Chickenhare and the Hamster of Darkness (2022) drew my interest with its bizarre title and excellent animation.
Scene 1: A desolate jungle. Snarly Prince Lapin, who wears an Indiana Jones-type hat, and his younger brother go though various booby traps in a Mayan temple. They are there to steal a valuable relic, the Hamster of Darkness, but it turns out to be fake. They barely escape alive.
Back at their boat, they find a baby abandoned by its parents -- a rabbit with a crest of feathers and chicken feet. Younger brother decides to adopt him, and names him Chickenhare.
Scene 2: The pre-industrial era kingdom, 17th or 18th-century. Anthropomorphic animals of all sorts. Its main raison d'etre seems to sending adventurers out to find humorous relics, like the silverware from the Last Brunch. Dad is an expert adventurer, and Chickenhare (Jordan Tartakow) wants to be just like him: he reads every book available on adventuring, and practices with his squeamish, stick-in-the-mud servant, a turtle named Abe.
Scene 3: Time jump. Dad is now king, watching the Olympics-style contest to determine which hopeful will be admitted to the Royal Adventure Society and get to go out in search of the lost relics. In the stands, Chickenhare overhears his friends making fun of him. He puts on hare-slippers to hid his chicken-feet, and an Indiana Jones-style hat to cover his tuft of feathers.
Scene 4: Time jump. The young adult Chickenhawk competes in the adventurer contest, but flubs the obstacle-course challenge because he can't run well in hare-slippers. Dad suggest he look for another career. Does he need a career when he'll be king someday?
Scene 5: Chickenhare decides to go out on his own to find the most important of the relics, the Hamster of Darkness: then they'll have to admit him to the Royal Adventure Society. The problem is in the clues: "Check the Constellation of the Hamster at 9:00 am." Constellations are invisible at that hour. Maybe if he reads the original text; but that volume has been checked out of the library -- by his evil Uncle Lapin!
Scene 6: On the way to the Silence of the Lambs-style prison where evil Uncle Lapin is held, Chickenhare tells servant Abe what he doubtless already knows: when Grandpa chose the younger son to rule, Lapin was furious and tried to assassinate Dad and usurp the throne.
Lapin refuses to hand over the book with the original text. He also snatches a chicken feather from Chickenhare's head.
Scene 7: And uses it to escape! He's going to get the Hamster of Darkness for himself and use it to usurp the throne! Dad goes after him. Shouldn't he just send the royal navy?
Scene 8: In the library, Chickenhare and Abe find a map on the wall behind some books. At 9:00 am, the sun shines onto the map, illuminating the proper constellation. They now know where the Hamster is! Dad is going the wrong way. They have to go after the Hamster themselves, to save Dad (and the kingdom) from Lapin.
Scene 9: They set sail in a small sailboat. Again, call the royal navy! You're the Prince.
Scene 10: In an Oriental port city, Chickenhare and Abe go into a bar full of disreputable types to hire a guide. Han Solo? They are warned against hiring a shiftless female skunk, but when they are shanghaied, she rescues them. So...
I'll stop the scene-by-scene there. You should know that:
1. The Hamster of Darkness is actually a sceptre that you can use to summon millions of hamster-ghosts to do your bidding.
2. There are no indigenous peoples. They are not stealing the artifacts from anyone.
3. There are virtually no heterosexual relationships in this world. The evil mage who built the Temple of the Hamster had a wife, and one of Lapin's gorilla henchmen has a wife back home. Otherwise nothing is mentioned, and there are no male-female couples, even in crowd scenes.
And only one reference to heterosexual desire. When they reach the Temple of the Hamster, Chickenhare points out a statue of the wife of the builder. Abe says "It's wonderful that you appreciate the female form, but..." But Chickenhare has just discovered a clue.
4. Lance and Luther, a chicken and a hare (Cedric Williams, Joseph Camen), are partnered, and could be read as a gay-subtext couple.
5. The Indiana Jones and Star Wars homages are deliberate. During the climactic battle on an ice bridge, Lapin says "Chickenhare, I am your father...just kidding."
6. Chris Grine, who wrote the original graphic novel, has many other projects, including graphic novels concerning the Animorphs, Alien Bones, The Secrets of Camp Whatever, and Time Shifters, with a minimum of heterosexual desire.
Homages of Indiana Jones and Star Wars are always deliberate. It's when you can't homage older films like Lucas would do constantly that you homage them.
ReplyDeleteNote that Lucas has no filter when he does this.