Piglet's Big Movie

Piglet's Big Movie is a 2003 American animated musical adventure comedy-drama film produced by the Japanese office of Disneytoon Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. The animation production was by Walt Disney Animation Japan, Inc. with additional animation provided by Gullwing Co., Ltd., additional background by Studio Fuga and digital ink and paint by T2 Studio. The film features the characters from the Winnie-the-Pooh books written by A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard and is the third theatrically released Winnie the Pooh feature. It was released on March 21, 2003, to generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $62.9 million worldwide. In this film, Piglet is ashamed of being small and clumsy and wanders off into the Hundred Acre Wood, leading all of his friends to form a search party to find him.

Plot
Pooh, Tigger, Eeyore, and Rabbit are working on a plan to get honey from a beehive by tricking the bees into leaving their hive. Piglet offers to help, but is rejected due to his smallness. The plan goes awry when the bees see through the plan, but Piglet manages to divert the bees into a new hive and trap them. Unfortunately, Piglet's friends take all the credit for themselves when they fail to notice his heroism, making him leave dejectedly. After the bees break free, Pooh, Rabbit, Tigger, and Eeyore escape to Piglet's house, where they notice that Piglet is missing and decide to find him. Using Piglet's scrapbook as a guide, the four use the pictures to tell the stories depicted therein, leading to several flashbacks.

The first story told is when Kanga and Roo first moved to the Hundred Acre Wood. Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, and Rabbit are afraid of the newcomers and Rabbit concocts a plan to use Piglet as a decoy, so they can ransom Roo to force Kanga to leave. When Kanga finds out about the plan, she plays along by pretending that Piglet is Roo, where Piglet learns of how nice she is. Realizing their kindness, everyone agrees to let Kanga and Roo stay in the Hundred Acre Wood. Back in the present, Roo joins the others in searching for Piglet.

The second story is of the expedition to find the North Pole. During the search, Roo falls into a river, prompting Piglet to use a long stick to launch him out. Unfortunately, his heroism is overlooked when he gives the stick to Pooh to try to catch Roo (where he is caught by his mother), and Christopher Robin credits Pooh with finding the North Pole (the stick). Back in the present, the friends regret not sharing the praise with Piglet.

The third story concerns the building of the House at Pooh Corner. Pooh and Piglet get the idea of building Eeyore a house in an area they name "Pooh Corner" and are joined by Tigger, who leads them to some neatly stacked sticks to use for building. After many failed attempts, Pooh and Tigger attempt to offer Eeyore to move in with one of them only for Eeyore to reveal that the sticks Pooh and Tigger found was his house. Piglet manages to rebuild Eeyore's house and shows it to him, satisfying the donkey.

Back in the present, an argument between Rabbit and Tigger ends with the scrapbook falling into a river. Without their guide and with a storm coming, the gang sadly return to Piglet's house, where they draw pictures depicting Piglet's heroism. Eventually feeling reinvigorated, the group decide to resume their search for Piglet.

During their search, the gang find Piglet's scrapbook suspended on a hollow log looming over a waterfall. Pooh goes to retrieve it, but he falls into a hole in the log, and the others are unable to reach him. At that moment, Piglet arrives and helps pull Pooh to safety just as the log begins to break in half. Everyone manages to escape just as the front half of the log breaks off, but the scrapbook itself is destroyed by the fall. Although saddened by this loss, the group take Piglet back to his house to show him all of their drawings.

The next day, everyone in the Hundred Acre Wood throws a party to celebrate Piglet's heroism during which Pooh reveals that he renamed Eeyore's home "Pooh and Piglet Corner". The camera pulls back to show a large shadow of Piglet behind everyone.

Cast

 * John Fiedler as Piglet
 * Jim Cummings as Winnie the Pooh / Tigger
 * Andre Stojka as Owl
 * Kath Soucie as Kanga
 * Nikita Hopkins as Roo
 * Peter Cullen as Eeyore
 * Ken Sansom as Rabbit
 * Tom Wheatley as Christopher Robin
 * Kath Soucie as Christopher Robin's singing voice

Production
Piglet's Big Movie was produced by Disneytoon Studios, Walt Disney Animation (Japan), Gullwing Co., Ltd, Studio Fuga, and T2 Studio.

The film was originally intended as a direct-to-video release, in February 2002 Disney announced that the film and The Jungle Book 2 would be released theatrically.

Music
American singer-songwriter Carly Simon wrote seven new songs for the film, and performed six of them ("If I Wasn't So Small", "Mother's Intuition", "Sing Ho for the Life of a Bear", "With a Few Good Friends", "The More I Look Inside", and "Comforting to Know"), as well as recording her own version of the Sherman brothers' "Winnie the Pooh" theme song.

"The More It Snows" features Jim Cummings and John Fiedler, as Pooh and Piglet. Simon was accompanied by her children Ben Taylor and Sally Taylor on many of the songs. Renée Fleming accompanied Simon on the song "Comforting to Know". On "Sing Ho for the Life of a Bear" Simon was accompanied by the cast.

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

Songs
Original songs performed in the film include:

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

Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a rating of 70% based on 77 reviews, and an average rating of 6.2/10. The site's critical consensus is "Wholesome and charming entertainment for young children." On Metacritic the film has a score of 62/100 based on reviews from 23 critics. Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A, on a scale of A+ to F.

Film critic Stephen Holden of New York Times called the film an "oasis of gentleness and wit". Nancy Churnin of The Dallas Morning News stated that Piglet's Big Movie was "one of the nifty pleasures in the process", despite her belief that "Disney may be milking its classics".

Games
In 2003, Disney released Piglet's Big Game for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Game Boy Advance, as well as a game on CD-ROM that was also entitled Piglet's Big Game. The latter was developed by Doki Denki Studio and involves helping Piglet assist in the preparation for a "Very Large Soup Party". In their review, Edutaining Kids praised various features including the adventure/exploration aspect (the game is linear instead of using a main screen) and many of the activities (such as the color mixing, which they said offers an incredible variety of hues), but noted that it is much too brief and that Kanga and Roo are absent.

Marketing
Disney released a teaser trailer of Piglet's Big Movie in May 2002 on The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh 25th-anniversary edition VHS and DVD home video releases and on the Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year DVD release in November 2002. The teaser was later attached to theatrical screenings of Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, Lilo & Stitch, The Powerpuff Girls Movie and Stuart Little 2. The next trailer for the film was released with the theatrical screenings of Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie, Treasure Planet, The Wild Thornberrys Movie and The Jungle Book 2. The trailers for the film were also attached to other Disney home video releases.

Theatrical
The film premiered March 16, 2003 and opened in theaters on March 21, 2003.

Home media
The film was released on VHS and DVD on July 29, 2003.