User Reviews

This animated short film tells the story of some animals in the forest, who are cruel and bullies other animals. One day, Big Buck Bunny has had enough of bullying, and decides to teach the bullies a big lesson.

"Big Buck Bunny" shows how cruel some people can be, and the effect of bullying on the victims. The main character decides to hit back in a comical manner, and the measures he employ are very successful. The moral lesson in the story is clear, and it is fun to watch.

I appreciate the work that went into this because the animation is truly excellent.

It's just a massive shame that the animators spent so much time on such a facile plot.

The freeware used is obviously great, but if seven people are going to spend seven months of their lives putting a short film together then I would have thought the starting point would be a good story.

After ten minutes of this rubbish it was swiftly deleted from my hard drive.

Nice try, but unfortunately no banana.

Cheers, Will

This little animated short is a truly admirable effort, designed to draw out other talented people willing to donate their time to help create the film and to enhance the free tools (named "Blender")used to make the movie. It succeeded wildly in that effort. Many modifications were made to the Blender tools to simplify the creation of animation and the efficiency of the workflow. In addition, the raw files that were created to render the movie are included on the DVD allowing others to experiment making their own version of the film or use the files as a tutorial in their own creations.

The story revolves around our hero — the title character Big Buck Bunny — and three nefarious characters: a portly, absent-minded woodchuck, a dizzy, goofy fox and their cruel leader, a mean-spirited flying squirrel. The gang of three seem dedicated to tormenting Big Buck Bunny and generally terrorizing the other creatures inhabiting an otherwise serene and gorgeous forest. After purposely crushing a butterfly Big Buck Bunny has been admiring and gently pursuing, the three ne'er-do-wells proceed to hurl various nuts and forest debris at Bunny's head. Then, the wicked flying squirrel (who is by far the most reprobate of the three) crushes yet another butterfly that makes the mistake of landing on a nearby rock. Shocked and saddened, Big Buck Bunny runs from the meadow into the forest as the gang of three throw prickly thistles at him. Angered by the gang's hateful actions, Bunny begins a humorous Predator-style vengeance preparation, which then plays out with a truly hilarious ending. Stick around during the credits for various little animations of the gang of three and an additional sequence after the credits where one of the maligned victims of the gang serves up some scatological comeuppance.

Some reviewer commented that the tools used in the making of this movie might render (pun intended) big animation studios like DreamWorks and Pixar obsolete. Nonsense. What makes a film a success — regardless of medium — is story and the execution of said. If nothing else, Pixar's success has taught us there is no substitute for a great story excellently told. The faulty thinking that leads to erroneous conclusions such as this is the continual underestimation of artists and the creative process in general. Each new generation is driven to push the boundaries and squeeze every little bit of functionality out of the tools they have to work with, not to mention the irreplaceable importance of performance by voice actors. This is why we will never see "push button" characters and the dissolution of big names studios with pockets deep enough to pay for such talent. Ours is a culture that all but worships famous personalities and as long as they demand large salaries, only the big name studios will be able to afford their services. The tools, however, are another matter.

The free, open-source Blender animation/rendering software puts powerful tools into the hands of a much larger section of the population with far less money at their disposal. Instead of costing tens or hundreds of thousands (or even millions) for the software and hardware necessary to make a professional-looking animated movie, open-source software like Blender brings that cost down to a few thousand or so. For the cost of a mid-level Macintosh, the free Blender software suite and a few other reasonably priced software tools, a person or group could make their own feature-length animated movie just like the makers of Big Buck Bunny did. Hopefully, after enjoying the efforts of the team that made this movie, more people will endeavor to make their own animated fare. If this film is any indication, animation fans are in for a heck of a ride.

OK, this movie is a bit different: it's licensed under "Creative Commons 3.0", so you are free to distribute it and to adapt/remix it. Nice, and it does have merit, as the visual and auditive part have been done with great attention to detail. Some people call it better than some of DreamWork's productions, I would call it on par. But still, that's a heck of a qualification for a labor of love and released for free.

The down-side is that the movie is just uninteresting. It is just not funny, nor moving, nor interesting enough. Its plot is weak and predictable, and although the movie is 3D, the characters are truly flat. The only thing it has in abundance is cynicism. I'm not going to spoil the plot, but if you've seen one or two animation blockbusters, you've seen this one.

Truly a very good all out effort to incorporate the open-source (or better: open-movie) community with Hollywood CGI standards. Qualitywise characters, environments and storyline are comparable with the best short-movies Pixar has made. In that respect BBB is clearly targeted at a general audience with it's rather lightweight storyline, 'cudly' characters and somewhat crude humor. Realising that this free (!) cartoon is made by 7 people in 7 months and it's main purpose was to enrich the free CGI-software Blender with new technology (like 'fur'), the result is awesome. People and software who are capable of doing things like this, may well be rendering Pixar, Disney or Dreamworks obsolete in a few years.

@Bladerunner: don't hijack my remark for a private rant. Just read literally what I wrote. Pointer: notice the 'may' in the last sentence.

As said both execution as script are up there with Pixars shorts IMHO. Even regardless to quality: Blender Foundation clearly found a way to produce quality shorts in a very different way than the Pixars and Dreamworks produce theirs: with a coreteam of seven, their work supported by hundreds, maybe thousands of artists all over the world who make props, backgrounds etc. and submit them through the net. Bunny (and the new Sintel, which btw uses the voices of two of the biggest and mosty expensive Dutch international actors)) prove me right: you do not need big pockets, you need talent, creative commons license and the opensource community.

And that, my friend, may be a way to render the big studio's obsolete in a few years.

Watched this short animated film on the Feve Spanish trains in Northern Spain. The first time I watched it I thought it was alright, entertaining enough with a few funny parts. Well over the course of two days I saw this well over 50 times. It would play back to back to back to back...over and over and over. I have it damn well memorized now. Hope the creators are getting some money for allowing Feve to play this on their trains. Worth a watch, but not worth seeing 50+ times! Oh, and watch after the credits to see the bird get it's revenge. Now if only I could get my revenge on Feve for subjecting me to 'Big Buck Bunny' each day for hours at a time.

precise message, right animation. and contemporary themes , from bulling to the sensitivity of huge bunny who knows give the perfect revenge to its enemies. result - a delightful short animation who is more direct than moral lesson. and , in strange way, this is a virtue because it reminds the simple forms of justice . so, great animation and beautiful characters. remembering the fairy tales of childhood.

Beautiful animation, decent music and put together beautifully but absolutely R rated for violence. This is a short toon of horrific violence and although initially I thought it would be nice for a child I rapidly changed my mind. Bullying is unacceptable in any form. I thought the lesson here was anti bullying but as things progressed I understood that the message was being delivered with a sledge hammer. Mayhem and murder are hardly a good way to combat bullying no matter what the size difference is. If you are interested in a cartoon for a child you might want to reconsider. Wish my parents had done that when I was a child and I was shown Animal Farm for the first time.

Wow. It's hard to believe that this short film was made by relative novices. Using open source files, they were able to create a film that is every bit as beautiful as the CGI projects by Pixar and Dreamworks--seriously. But, this is not just a gorgeous film but the story itself is wonderfully original and fun--making it film you just need to see.

The film begins with Buck Bunny awakening in his rabbit hole. Inexplicably, there are three adorable little critters that begin annoying Buck--throwing stuff at him and ripping the wings off butterflies simply because Buck likes butterflies! These guys are serious jerks and you just hope that Buck will kick their butts. When he does react, the cute but evil critters get much more than they anticipated! Overall, a wonderfully rendered and breathtaking Dutch film that can be enjoyed by anyone since it has no dialog. You gotta see this one!

When it comes Oscar time in a few months, I'll be very shocked if this film isn't among the nominees.

Watched this years back, and find myself searching for it again more than 5 years later. My little one loves it, and unlike the other review warning of violence, I disagree. Firstly, there is no killing in the entire story, no blood, no gore. Yes there is an element of bullying, but the revenge was more of an amusement.

There was no physical retaliation by the bunny, and even when he caught the ring leader, he basically hung him out to dry like a kite, giving a rare opportunity to the first bird in the scene to have some fun with him as well.

Loved it and so does my little one, I would highly recommend it.

Now this is pure art, never in my life have a been so emotionally attached to a film of this nature. The way the animation just flows across the screen brings out a side of me that i have never seen, it makes me feel a certain way that is indescribable.

I could not recommend all to view this as many times as possible just to feel the tension between yourself and the characters. I am going to be taking this to a state level and petitioning this to be in all school curriculums from grade 1-12, and i hope you can all support me through this.

The biggest Big Buck Bunny fan, LT

First, I'm NOT a parent of a small child, now did I purposefully get this... short.

Instead, it was.. well, the best way to describe what is purpose was is as a promotional piece (again, NOT for this... short). . I had no clue what it was, never heard of it, but I had a few minutes to kill, and I said, 'why not'.

Anytime who stumbles into this piece of garbage will think they've seen this before... 'assume animals, and a 'precious... walnut'??

No, it was an Acorn, I believe in those Ice Age films, and rather than some cute prehistoric, goofy-looking (is it still allowed to make such a reference to animated characters?) squirrel, it's a morbidly obese..'rabbit' (or 'bunny', as the title says), who awakens from a slumber, scratched his fat rear, and Gorda after some terribly drawn critters.

This is as much I could stomach.

There's a simple rule which applies to music and film (or TV), and that is one must be engaged as quickly as possible. It's gotta have some sort of 'gotcha' to make your want to stick around and watch or listen. This made me want to wretch.

Aside from the unbelievably cheap-looking animation, the dearth of anything remotely close to a story didn't help, nor did the grossness of this porcine, repulsive looking leporidae (rabbit family). . Yes, I know it's a cartoon, and I'm the last pain to say anything positive about the paucity of decent cartoons having been made since... well, since the days of Warner Bros,, Walter Lantz, Frank Tashlin, et. al

I sunny know what the purpose of this so-called 'short' was, but, the cartoons of which I've just mentioned would all be classified as 'shorts' - they were all under 10-minutes, and they were shown in theatres, to audiences of ALL ages; from kids to seniors, and they ALL loved them.

Why?

What's the reason for these classics to entertain all ages, but the minute some puts on something made recently - most people over 5 and/or with a Britain to match will RUN - FAST or of the room?

Simple; unlike today, where your have paranoid lunatics (aka nazi-like thought police, or simply 'parents'), who'll watch some cartoon and see (I'm just making this up as an example) some young girl riding a broom, they'll see a little girl brunt impaled with an 'artificial phallus'. , And on and on.

They'll yell that showing this 'trash' to small ... 'innocent' (LMAO) children will... traumatise them.

I'm actual fact, N-O - it WON'T, and the reason is people of different ages, different levels of (physical and mental) development will only understand what they're capable of .

Even if a small child saw Bugs Bunny in drag, all they'd take away from it was the 'funny bunny active silly'.

Which leaves us in this diluted, flavourless, colourless works of today, whew everything's watered down.

Another problem is there's now so many outlets for content that creators are limited ever more.

It used to be that of there was a good movie in the theatres one summer, your could bet money that all 3 networks would have a show based upon it that fall.

If your unfortunate enough to have been given this by someone, take it as a sign they hate you. I'm going that Mr go-d-g-b-r- (the writer AND director of this disaster) is NEVER allowed to FIND ANYTHING - EVER AGAIN.

Hopefully you'll quickly realise that you've got something now important to do (like taking the dog to get de-wormed, or you spending time at a distant relatives' funeral) ANYTHING but watching this C-R-*-0