Big Buck Bunny

precise message, right animation. and contemporary themes , from bulling to the sensitivity of huge bunny who knows give the perfect revenge to its enemies. result - a delightful short animation who is more direct than moral lesson. and , in strange way, this is a virtue because it reminds the simple forms of justice . so, great animation and beautiful characters. remembering the fairy tales of childhood.

This little animated short is a truly admirable effort, designed to draw out other talented people willing to donate their time to help create the film and to enhance the free tools (named "Blender")used to make the movie. It succeeded wildly in that effort. Many modifications were made to the Blender tools to simplify the creation of animation and the efficiency of the workflow. In addition, the raw files that were created to render the movie are included on the DVD allowing others to experiment making their own version of the film or use the files as a tutorial in their own creations.

The story revolves around our hero — the title character Big Buck Bunny — and three nefarious characters: a portly, absent-minded woodchuck, a dizzy, goofy fox and their cruel leader, a mean-spirited flying squirrel. The gang of three seem dedicated to tormenting Big Buck Bunny and generally terrorizing the other creatures inhabiting an otherwise serene and gorgeous forest. After purposely crushing a butterfly Big Buck Bunny has been admiring and gently pursuing, the three ne'er-do-wells proceed to hurl various nuts and forest debris at Bunny's head. Then, the wicked flying squirrel (who is by far the most reprobate of the three) crushes yet another butterfly that makes the mistake of landing on a nearby rock. Shocked and saddened, Big Buck Bunny runs from the meadow into the forest as the gang of three throw prickly thistles at him. Angered by the gang's hateful actions, Bunny begins a humorous Predator-style vengeance preparation, which then plays out with a truly hilarious ending. Stick around during the credits for various little animations of the gang of three and an additional sequence after the credits where one of the maligned victims of the gang serves up some scatological comeuppance.

Some reviewer commented that the tools used in the making of this movie might render (pun intended) big animation studios like DreamWorks and Pixar obsolete. Nonsense. What makes a film a success — regardless of medium — is story and the execution of said. If nothing else, Pixar's success has taught us there is no substitute for a great story excellently told. The faulty thinking that leads to erroneous conclusions such as this is the continual underestimation of artists and the creative process in general. Each new generation is driven to push the boundaries and squeeze every little bit of functionality out of the tools they have to work with, not to mention the irreplaceable importance of performance by voice actors. This is why we will never see "push button" characters and the dissolution of big names studios with pockets deep enough to pay for such talent. Ours is a culture that all but worships famous personalities and as long as they demand large salaries, only the big name studios will be able to afford their services. The tools, however, are another matter.

The free, open-source Blender animation/rendering software puts powerful tools into the hands of a much larger section of the population with far less money at their disposal. Instead of costing tens or hundreds of thousands (or even millions) for the software and hardware necessary to make a professional-looking animated movie, open-source software like Blender brings that cost down to a few thousand or so. For the cost of a mid-level Macintosh, the free Blender software suite and a few other reasonably priced software tools, a person or group could make their own feature-length animated movie just like the makers of Big Buck Bunny did. Hopefully, after enjoying the efforts of the team that made this movie, more people will endeavor to make their own animated fare. If this film is any indication, animation fans are in for a heck of a ride.

OK, this movie is a bit different: it's licensed under "Creative Commons 3.0", so you are free to distribute it and to adapt/remix it. Nice, and it does have merit, as the visual and auditive part have been done with great attention to detail. Some people call it better than some of DreamWork's productions, I would call it on par. But still, that's a heck of a qualification for a labor of love and released for free.

The down-side is that the movie is just uninteresting. It is just not funny, nor moving, nor interesting enough. Its plot is weak and predictable, and although the movie is 3D, the characters are truly flat. The only thing it has in abundance is cynicism. I'm not going to spoil the plot, but if you've seen one or two animation blockbusters, you've seen this one.

Truly a very good all out effort to incorporate the open-source (or better: open-movie) community with Hollywood CGI standards. Qualitywise characters, environments and storyline are comparable with the best short-movies Pixar has made. In that respect BBB is clearly targeted at a general audience with it's rather lightweight storyline, 'cudly' characters and somewhat crude humor. Realising that this free (!) cartoon is made by 7 people in 7 months and it's main purpose was to enrich the free CGI-software Blender with new technology (like 'fur'), the result is awesome. People and software who are capable of doing things like this, may well be rendering Pixar, Disney or Dreamworks obsolete in a few years.

@Bladerunner: don't hijack my remark for a private rant. Just read literally what I wrote. Pointer: notice the 'may' in the last sentence.

As said both execution as script are up there with Pixars shorts IMHO. Even regardless to quality: Blender Foundation clearly found a way to produce quality shorts in a very different way than the Pixars and Dreamworks produce theirs: with a coreteam of seven, their work supported by hundreds, maybe thousands of artists all over the world who make props, backgrounds etc. and submit them through the net. Bunny (and the new Sintel, which btw uses the voices of two of the biggest and mosty expensive Dutch international actors)) prove me right: you do not need big pockets, you need talent, creative commons license and the opensource community.

And that, my friend, may be a way to render the big studio's obsolete in a few years.

Watched this years back, and find myself searching for it again more than 5 years later. My little one loves it, and unlike the other review warning of violence, I disagree. Firstly, there is no killing in the entire story, no blood, no gore. Yes there is an element of bullying, but the revenge was more of an amusement.

There was no physical retaliation by the bunny, and even when he caught the ring leader, he basically hung him out to dry like a kite, giving a rare opportunity to the first bird in the scene to have some fun with him as well.

Loved it and so does my little one, I would highly recommend it.