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Chickens on the Run (Again) [1]

['Claire Carlson', 'The Daily Yonder']

Date: 2023-12-28

Editor’s Note: A version of this story first appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, a newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, retrospectives, recommendations, and more. You can join the mailing list at the bottom of this article to receive future editions in your inbox.

In the 2000 movie “Chicken Run,” a revolutionary idea was packaged in claymation: freedom for chickens.

I watched this movie probably 20 times throughout my childhood, and while I can’t claim it was the main factor in me becoming a vegetarian at age 14, it certainly was my first introduction to a poultry overhead conveyor, wall-mounted shackles, and a mechanical rotary knife. Getting an up-close look at poultry processing equipment (albeit animated) was an eye-opening experience. Were the chicken thighs I gnawed on for dinner every night worth the grisly slaughter of Rocky the Rooster, voiced by Mel Gibson, then at the height of his leading man stardom? The taste wasn’t worth it to me.

When I heard a sequel was being released in 2023, I was certainly excited to see what other revolutionary ideas it might introduce 23 years later. Unfortunately for fans of the original, the new “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget” leaves a lot to be desired, especially when it comes to offering a nuanced perspective on the meat industry (isn’t that what you look for in every children’s movie?).

An official trailer for ‘Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget’ (Credit: Netflix via YouTube).

An undetermined amount of time has passed for our chickens since the first movie (although it can’t be that long in poultry years, right?), and the two main characters — Ginger and Rocky — have welcomed a baby chick into their family.

Even though the chickens have created what looks to be a hen-run utopia on a tropical island, Ginger and Rocky’s chick leaves home to see what the rest of the world has to offer. But trouble strikes quickly and she ends up in a poultry processing facility.

The sequel’s settings are a marked departure from the original — the rural English countryside is replaced by a tropical island, and the first movie’s family-run chicken farm seems tiny in comparison to the massive, dystopian poultry plant the chickens stumble into in Dawn of the Nugget.

The plant’s slogan is ominous: “where chickens find their happy endings.” The chickens are brainwashed by a device strapped to their necks to willingly walk onto the slaughterhouse’s conveyor belt toward their own deaths. “[The chicken’s] natural instinct when faced with [meat] processing is fear and panic,” an informational video within the movie explains. “When this occurs, the muscles tense, which causes the connective tissues to form knots. The result? Meat that is tough, dry, and flavorless.”

This is actually true. Research shows that the meat of stressed out livestock tastes worse than that of animals who were calm before slaughter. Most noticeable is the texture, which gets chewy and flavorless if the animal was tense. So maybe this brainwashing technology is a good thing, at least for the humans eating the meat?

The chickens hatch a plan to break into the processing plant (Credit: Netflix via IMDb).

Predictably, the chickens don’t share this opinion. The movie first follows the chickens’ scheme to break into the processing plant to rescue Ginger and Rocky’s chick, then a different scheme to get out of the plant, and then a whole other scheme to rescue all of the chickens trapped in the facility.

At just over 100 minutes, all this scheming gets to be a bit much, especially when compared to the singular, legendary jailbreak of the first movie (tightly wrapped up in 84 minutes, too). In Dawn of the Nugget, the plot is complicated by the many other side quests that distract from the same goal as the first movie: freedom, but this time for all chickens.

The original Chicken Run is a tough movie to beat. So good it helped prompt the “Best Animated Feature” category to be added to the Motion Picture Academy Awards, it’s no surprise the sequel feels like a bit of a letdown by comparison.

But don’t let that stop you from watching — this is, after all, one chicken (rights) fanatic’s jaded opinion. Perhaps Dawn of the Nugget will spark a whole new generation of vegetarians.

Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is streaming on Netflix. The original Chicken Run is streaming on Netflix and Peacock and is also available to buy or rent digitally or on disc.

This article first appeared in The Good, the Bad, and the Elegy, an email newsletter from the Daily Yonder focused on the best, and worst, in rural media, entertainment, and culture. Every other Thursday, it features reviews, recommendations, retrospectives, and more. Join the mailing list today to have future editions delivered straight to your inbox.

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