George Miller has one of the most brilliantly bonkers filmographies in the ‘biz. Yes, this is the guy who gave us five Mad Max movies, including unhinged all-timer Fury Road, and who unleashed lust-fuelled devilry in The Witches Of Eastwick. And yet, nestled in his filmography you’ll find much more wholesome fare – notably, the Happy Feet movies (animated dancing penguins!), and beloved piggie favourite Babe, and its sequel Pig In The City. (Miller is credited with writing the ’95 original, and wrote and directed the 1998 follow-up.) They might seem poles apart – but it was his time on Mad Max threequel Beyond Thunderdome that first got pigs percolating in Miller’s mind.
That 1985 film was something of a porcine affair itself, with its facility that turned pig shit into fuel. “I’d eat lunch with pigs all around me,” Miller chuckles, talking to Empire for Babe’s 30 anniversary. “I came to learn how sensitive they are.” Then, with farmyard animals already on the brain, he came across Babe’s source material during Beyond Thunderdome’spost-production_._ “I was flying to London [from Australia] to record the score, and I couldn’t sleep so I was listening to the radio,” he recalls. “There was this critic reviewing children’s books. She got to this book called The Sheep-Pig, by Dick King-Smith, and the way she was laughing about this story just made me want to find out more.” When he did, he instantly saw the potential. “As I turned the last page of the book, my first thought was: ‘This has to be a movie.’”
Another surprising influence on Babe was Stanley Kubrick – who conversed with Miller on the film’s technological challenges. “Stanley was an intensely curious person, always pushing technology. I found something kindred there because the tools of filmmaking fascinate me, too,” Miller explains. “We talked every night on the phone for weeks. He became very intrigued about us trying to make a pig speak.” Who knew the tale of the sheep-pig owed such a cinematic debt to 2001 and the Wasteland?