Chicken Little/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Is the town populated entirely by heartless jerks who treat a kid like garbage over a misunderstanding that they can't move past? Or are they still jerks, but understandably so given the situation? While we know that Chicken Little's telling the truth thanks to the story focusing on him, the townsfolk don't. Because his claims are outlandish, lacking in proof, and have incited a destructive mass panic, they'd have no reason to see him as anything other than a paranoid nut or an attention-seeking troublemaker doing the equivalent of calling in a false bomb threat or shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded movie theater and treat him as such.
  • Broken Base: Oh yeah. As far as many Disney fans are concerned, this is easily the worst movie in the company's animated canon, or at the very least close to the worst. But despite the vocal hate it gets, it has its fans who think it's a fun, if flawed movie with criticisms that are way overblown. Then there's the crowd who thinks that it's merely an unremarkable film from a studio known for its animated masterpieces.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: While she may not have deserved to be brainwashed, many viewers act like Foxy Loxy is a blameless victim when she's an obnoxious Jerkass and easily Chicken Little's nastiest bully. Unlike most of the townsfolk who are criticized for their treatment of him, her cruel attitude seems to stem from her picking on an easy target instead of genuine anger over him stirring up a mass panic over (seemingly) nothing.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: Even many of the Disney fans who have accepted the move into CGI will not acknowledge its existence.
  • Follow the Leader: It's hard not to notice that the film is aping the Shrek formula to a T, except of course the strong anti-Disney overtones of the first Shrek film.
  • Girl Show Ghetto: The original story treatment of Chicken Little had a female protagonist, but Michael Eisner suggested a movie about a male Chicken Little would appeal to more people. The final film became a black sheep of the Disney Animated Canon, though it seems hard to tell whether or not the original plan would have fared better.
  • High Octane Nightmare Fuel: The alien invasion.
  • Memetic Mutation: Think "Numa Numa" and recall the early teaser commercials with Chicken Little dancing to notorious earworm "Dragostea din tei". Then have it come back to haunt you when you hear "Down" by Jay Sean, a Suspiciously Similar Song version of the Numa Numa song whose lyrics specifically allude to the story of Chicken Little.
  • Ron the Death Eater: Is Buck Cluck a model dad? Absolutely not. But it's clear that he genuinely loves and cares for his son, but has a hard time showing it. And it certainly doesn't help that he's a widower who wasn't ready to raise a child by himself. He even realizes that he wasn't doing right by his son and genuinely apologizes for it during the film's climax. But if you took his massive hatedom's word for it, you'd think he was a monster on par with Frollo, Mother Gothel, or Lady Tremaine. As in, actual dyed-in-the-wool sociopaths who abuse and torment their children. This perception of his character is so prevalent that his Disney Wiki page has been a battleground between admins trying to keep it neutral and vandals trying to paint him in the worst possible light.
  • The Scrappy: Buck Cluck is one for being a neglectful father to the main character, coming off as more concerned for his social standing than he does for his son's welfare. While he does realize the error of his ways and apologizes, for many viewers it was too little, too late.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Buck Cluck's massive hatedom stems from this. He's intended to be seen as a flawed but loving father who's at a loss at how to deal with an anxious son who managed to turn the entire population of their hometown against him, but the execution makes him look like a fair-weather friend who cares more about maintaining his social standing than he does about sticking up for Chicken Little.
  • What the Hell, Casting Agency?: The voice actors of Chicken, Abby and Runt don't even attempt to sound like kids, though the film never is clear on whether they're supposed to be young children or teenagers. And what was the point of casting Patrick Stewart for barely over a minute of dialogue?
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Chicken_Little/YMMV?oldid=1966984"