Big Buck Bunny

Wow. It's hard to believe that this short film was made by relative novices. Using open source files, they were able to create a film that is every bit as beautiful as the CGI projects by Pixar and Dreamworks--seriously. But, this is not just a gorgeous film but the story itself is wonderfully original and fun--making it film you just need to see.

The film begins with Buck Bunny awakening in his rabbit hole. Inexplicably, there are three adorable little critters that begin annoying Buck--throwing stuff at him and ripping the wings off butterflies simply because Buck likes butterflies! These guys are serious jerks and you just hope that Buck will kick their butts. When he does react, the cute but evil critters get much more than they anticipated! Overall, a wonderfully rendered and breathtaking Dutch film that can be enjoyed by anyone since it has no dialog. You gotta see this one!

When it comes Oscar time in a few months, I'll be very shocked if this film isn't among the nominees.

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.

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.