Spoilers Off applies to all Tear Jerker pages, so all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
Never again will chickens make you feel so much...
- Ginger is the only reason the rest of the chickens even consider escape as a possibility, let alone stay motivated. As a result, she has to shoulder the burden of not only keeping everyone's spirits up — including her own — and creating new escape plans, but then taking the fall for them every time they fail, and it's shown to be really taking its toll on her. The chickens all panicking when she's taken to the pie machine and, later, the mud fight which ensues after Rocky deserts them shows just how quickly everything falls apart without Ginger's guidance.Ginger: I care about what happens to them!
- Shortly after hearing Edwina getting "the chop", she watches a flock of migrating birds from the roof of her hut. With tears in her eyes, she whispers to herself "We've got to get out of here".
- After Bunty tells Ginger that the odds of their escaping are a million to one, Ginger replies sturdily, "Then there's still a chance". She steps out of the hut with her composure intact... and breaks down crying as the weight of the whole situation crashes down on her. You truly feel her anguish when she punches the fence in hopeless frustration before slumping against it, muttering to herself, "Heaven help us".
- Rocky's entire demeanour leading up to and after The Reveal.
- When everyone thinks that the flying demonstration he'll give them tomorrow will help them fully understand the process, you can tell he's absolutely miserable about how disappointed they're going to be when they learn that their problems are not going to be solved at all.
- The night before he's supposed to give a demonstration, Rocky and Ginger have a heart to heart on the roof of the hut, and Ginger admits to him that she always comes up and imagines what it must be like on the other side of the grassy hill, while confessing that she's never felt grass underneath her feet. At the mention of the second one, Rocky visibly flinches; the soul-crushing guilt eating him alive from the inside.
- What really tears him apart is that Rocky doesn't actually want to Maintain the Lie. At the party before Ginger was taken to the Pie Machine, and in this moment, Rocky clearly wants to admit the truth that he can't actually fly. He tries to soften the blow by telling Ginger about the phrase "Grass is always greener on the other side." while talking about how "prickly" it is, but she doesn't understand. He even tries one more time to finally tell her, but he can't bring himself to do it.
- Rocky's demeanor when Fowler apologizes to him, compliments him and gives him his prized medal for his bravery into saving Ginger from the pie machine, before saying that he's looking forward to see the flying demonstration tomorrow. Rocky is visibly touched by Fowler's words and gesture, but his face when Fowler isn't looking at him and the music make it clear that he feels guilty and unworthy of Fowler's praise and medal. The fact that he leaves the medal alongside the half of his poster proves that he didn't feel worthy of it.
- The subtle way that Ginger's look of curiosity gives way to heartbroken shock when she finds the torn piece of the poster revealing that Rocky was a fraud, followed by the shot of her walking back to the poster with an unflinching look of total devastation frozen on her face, is some amazing work on the animators' part.
- As Ginger walks back, she passes several cheerful and eager hens, whose faces fall and/or darken when they look at her. She hasn't said anything yet, and they can't see the poster piece, but they just know that if Ginger of all chickens looks that disheartened, something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.
- Adding to it all as well is the immensely dramatic and depressing theme
that flares up right when Ginger completes the poster; punctuated by a bleak rainstorm setting in as the chickens finally put two and two together about everything. At this point, Rocky himself can be seen slowly trudging away from the farm — having dug under the fence with a spoon and left the poster piece and his medal behind out of shame — and you can feel his absolute guilt at building their hopes up, only to abandon them when they needed him. - Ginger's Heroic BSoD when she discovers that not only has Rocky deserted them, but he could never fly. He was just shot out of a cannon. Not only does their last chance of escape and her one chance at love literally walk out on them, but they realize that all their hard work trying to learn to fly amounted to nothing. Ginger doesn't give up because she's sad, she gives up because she's finally out of options.Ginger: (despairingly) Let's face it. Our only way out of here... is wrapped in pastry.
- The aforementioned slapstick mud-fight doesn't even phase her.note Ginger just quietly accepts that they're done for and there's nothing they can do to avoid their gruesome fate.
- Later on, when Rocky is riding off on a tricycle while listening "The Wanderer" on a transistor radio, he cycles past a sign advertising Mrs. Tweedy's Chicken Pies, stopping him dead in his tracks as he looks up at it, horrified and guilt-ridden. Fortunately, this gives him the drive to turn around and go back to the farm.
- While you won't be Rooting for the Empire, it's still sad to see Mr. Tweedy get abused and ordered about constantly by Mrs. Tweedy. After getting a hard kick up the rear the last time he failed to fix the machine, we see him trying to activate it again, painfully feeling his rear while quietly begging for it to work. You may not necessarily want the man to succeed, but you do get the impression he's being treated unfairly and deserves a better wife than the monstrous woman he ended up marrying.
- Edwina's death — by decapitation from an axe, before eventually being eaten — has an even deeper impact than possibly imagined with the simple exchange of dialogue between two characters.Ginger: (whispering) Oh, no... Edwina...! (horrified) Bunty! Why didn't you give her some of yours?!
Bunty: (whispering) I would have! But she didn't tell me! She didn't tell anyone!- This simple exchange of dialogue reveals every subtle detail we need to know about this scene:
- 1) That morning, Edwina knew she was going to die.
- 2) It's clearly stated that if she had told the others, any of them would've most likely been more than happy to give her an egg, allowing her to survive.
- 3) She willingly refused to inform anyone.
- With the above factors in mind, one conclusion is drawn: Edwina was so miserable in the chicken pen that she purposely allowed herself to be chosen as a means of freedom through what essentially amounts to suicide. Go watch that scene again, and wonder if the expression on Edwina's face is fear... or anticipation? From the way Edwina just meekly hangs from the Tweedys' fists, and never once struggles even at the last moments before the inevitable, either way it's pretty chilling.(thunk)
- Or consider an alternate interpretation: she became essentially a martyr. Seeing a normally productive hen such as Bunty lay less eggs than usual could've been taken as a sign that she wouldn't have been worth keeping within some weeks. And that could be said of any other chicken. Edwina simply preferred to accept her fate rather than risk having someone else be unjustly killed because of her.
- It's also possible that if Edwina were to be able to lay eggs or she didn't refuse to lay them, then Ginger's life would have been in danger; since presumably, with Ginger coming up with all of the plans for everyone to escape, she would probably be the chicken with the lowest production of eggs. It wouldn't help that Mr. Tweedy would have a bone to pick with her for getting him in trouble with Mrs. Tweedy, and if Ginger were to be killed, then Edwina probably thought it would be all over for both herself and the other chickens; so she sacrificed herself so that Ginger and the other chickens could escape and live. Her fears and actions then would be justified in that without Ginger, the chickens wouldn't try to escape and they would all eventually be killed and turned into chicken pot pies for Mrs Tweedy to sell to the markets.
- And then it's revealed she doesn't even leave the farm at all. Her execution is just a hen house away to the chopping block and she's casually eaten by the Tweedys. And even if the actual kill is off-screen, the OST, the timing, and chickens' reactions to it makes it very uncomfortable to watch. The chickens all then sadly walk away to the rest of their day; it is clear that by this point, this has happened so many times that they feel they can't do anything about it.
- It’s a very minor detail, but when Mr Tweedy takes Edwina from the coop to the barn, the chicken stood next to Mac (behind Ginger and Bunty) has a tear streaming down her face.
- The tie-in book Chicken Pies For the Soul has a chapter dedicated to Edwina from Ginger’s perspective, and it’s quite clear that she still feels some kind of remorse and guilt towards her death.
- It's even worse when you realize that Edwina gave up at exactly the wrong time; Rocky's arrival the very next night inspired hope throughout the trapped chickens as they believed the means to escape had come and even when he was revealed to be a fraud, there was still enough time for them to figure out another solution in the next couple of moments. Had Edwina held out hope for just one more week, she more than likely would have been free, too.
- Later on during the flock’s meeting, Ginger comments about Edwina and ‘how many more empty nests would it take’, with the camera going to Edwina’s now empty nest. Edwina is far from the first hen to be taken to the barn and never come back, and each time it happens it’s still just as heart-breaking for the rest of the flock to witness.
- This simple exchange of dialogue reveals every subtle detail we need to know about this scene:
- The meeting in Hut 17. It's played for Black Comedy and is indeed very funny, but it also shows how much of a struggle it is for Ginger to keep everyone's morale up.Ginger: Think, everyone, think! What haven't we tried yet?
Bunty: We haven't tried not trying to escape.
Babs: Hmmm, that might work!
Ginger: (aghast) ...What about Edwina? How many more empty nests will it take?!
Bunty: Well, perhaps it wouldn't be empty if she'd spent more time laying, and less time escaping!
Ginger: So laying eggs all your life, then getting plucked, stuffed and roasted is good enough for you, is it?
(long pause)
Babs: It's a living. - After Rocky calls Ginger "difficult" for her Brutal Honesty (while not entirely wrong), he turns the corner and sees just how miserable all the chickens are. Most of them are staring at the ground, some are slumped against the huts, others are just wandering around in a daze or crying at the thought of their eventual fate. Mac plays a somber tune on her harmonica, Bunty scoops up seed and lets it fall through her fingers, and Babs is knitting a noose. Again, it's played for Black Comedy, but the only reason it's funny is because all of their reactions are perfectly appropriate.
- At the end of the montage of the chickens building the crate, Babs jokingly calls Ginger "dollface", which Rocky used to do. Ginger clearly gets emotional hearing this and sadly gazes over at his poster; which she hasn't removed. It then cuts to Rocky far away somewhere, riding a tricycle as he sings "The Wanderer". He acts happy at first, then his expression changes as he sings "And when I find myself falling for some girl...". He's clearly thinking about Ginger too.
- Another thing that makes him turn around is when he sees a billboard advertising Mrs. Tweedy's Chicken Pies. He knows he can't let that happen to the chickens he promised to free.
- Granted the chickens assembling their escape in the form of a flying machine is mostly awesome and high-spirited, it's tinged with one sobering moment towards the end of that scene, when a bound and gagged Mr. Tweedy tries in vain to call out Mrs. Tweedy's name. But a shot of her shows her merely ignoring it, as though it were just the wind. It's a subtle moment that's lost amidst the feeling that one is supposed to be rooting against the Tweedy couple, but it truly encapsulates that Mr. Tweedy is ultimately alone.
- Depending on your view, you'll probably feel bad for Nick and Fetcher when they start crying over having to deploy the eggs at the climax scene, especially since they spent practically the whole movie scheming and wanting these eggs. It's basically the equivalent of having to give up a payment you worked hard for.
- Rocky's reaction when Ginger is seemingly killed by Mrs. Tweedy. The next shot reveals that he started crying.
- While Babs constant mention of someone going on Holiday can be seen as a running gag, it could also be interpreted as a coping mechanism for dealing with the cruel, oppressive nature of the farm.