Free Birds

Free Birds is a 2013 American computer-animated science-fiction comedy film about two turkeys traveling back in time to prevent Thanksgiving. It was produced by Reel FX Creative Studios as its first theatrical fully animated feature film. Jimmy Hayward directed the film, which he also co-wrote with Scott Mosier, the film's producer. The film stars the voices of Owen Wilson, Woody Harrelson, and Amy Poehler with supporting roles done by George Takei, Colm Meaney, Keith David, and Dan Fogler. Originally titled Turkeys, and scheduled for 2014, the film was released on November 1, 2013, by Relativity Media.

Plot
Pardoned by the president, a lucky turkey (Owen Wilson) named Reggie gets to live a carefree lifestyle until fellow fowl Jake (Woody Harrelson) recruits him for a history-changing mission. Jake and Reggie travel back in time to the year 1621, just before the first Thanksgiving. The plan: Prevent all turkeys from ever becoming holiday dinners. Unfortunately, the two birds encounter colonist Myles Standish (Colm Meaney), out to capture feathered friends for all the hungry Pilgrims.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Historical Errors: The main problem with the movie is that it's completely unfaithful to the history of Thanksgiving as if the writers have never understood the first Thanksgiving or did any of its research.
 * 2) * Myles Standish, for some reason, is portrayed as a villainous hunter with the design of mh:greatcharacters: John Marston from mh:awesomegames: Red Dead Redemption and the personality of Shaw from Open Season and Frankin Bean from Fantastic Mr. Fox, which is incorrect since he was an active military adviser and farmer, yet this movie somehow made him a weak villain that felt like he should be in a historical parody much like King Tut from Mr. Peabody and Sherman which at least made that concept of an animated movie with historical figures way better as they're more faithful to their original counterparts (which was five months after this movie was released, being March 7, 2014).
 * 3) * Turkey wasn't the main Thanksgiving food in the first Thanksgiving, but rather the 1940s, meaning that Reggie and Jake went to the wrong period of time.
 * 4) * Some weapons such as dynamites, friction matches, and percussion cap rifles were all invented in the 18th century and weren't around in the first thanksgiving, unlike this movie.
 * 5) * All of this doesn't help the fact that the disclaimer says "The following film is a work of fiction. It is loosely based on historical events and is in no way meant to be historically accurate. Except for the talking turkeys. That part is totally real" though the talking turkeys are fictional.
 * 6) Aside from Myles Standish, some of the other characters can be bland, unlikable, or even rip-offs of other characters from other films.
 * 7) * Reggie is an annoying and lazy protagonist who was a really big jerk to anyone (especially Jake), all he does is watch Mexican telenovelas on TV and eat pizza all day ever since he became a hypocritical pardoned turkey, two examples are he claims to be a vegan turkey who dislikes turkeys being turned into food, yet he likes eating pizza in which its ingredients (mostly toppings) are made from animals (like cheese made out of milk from cows) and Reggie didn't have a reason why he wants to fight for turkey freedom, but much later he thinks that Jenny is the only reason he wants to fight for turkey freedom and tells one of the female turkeys from the farm that her wings must be tired because they look like she came straight out of heaven, possibly making him a pervert towards Jenny and three female farm red turkeys in the movie. All of this makes him so unlikeable to the point where he makes Jake a better protagonist.
 * 8) ** On top of that, he's mostly a ripoff of Rocky from Chicken Run, Marty McFly from the Back to the Future trilogy, Elliot from Open Season, Blu from Rio, and both Ash Fox and Kristofferson Sliverfox from Fantastic Mr. Fox. Only far less likable and much more rude, annoying, lazier, and egotistical.
 * 9) * Jake (while likable and his backstory was interesting) is a bit of an idiot who kidnaps Reggie and was responsible for the hunters leading the way to the colony caused by the gunpowder from Myles' horn that he stole, burning the tree into flames, capturing almost all of the turkeys, and Jenny and Ranger's father, Chief Boardbeak's death in the fire, causing the turkeys to fight back the hunters for their freedom when Jenny becomes chief and got off scot-free aside from being called out by Reggie and Ranger.
 * 10) * Likewise, Jenny's brother, Ranger, while likable, is somewhat a stereotypical tough brother type who is basically Jake with a blue head.
 * 11) * The red turkeys from the beginning are very hypocritically stupid (according to Reggie) who acted racist towards Reggie instead of letting him join the flock just because he's a blue turkey, yet they let the old, brown turkey in their flock and yet they don't act racist towards him as they did to Reggie. Most of them don't receive any comeuppance for their actions toward Reggie.
 * 12) * The Hazmats are ripoffs of the CDA from Mh:greatestmovies: Monsters, Inc. and the stormtroopers from the Star Wars franchise, only with their designs and humor being copied straight from Escape from Planet Earth (another 2013 animated film).
 * 13) * The President's Daughter is highly spoiled and unlikable since she cries like a spoiled brat on live tv just because her father wouldn't let her keep Reggie as a pet just for her to treat him like dirt and sleeps when she says "I'm tired now" making her a filler Mary Sue.
 * 14) Bad writing with unoriginal plotlines and premise that have copied elements from a good number of better films, most notably Mh:greatestmovies: Chicken Run, Mh:greatestmovies: Fantastic Mr. Fox, Mh:greatestmovies: Open Season, Rio, Mh:greatestmovies: Pocahontas,  Mh:greatestmovies: Back to the Future, and Mh:greatestmovies: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure''.
 * 15) Some shameless product placements such as Chuck E. Cheese (who didn't deliver pizza until 2018 which is 5 years later after this movie was released) and Old Navy, Fossil, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and Auntie Anne's company logos on a Government facility map.
 * 16) Very anachronistic ending: the first Thanksgiving now has Pizza as the main Thanksgiving food even though the pizza wasn't invented until 1889, two centuries after the first thanksgiving.
 * 17) * It also felt like it's been rushed and is nothing more than sequel-baiting for a second movie that will very likely never happen.
 * 18) Loads of padding that only serve to pad out the running time of the movie, such as the scenes involving the rivalry between Jake and Ranger (especially the scene where they dance fights).
 * 19) * Speaking of Jake and Ranger's rivalry, the scene where the two punched their caruncles while they're fighting one another, can be too painful for a kids' movie.
 * 20) The message is very offensive to vegans and people who enjoyed Thanksgiving to the point where it spawned a bit of controversy upon its release.
 * 21) Misleading Title: Despite being called Free Birds, a good portion of the 91-minute film focuses on the human characters which are just pure filler (especially the hazmat scenes) and contrasted the film's title.
 * 22) Some scenes might've been put at very inappropriate timing, a great example are when Reggie and Jake went the wrong way to the time machine, the human scenes were shown during the turkey parts which never explained how Reggie and Jake decided to go back to the map and follow the correct line to the time machine.
 * 23) *Another example of this is the aftermath of the attack at the village being shown before Reggie could even catch up to Jenny up at the tree rather than before the former, along with Jake, Amos, and Furley could head back to the underground tree colony, which is somewhat confusing since the villagers noticed the fire and weapons being destroyed and Myles even lights up the trail of gunpowder before the turkeys got back to the colony and yet the entire turkey scene acted like all of this never happen.
 * 24) Immature humor which tries too hard to be funny to the point that some of them involved inappropriate, offensive, or just plain stupid jokes, especially close-ups of Jake and Ranger's butts, Reggie getting a nut blot in his eye, native American stereotypes, or a pointless running gag of Jenny's eye going numb.
 * 25) The movie can be mean-spirited at times such as Reggie betraying Jake after Chief Broadbeak's death by not letting him enter the time machine, saying "Maybe when you're smart, you'll come with me" when it's actually the other way around (sort of) while it's understandable since Jake was the one who let the hunters lead right to the turkeys' colony with the gunpowder in the horn as mentioned earlier.
 * 26) Unimaginably weak final battle. When Myles and his troops were about to kill the turkeys (including Jake and Jenny) with cannonballs, a wormhole (which was later revealed to be Reggie and Steve) opens in the sky, sucking Myles in.
 * 27) It can get fairly dark for a kids' movie, such as the scene of Myles and his troops attacking the tree colony by setting it on fire and capturing the turkeys which can upset younger viewers and hardcore animal fans.
 * 28) While decent, the character designs could have been more realistic to blend with the environment or the other way around (the environment could have been simplified to match the style of the character designs). Because of this, the character designs look out of place in the environment.
 * 29) * Even some character designs look like they were stolen from other media. For example, the President's Daughter looks identical to Darla Sherman from mh:greatestmovies: Finding Nemo without the braces, the Hazmat Guys looking very similar to the ones from Escape from Planet Earth (as mentioned earlier), the pink-haired girl on the tv the President's daughter is watching looks like a mixture between the Powerpuff Girls and Pippi Longstocking, the Platypus with the magic wand looks like Perry from Phineas and Ferb expect without the hat and beak being colored blue, or Myles Standish looking like mh:greatcharacters: John Marston from mh:awesomegames: Red Dead Redemption.
 * 30) Weak direction skill of Jimmy Hayward, the same director behind 2010's box office flop Jonah Hex and as of 2021, this was his last directing film to date.
 * 31) * It's more glaring knowing that Jimmy Hayward also co-directed Horton Hears a Who and Jimmy's direction in that movie is really good.
 * 32) Several plot holes, such as Reggie being revealed as the Great Turkey by Steve and giving the president's doorknob to Young Jake, despite Jake already knowing that he saw The Great Turkey and having the President's doorknob, which by the way, was already on his door when Jake kidnapped Reggie, which is very confusing.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Some of the characters are likable and well-developed such as Jake (despite his idiot nature), Jenny, Ranger (despite being a Jake clone), Steve, Chief Broadbeak, and William Bradford (who isn't flanderized in this movie, unlike Myles Standish).
 * 2) * Speaking of, Jenny is actually a well-written strong female character, especially since she becomes chief of the flock after Boardbeak's death.
 * 3) Good voice acting, even from various celebrities.
 * 4) Some emotional scenes such as Jake's backstory and Chief Broadbeak's death.
 * 5) * A few funny moments here and there such as Jake mistaking the wheelbarrow for a time machine while wearing a flower pot on his head or Myles saying "Mommy! I don't want to wear short pants" while sleeping with his eyes open.
 * 6) The animation is very decent for 2013 standards.
 * 7) Good soundtrack from Dominic Lewis to the point where he was nominated for an Annie Award.
 * 8) The idea of two turkeys traveling in time to get turkey off the Thanksgiving menu sounds like a good idea but failed due to the problems listed above.
 * 9) Despite being received negative reviews, it was a huge success at the box office, led Reel FX to create more theatrical movies.

Videos
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Reception
Free Birds received negative reviews from critics and has an approval rating of 20% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 91 reviews, and an average rating of 4.30/10. The site's consensus reads: "Technically proficient yet creatively moribund, Free Birds begs unfortunate comparisons with the dim-witted fowl that inspired it." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, has calculated a score of 38 based on 27 reviews, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

Fortunately, Reel FX learned from its mistakes and released its next film, The Book of Life, which is a major step up from its first film.