
- 6th - Kyle Smith
Kyle Smith is an American critic, novelist and essayist. He is a staff film critic for the New York Post. His film reviewing style has been called "an exercise in hilarious hostility" by Entertainment Weekly....
, New York PostThe New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
- 6th - Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
- 6th - Keith Cohen, Sun Newspapers
Sun Newspapers is a chain of 11 weekly newspapers serving 49 different communities in Greater Cleveland. The papers are focused on suburbs and exurbs in Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lorain and Medina counties...
- 8th - Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
- 9th - Schlomo Schwartzberg, Box Office Magazine
Home media release
Happy Feet was released on March 27, 2007 in the United States in three formats; DVD (in separate
widescreenWidescreen images are a variety of aspect ratios used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than the standard 1.37:1 Academy aspect ratio provided by 35mm film....
and
pan and scanPan and scan is a method of adjusting widescreen film images so that they can be shown within the proportions of a standard definition 4:3 aspect ratio television screen, often cropping off the sides of the original widescreen image to focus on the composition's most important aspects...
editions),
Blu-ray DiscBlu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
, and an
HD DVDHD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...
/DVD combo disc.
Among the DVD's special features is a scene that was cut from the film where Mumble meets a
blue whaleThe blue whale is a marine mammal belonging to the suborder of baleen whales . At in length and or more in weight, it is the largest known animal to have ever existed....
and an
albatrossAlbatrosses, of the biological family Diomedeidae, are large seabirds allied to the procellariids, storm-petrels and diving-petrels in the order Procellariiformes . They range widely in the Southern Ocean and the North Pacific...
. The albatross was
Steve IrwinStephen Robert "Steve" Irwin , nicknamed "The Crocodile Hunter", was an Australian television personality, wildlife expert, and conservationist. Irwin achieved worldwide fame from the television series The Crocodile Hunter, an internationally broadcast wildlife documentary series which he co-hosted...
'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 memory of Steve Irwin. This scene is done in Steve's classic documentary style, with the albatross telling the viewer all about the other characters in the scene, and the impact people are having on their environment.
Video games
A video game based on the film was developed by
A2MBehaviour Interactive [formerly Artificial Mind and Movement ], founded in 1992 in Québec City, Québec as Megatoon Entertainment Group, is the largest independent game development studio in Canada, specializing in the production of 2D and 3D action/adventure games for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3,...
and published by
Midway GamesMidway Games, Inc. is an American company that was formerly a major video game publisher. Following a bankruptcy filing in 2009, it is no longer active and is in the process of liquidating all of its assets. Midway's titles included Mortal Kombat, Ms.Pac-Man, Spy Hunter, Tron, Rampage, the...
. It has the same main cast as the film. It was released for the
PCMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
,
PlayStation 2The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
,
GameCubeThe , officially abbreviated to NGC in Japan and GCN in other regions, is a sixth generation video game console released by Nintendo on September 15, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia...
, GBA,
NDSThe is a portable game console produced by Nintendo, first released on November 21, 2004. A distinctive feature of the system is the presence of two separate LCD screens, the lower of which is a touchscreen, encompassed within a clamshell design, similar to the Game Boy Advance SP...
, and
WiiThe Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
.
Artificial Life, Inc. has also developed a Happy Feet mobile game for the Japan market.
Box office
The film opened at #1 in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
on its first weekend of release (November 17–19) grossing $41.6 million and beating
Casino RoyaleCasino Royale is the twenty-first film in the James Bond film series and the first to star Daniel Craig as fictional MI6 agent James Bond...
for the top spot. It remained #1 for the Thanksgiving weekend, making $51.6 million over the five-day period. In total, the film was the top grosser for three weeks, a 2006 box office feat matched only by
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's ChestPirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is a 2006 adventure fantasy film and the second film of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, following Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl . It was directed by Gore Verbinski, written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and produced by...
. As of June 8, 2008,
Happy Feet has grossed $198.0 million in the U.S. and $186.3 million overseas, making about $384.3 million dollars worldwide.
Happy Feet was the third highest grossing animated film in the U.S., behind
CarsCars is a 2006 American animated family film produced by Pixar and directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Joe Ranft. It is the seventh Disney·Pixar feature film, and Pixar's final, independently-produced motion picture before its purchase by Disney...
and
Ice Age: The MeltdownIce Age: The Meltdown, also known as Ice Age 2: The Meltdown or simply as Ice Age 2, is the 2006 sequel to the 2002 computer-animated film Ice Age. It was produced by Blue Sky Studios for 20th Century Fox, and premiered in Belgium on March 1, 2006...
. The film has been released in about 35 international territories at the close of 2006.
The production budget was $100 million.
Critical reviews
Happy Feet has received positive reviews from
film criticsFilm criticism is the analysis and evaluation of films, individually and collectively. In general, this can be divided into journalistic criticism that appears regularly in newspapers, and other popular, mass-media outlets and academic criticism by film scholars that is informed by film theory and...
, and received a 74% "Fresh" approval in the
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
movie review aggregate site, with an 82% percent from the Top Critics.
Analysis
The film has also garnered, since its release, quite a bit of analysis and dissection from various places. Film critic Yar Habnegnal has written an essay, published 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. And, Vadim Rizov of the
Independent Film ChannelThe Independent Film Channel is an American cable TV network that airs independent film and related programming. IFC programming includes commercially interrupted feature-length films, original documentaries, shorts, animated series, original series, acquired series, and content exclusively for...
sees Mumble as just the latest in a long line of cinematic religious mavericks.
On a technical or formal level, the film has also been lauded in some corners for its innovative introduction of Miller's roving style of subjective cinematography into contemporary animation, among other things.
Sequel
Happy Feet Two was produced at Dr. D Studios and released on November 18, 2011. Wood and Williams reprised their roles for the sequel. Brittany Murphy was not be able to reprise her role, due to her death.
Matt DamonMatthew Paige "Matt" Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting , from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck...
and
Brad PittWilliam Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
signed on as 'Bill the Krill' and 'Will the Krill', respectively.
Environmental message
As things progress there is increasing emphasis on environmental problems in the Antarctic.
The film's denouement shows a group of researchers taking video of the colony of dancing emperor penguins, and the footage is broadcast globally. After many heated arguments this publicity generates considerable pressure to stop commercial
overfishingOverfishing occurs when fishing activities reduce fish stocks below an acceptable level. This can occur in any body of water from a pond to the oceans....
of the Antarctic.
According to the director, George Miller, the environmental message was not a major part of the original script, but "In
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, we're very, very aware of the ozone hole," he said, "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."
External links