''Roald Dahl's The BFG'', or simply ''The BFG'', is a 1989 British

animated Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby image, still images are manipulated to create Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on cel, transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and e ...

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...

made-for-television film, directed by

Brian Cosgrove Brian Joseph Cosgrove (born 6 April 1934) is an English animator, designer, director, producer and sculptor. With Mark Hall, he founded Cosgrove Hall Films in 1976 and produced successful animated children shows including ''The Wind in the W ...

from a screenplay by John Hambley, based on the 1982 novel ''

The BFG ''The BFG'' (short for ''The Big Friendly Giant'') is a 1982 children's novel by British author Roald Dahl. It is an expansion of a short story from Dahl's 1975 novel '' Danny, the Champion of the World''. The book is dedicated to Dahl's oldest ...

'' by

Roald Dahl Roald Dahl (13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British author of popular children's literature and short stories, a poet, screenwriter and a wartime Flying ace, fighter ace. His books have sold more than 300 million copies ...

. ''Roald Dahl's The BFG'' debuted in the United Kingdom on 25 December 1989, on ITV. The film was dedicated to animator George Jackson, who had worked on numerous Cosgrove Hall Productions projects prior to his death in 1986. The film is also the last role of

Ballard Berkeley Ballard Blascheck (6 August 1904 – 16 January 1988), known professionally as Ballard Berkeley, was an English actor of stage and screen. He is best remembered for playing Major Gowen in the British television sitcom ''Fawlty Towers''. Life a ...

(the voice of the Head of the Army), who died in 1988.

Plot

Sophie is a young orphaned girl living in the orphanage of the cantankerous and abusive Mrs. Clonkers. One night, Sophie wakes up and looks out of a window to see a cloaked elderly giant man blowing something through a

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

into a bedroom window down the street; whereupon the Giant Man notices her and snatches her through the window, carrying her away to a mysterious realm known as "Giant Country". In his cave, the Giant identifies himself as the Big Friendly Giant (or BFG for short) who blows dreams into the bedrooms of children at night, while all the other nine giants are vicious, bestial people-eaters. Not wanting to eat or steal from humans, the BFG subsists on eating "snozzcumbers"; revolting vegetables, resembling giant

cucumbers The cucumber (''Cucumis sativus'') is a widely-cultivated creeping vine plant in the family Cucurbitaceae that bears cylindrical to spherical fruits, which are used as culinary vegetables.Queen of England. Using dreams from his collection, the BFG creates a nightmare, blows it into the Queen's bedroom, leaves Sophie on the Queen's windowsill to confirm the dream and retreats into the palace gardens when Sophie calls him. Because the dream included foreknowledge of Sophie's presence, the Queen believes her story, and speaks with the BFG. The British Army and Royal Air Force follow the BFG to Giant Country where the giants are tethered and taken prisoner. However, the Fleshlumpeater is the only one to evade capture. He furiously confronts and attacks the BFG for his betrayal and then goes after Sophie but, with the help of the terrible nightmare he caught earlier, the BFG is able to subdue the Fleshlumpeater, who is captured as well. All nine of the evil giants are then all transported via helicopters to London, where they are imprisoned in a deep metal pit and forced to eat snozzcumbers for the rest of their lives. Contrary to the book's ending, the BFG stays in Giant Country instead of moving to England, and Sophie returns with him, becoming his assistant at the distribution of dreams.

Voice cast

David Jason Sir David John White (born 2 February 1940), known professionally as David Jason, is an English actor. He has played Derek "Del Boy" Trotter in the sitcom ''Only Fools and Horses'', Detective Inspector Jack Frost in the drama series '' A Touch ...

as the BFG *

Amanda Root Amanda Root (born 1963) is an English actress. She is perhaps best known for her starring role as Anne Elliot in the 1995 BBC adaptation of ''Persuasion''. A familiar face on both stage and screen, she worked regularly with the Royal Shakesp ...

as Sophie *

Angela Thorne Angela Margaret Leslie Thorne (25 January 1939 – 16 June 2023) was a British actress of stage, television and film having performed roles in '' World in Ferment'' (1969), ''Get Some In!'' (1976), '' The Good Life'' (1977), ''Midsomer Murders'' ...

as The Queen *

Don Henderson Donald Francis Henderson (10 November 1931 – 22 June 1997) was an English actor. He was known for playing both "tough guy" roles and authority figures, and is remembered for his portrayal of detective George Bulman between 1976 and 1987 in ...

as the Bloodbottler / the Fleshlumpeater / the Sergeant *

Frank Thornton Frank Thornton Ball (15 January 192116 March 2013), professionally known as Frank Thornton, was an English actor. He was best known for playing Captain Peacock in the TV sitcom ''Are You Being Served?'' and its sequel '' Grace & Favour'' (''A ...

as Mr. Tibbs * Mollie Sugden as Mary * Michael Knowles as the Head of the Air Force *

as the Head of the Army * Myfanwy Talog as Mrs. Clonkers * Jimmy Hibbert as Additional Voices

Production

The BFG was one of Cosgrove Hall Films' only feature-length films, which was directed by

, along with ''The Wind in the Willows''. Cosgrove also produced the film along with Mark Hall, while John Hambley, who also executive produced the film, scripted the film after Brian Trueman's initial draft was rejected. Development of the film can be traced as far back as 1984, when only 5 people, including Cosgrove, were working on the film before being joined by other crew members. According to

, the director and producer of the film,

was very supportive to the studio in production. During production of the film, which took over 3 years, 750,000 cels were used against watercolour backgrounds designed by a team led by

DC Thomson DC Thomson is a media company based in Dundee, Scotland. Founded by David Couper Thomson in 1905, it is best known for publishing ''The Courier (Dundee), The Courier'', ''Evening Telegraph (Dundee), The Evening Telegraph'' and ''The Sunday Pos ...

cartoonist John Geering. The film also used the

rotoscoping Rotoscoping is an animation technique that animators use to trace over motion picture footage, frame by frame, to produce realistic action. Originally, live-action film images were projected onto a glass panel and traced onto paper. This pr ...

technique for some of the characters, particularly for Queen Elizabeth II and her servants. Initially, the technique was used while animating Sophie, but it was soon discovered that Jean Flynn and Meryl Edge could animate Sophie's movements without a reference.

Reception

Writing in ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'' before its broadcast, Patrick Stoddart called it a "delight", and wrote that it "puts its already celebrated British animators, Cosgrove Hall, into the Disney class". It has since gone on to be a cult classic. In 2016, Louisa Mellor, of the

Den of Geek ''Den of Geek'' is a UK and US-based website covering entertainment with a focus on pop culture. The website also issues a biannual magazine. History ''Den of Geek'' was founded in 2007 by Simon Brew in London. In 2012, DoG Tech LLC licensed ' ...

website, warmly appraised the film in comparison to Steven Spielberg's then just-released adaptation, saying, "Cosgrove Hall's twenty-seven year old animated feature may be less of a technical feat than the latter and was certainly made for a fraction of the budget, but that doesn't make it any less a whoppsy-whiffling, razztwizzling tribute to a terrific story."

Roald Dahl's reaction

This film was the only adaptation of Dahl's works released during his lifetime to get praise from the author himself. Cosgrove said that after Dahl sat through a screening of the film, he stood up and applauded in delight.

Media releases

The film was first released on

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

Video Collection International 2 Entertain Video Limited, trading as BBC Studios Home Entertainment, is a British video and music publisher founded in 2004 following the merger of BBC Video and Video Collection International by BBC Worldwide and the Woolworths (United Kingd ...

in the United Kingdom on 17 September 1990, in collaboration with Thorn EMI's Thames Video Collection. It was released again by the same company on 25 September 1995 and 13 October 1997. Roadshow Home Video and ABC Video released the film on VHS in Australia on 12 February 1992, while its first video release in the United States was by Celebrity Home Entertainment on 2 April 1996. Pearson Television International Ltd re-released the film on VHS on 2 July 2001, and on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

for the first time on 8 April 2002. The DVD features 3 interactive games, an interview with Brian Cosgrove, a photo gallery and storyboards. Another release followed on 1 January 2008 by Pearson's successor, Fremantle Home Entertainment. The film's first DVD release in the United States was distributed by Celebrity Home Entertainment on 28 September 1999. It was re-released by A&E Home Video on 27 June 2006. On 10 September 2012, Fremantle Home Entertainment released a remastered version of the film on DVD and

Blu-ray Disc Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of ...

. On 11 July 2016, the film was re-released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc, but by

Universal Pictures Home Entertainment Universal Pictures Home Entertainment LLC (UPHE) is the home video distribution division of Universal Pictures, an American film studio owned by NBCUniversal, the entertainment unit of Comcast. UPHE is the home video distributor for all of the ...

in the United Kingdom.

Soundtrack

Keith Hopwood Keith Hopwood (born 26 October 1946) is an English pop and rock musician, singer-songwriter, composer, businessman and record producer, who served as the rhythm guitarist and backing vocals for the 1960s pop band, Herman's Hermits. Hopwood als ...

's and Malcolm Rowe's original score to ''The BFG'' was released on 11 July 2016 by Pluto Music Limited and FremantleMedia. Track listing

Accolades

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bfg, The The BFG 1980s British animated films 1980s children's animated films 1980s English-language films 1980s fantasy adventure films 1989 animated films 1989 children's films 1989 films 1989 television films Animated films about friendship Animated films about giants Animated films about orphans Animated films based on children's books Animated films based on works by Roald Dahl Animated films set in London British children's animated films British children's films Cosgrove Hall Films films Depictions of Elizabeth II on film English-language fantasy adventure films Films about dreams Films directed by Brian Cosgrove Films scored by Keith Hopwood Rotoscoped films