I honestly could not say which Babe film I prefer, they are both spectacular. This film is INCREDIBLY well directed for what essentially it is, the scene with the glitter cannons and the clown with Piaf in the background is amazing, and I always always cry at SO MANY parts of this. Mostly the little wheelchair dog.

Does what a sequel should too, and even if there isn't any Farmer Hoggett it's still so lovely. The Babe films have this art direction where everything looks rosy and kind of distorted, massive like how a tiny pig must feel in a big city.

WHY AM I WRITING SO MUCH ABOUT BABE.

A terribly underrated masterpiece. George Miller directs a story of abandonment, melancholy, menace and heart, set in a dystopian alternate reality, and filled with expertly-directed action sequences and strong imagery. He took a sequel whose existence was, yes, unnecessary, and turned it into a film with singular vision most easily comparable to the early films of Jeunet & Caro.

An astonishingly dark children's film. There are brilliant stories of redemption, society's failures, and life woven into the context of a "talking animal" film. It averted my expectations.

It was awesome. Not better than the original, though.

Talking pigs are cute, but talking chimps are creepy. Stylish and surreal film isn't as cute as the original, but at least it does something weird and different. Not really for kids either - it's richly done with amazing effects. Script by director George Miller, actress Judy Morris, and Mark Lamprell.

Extremely imaginative piece of world-building from Miller. The good feelings of rural living are nearly crushed by the onslaught that is the modern city, a place where people pursue things of lesser importance in isolation from one another. That Miller is able to place Babe in this dark milieu and turn him into an even greater hero there really heightens our understanding of Babe's 'kind and steady heart.' What is nice in the first film becomes profound in the second.

People laugh at me. This film is a stylistic fetishist wet dream. Set designs and moods surely were inspired by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The city, Metropolis, can be right out of City of Lost Children, but instead of One looking for Denree, it is Esme Hoggett looking for the pig.

I just hope Babe doesn't wander into Jeunet's Delicatessen.

This is definitely a film I should revisit. I didn't like it at the time because it was dark and weird and not what I was expecting. Now, that sounds like the exact reasons why I would love something. One of these days I'll get around to seeing it again to give it a fair shake.

Although I do feel that the people how prefer this to the original are misguided, there's a lot of wonky charm to this darker and more confused sequel. I made my borderline pig-phobic co-host watch this film for the latest episode of the Movie Homework Podcast, with curious results: moviehomework.com/post/45106297917/movie-homework-ep-46-babe-pig-in-the-city-last

As unlikely as a pig becoming a sheepdog: the sequel to a kid's film being better than the original. Still, it happened.

The only other kid's sequel that's better than part one that I can think of, is The Empire Strikes Back, and like that film, Pig in the City is darker, funnier and more daring than its predessecor. There's a surprising amount of genuine peril, rendered child friendly by the accompying humor and the cuteness of the central character.

The real star, however, is The City, a wonderfully designed fantasy world that perfectly captures the image I had of 'the big city' when I was a child.

Not only one of the greatest and most fearless sequels ever made, but a film that manages to combine its many delirious surreal touches with poignant moments of grace and compassion that make this -paradoxically- something of a humanist masterpiece. The perfect companion piece to Robert Altman's equally brilliant POPEYE, it's a fabulous visual tale filled with light and darkness that makes conservative adults feel uncomfortable, but that all children rightfully adore.