Your Friend the Rat (2007)

Remy and Emile plead the case for rats by illustrating the historical and scientific facts about the species and their interaction with humans.

Director:

Jim Capobianco

Writers:

Jim Capobianco, Jeff Pidgeon (story)

Stars:

Patton Oswalt, Peter Sohn, Lou Romano

1 win.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Patton Oswalt	...	Remy (voice)
Peter Sohn	...	Emile (voice)
Lou Romano	...	Linguini (voice)
Tony Russel	...	Disclaimer Guy (voice) (as Tony Russell)
Sigmund Vik	...	Norwegian Rat (voice)
Jim Capobianco	...	Director Voice (voice)

Storyline

A forthright Remy and his reluctant brother Emile speak out for oppressed rats everywhere. Remy rolls film explaining that rats see themselves as on a par with men, who, instead, make war on rats. Remy gives a history lesson: heroism in India, black rat migration from the Middle East to Europe during the Crusades, the Black Death of 1347 to 1352, and Remy's contention that the flea was the villain. Enter the brown or Norway rat - from China. Both travel on ships around the world, with the larger brown pushing out the smaller black, and both live symbiotically with man. Then, Emile explains what's cool about rats. Trade phobia, Remy tells humans, for utopia. Any chance of that?

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Plot Keywords:

rat | ship | flea | europe | china | 

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Genres:

Animation | Short | Comedy | Family

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Certificate:

G

Did You Know?

Trivia

A scene from A Bug's Life (1998) with P.T. Flea is shown on one part.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Remy: Hello, I'm Remy and this is my brother Emile.
Emile: Hi.
Remy: We're here to speak out on behalf of repressed rats everywhere. Rats who don't have the access to media that our movie escorts us. Yes, we have to. We rats have to take a stand.
Emile: You said we'd sing something. You know, joke around. You did not say we were going to take a stand.
Remy: This is important. Humans need to know, humans need to...
Emile: Feed us. That's what you need to do. Leave some garbage out and we won't bother you. Just leave the lid ...
[...]

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Connections

Features Victory Through Air Power (1943)

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Soundtracks

Plan B
Music by James G. Dashe
Lyrics by Jim Capobianco and James G. Dashe
Arrangement by Jennifer Hammond and Michael Giacchino
Performed by Patton Oswalt, Peter Sohn, and James G. Dashe
Music recorded at Skywalker Scoring Stage

User Reviews

Entertaining and interesting but particularly of note for the range of animation styles employed

This short film was on the Ratatouille DVD as an additional extra. On other Pixar DVD's the character driven shorts tended to be funny and like mini-films (eg Mike's New Car) and I expected the same from this one as well. The clue is in the title though because this film is actually a sort of educational piece presented by Remy and Emil. In the film they make the plea for rats as being grossly misrepresented by record and perception. To remedy this they present the history of the rat, where it came from and why it has gotten such a bad reputation down the years.

It is a clever chance of pace for the added short film because it takes the creative humour of Pixar and makes a bit of an attempt to do something new. For me it mostly works and I found it to be quite interesting but not at the expense of entertainment value. The laughs are not that strong but the style of delivery means it is continually amusing. Talking of style of delivery the main thing I liked about it was that the animation was a lot more creative and impressive that the all-CGI film itself. Yes, the CGI is quite brilliant as usual but I appreciated the mix of styles and techniques employed here. Not sure if it was deliberate to achieve this but to me it felt like the studio reminding the viewer that it is not the computers that make all this seem easy so much as the animators behind it – regardless of style.

Overall then, not a hilarious short film but an interesting and entertaining one. Amusing throughout, the simplified run through history is well presented but for my money what makes it worth seeing is the range of animation styles all coming together in this film.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

6 November 2007 (USA)

Also Known As:

Your Friend the Rat

Company Credits

Production Co:

Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios

Technical Specs

Runtime:

11 min

Color:

Color