A Perfect Little Movie: ‘That’ll Do, Pig.’ And Its Wallace Statue Counterpart in Stirling Scotland.

The year was 1995, and the late Mr. She and I had just been to see one of the very few movies I've ever designated as "perfect." By that time, we'd been living on our small farm in the country for nine years, and the movie was Babe. (Not the 1992 movie about the baseball player starring the late John Goodman; rather, the one with the pig.)

It's a wonderful tale, taken from the children's book Babe: The Gallant Pig, by Dick King-Smith, and produced as a movie by (of all people) George (Mad Max) Miller, who said he wanted to be remembered for a movie that his children could enjoy.

And it is, indeed, a tale of gallantry, of love, of purpose, and of belonging. An epic story of the porcine "ugly duckling" who finds himself spurned by all except the daffy (lower case "d") duck and his new (canine) mom, and who finds his way through to discover his destiny and his value, both to himself and to those he loves.

Oh, the horror.

I remember leaving the theater, having seen the extraordinarily tender and perfect melding of reality and CGI, and commenting to Mr. She, "Lord. I think a determined someone could actually do justice now to a live-action Lord of the Rings."

Little did I know what was to come just a half-decade later.

Today, August 23, 2024 is the 719th anniversary of the death of the hero of the First War of Scottish Independence, William Wallace.

Regardless, or irregardless as the case may be, of your knowledge of the actual history, I bet some of you know the story told in Braveheart, the movie which came out in the same year as Babe, and which starred the Mad Max actor Mel Gibson.

This was almost thirty years ago, at a time, and in another life, when--by the time the Oscars came on the telly--I could predictably claim to have seen most of the movies nominated.

And when--no matter the frisson of excitement that was generated by the sight of Gibson's bare bum in Braveheart--I was rooting for the pig.

But the pig lost. Pity.

Today, I reflect on the fate of the Braveheart statue. It's a 12-ton, 13-foot sculpture of Gibson's personification, which (in 1997) originally stood at the entrance to the (genuinely historically interesting) Wallace Monument in Stirling, Scotland. It was roundly ridiculed and vandalized. At one point it was placed behind a protective four-sided bulletproof glass enclosure, leading to a number of "imprisonment" memes, and still more ridicule and--after about a decade--it was returned to its creator, Tom Church at his Brechin studio. Thereupon--after a couple of other false starts--it was eventually repurposed outside the stadium of the Brechin City Football Club in Angus, Scotland where--I believe--it sits to this day, as a tribute to--if not a hero of Scotland--an intrepid football supporter.

Perhaps an object lesson as to what can go wrong with the unnecessary fictionalization of a hero who actually lived, vis-à-vis a charming fairy tale which--although it might not be real, might actually be true, and instructive to boot.

More pig, please. And less Braveheart.

PS: Chris Noonan wrote the adapted screenplay (from the King-Smith book) for Babe. A little over a decade later, he directed another movie, Miss Potter, which I do not deem "perfect," although it is about one of my own real-life heroes, and is one of the last movies I enjoyed watching, on DVD, with my dad before he died. Renee Zellweger plays the title role, and pretty as the movie is, I just couldn't rid myself of the idea that she was playing Bridget Jones playing Beatrix Potter. I think the great lady deserved better.