The Sting is in the Tale
Plan Bee is a 2007 animated film created by Spark Plug Entertainment.
The film centers around a worker-bee named Bing, who, along with the other workers, is being worked to exhaustion by the evil queen Akif and her cruel second-in-command Bellza. Akif has usurped the hive from the previous Good Queen Beatrice, and has an insatiable demand for more honey. Forced to expand the hive and obtain more honey for the greedy queen, Bing and the others, with the help of their friend from another hive, must find a way to liberate the hive from her control and restore the rightful queen to the hive.
As the title would suggest, this film is loosely based on the 2007 DreamWorks Animation movie Bee Movie.
It has a reputation for being one of the worst films ever made, as a Shoddy Knock Off Product of The Bee Movie, and is indexed by the
Awful Movies Wiki for this.
Tropes found in this movie:
- Adipose Rex: Queen Akif is noticably fatter than many of the other bees. She's nearly twice the size of Bing. Also qualifies as Large and in Charge.
- Truth in Television, as queen bees really are much larger than workers like Bing.
- Aerith and Bob: Names like Beatrice and Bonnie show up alongside the likes of Akif and Bellza.
- All Animals Are Dogs: The toad barks like a dog.
- Artistic License – Biology: In real-life, all worker-bees are female. However, Bing and several other characters are all male.
- In the fight scene, the bees sting, and are stung, multiple times. In real life, bees die after stinging.
- Most of the bees look more like wasps, with their long abdomen and very skinny waist.
- It doesn't take a queen bee to make Royal Jelly; in fact, only workers make it. (It also isn't purple)
- Bad Boss: Oh, so much. Queen Akif is this to the worker bees. She exploits them in order to expand the hive and obtain more honey, to the point of cancelling sleep privileges.
- Bellza is also an awful boss. He orders the bees around, bullies them, and works them to the bone.
- Big Eater: Bing has always to tell Joey he shouldn't eat so much.
- Bratty Food Demand: Queen Akif insists on being fed royal jelly, leading to Bing meeting Queen Beatrice.
- The Caligula: Queen Akif is a luxurious monarch who orders the worker bees to give her food.
- Chekhov's Gun: Queen Beatrice mentions to Bing that the royal jelly must be left to stand, as this improves the flavour. This is later used as evidence that Akif tried to poison the elders.
- Chekhov's Gunman: The toad. Having attacked Pistill, it become his pet and chases Queen Akif away during the climax. By extension also Pistill himself.
- Crapsack World: The beehive is a corrupt dictatorship ruled by the evil queen Akif. Worker bees are oppressed, and the policies are destroying the flowers.
- Crown-Shaped Head: Queen Beatrice has a little crown-shaped growth on top of her head.
- Day of the Jackboot: Bing and his friends return to their hive to find queen Akif having pulled off a successful coup d'etat and replacing Good Queen Beatrice.
- Divine Right of Kings: Similar. Queen Akif defends her actions by the justification 'So what? I was born to be queen'.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The bees are ordered to 'drill and drain' all the nectar from the flowers, regardless of environmental cost of doing so. One character mentions that the flowers will die, leaving no nectar for later.
- Lampshaded by one character, who, being notified of 'drill and drain', says that it 'sounds like some nutty technique humans invented. Humans.'
- The Dragon: Bellza becomes the Queen's second-in-command.
- "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Akif is chased away, and nearly eaten by the toad, whom it turns out Pistill has tamed. After he exclaims 'Toads make great pets!', everybody bursts out laughing.
- Evil Chancellor: Bellza. An unusual example as he doesn't use his position to wield power through the queen; rather, he acts purely as a subservient, albeit a very smug one.
- Evil Gloating: Queen Akif is very fond of this.
- Evil Is Hammy: 'Glistening, PURE gold! I WANT IT ALL! IT'S MINE!'
- Extreme Omnivore: Joey will eat anything, including paper, rubbish, pollen, and the beehive itself.
- Fat and Skinny: Joey and Bing.
- Freudian Excuse: Queen Akif is allegedly evil because her mother told her she was too nice to be queen.
- Gaia's Lament: Downplayed. By the end of the film, most flowers within range of the beehive are depleted of nectar. The only usable nearby flowers are those in a garbage skip that have been thrown out by a restaurant.
- God Save Us from the Queen!: The Queen runs her workers ragged and treats them like slaves. She also framed her mother, the previous queen, for trying to Akif murder the elders to take the throne.
- Gonk: So many of Spark Plug's characters are, but the best example is the lantern-jawed bee Pistill in Plan Bee.
- The Good Queen: The old queen Beatrice.
- Green Aesop: Do not exploit the nature!
- Hard-Work Montage: The montage of The Team flying around working on the hive, although no actual work is going on, so it's more like a Travel Montage.
- Humiliation Conga: Queen Akif is has a vote of no confidence placed by all three jury, is cornered into confessing that she poisoned the elders, her guards abandon her after having been stung once, is exiled by the new queen, and is nearly eaten by the toad
- Idle Rich: Queen Akif does little but order the bees around while demanding honey and royal jelly.
- Insect Gender-Bender: the film features a male worker bee as its protagonist.
- Insect Queen: The Queens both have authority over the hive, social hierarchy exists with a court and advisors, and Akif has a bodyguard.
- I Shall Return: The evil queen says this upon being exiled.
- Kick the Dog: Queen Akif is shown to be evil when she turns a blind eye to Bellza's cheating, and also when she orders them to go without sleep.
- Large Ham: The Queen Akif, on several occasions;
- 'Glistening, PURE gold! I WANT IT ALL! IT'S MINE!'
- 'They said I would never be queen. They said I was too nice!'
- 'I shall return to reclaim my throne, and next time, I won't be so nice!'
- Ludd Was Right: It's the 'time-tested way from the dawn of history' for bees to take only what nectar they need from each flower. Queen Akif's orders to expand the hive and obtain more honey are portrayed as wicked.
- Manipulative Bastard: Queen Akif's method of getting onto the throne; she poisoned the elders, and blamed it on Queen Beatrice, allowing her to take power.
- Micro Monarchy: As in real life, the beehive is ruled by a queen.
- The Mockbuster: As the title would suggest, this film is very loosely based on the 2007 DreamWorks Animation movie Bee Movie.
- Oddly Small Organization: The beehive consists only of fewer than 20 bees, despite the fact that a real-life hive would consist of several thousand bees.
- Only Sane Man: Bing seems to be the only bee who, at the start, knows how to pollinate flowers. Most of the others either eat them or crash into them, and one tries to pollinate a pretzel.
- Overly-Long Tongue: The bees' tongues are, as in real life, very long and thick, as demonstrated when they use them to unload their honey into the pot.
- Plot Hole: In one scene, Buffy and some other bees are trapped in a dumpster, which is then towed off. They then appear with Bing and Beatrice in the final scene. It is not explained how they got out, and presumably they couldn't have lifted the lid by themselves.
- Pun-Based Title: Plan Bee.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Bing and his friends: the Fat Best Friend Joey, the
Ugly Cute gonk Pistill, the Only Sane Man Bing, and the hyperactive small bee that follows them around - Real-Place Background: The film is set in Washington, DC, and many Washington landmarks are visible, including the White House and Capitol Building.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Plan Bee plays it straight with Queen Beatrice, but averts it with Queen Akif.
- Rightful King Returns: Queen, in this case. Queen Beatrice, after spending much of the film in hiding, returns and is reinstated by the worker bees, telling Queen Akif that her 'reign of terror is over!'. She is crowned at the end of the film.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Averted for the most part. Queen Akif does no physical labour. However, she does command the bees. Queen Beatrice appears to show promise of being a better queen.
- Scenery Porn: Various scenes involving the bees flying over Washington landmarks, including the White House and the Capitol Building. The Washington Monument appears in the background of various scenes. The credits are a montage of various landmarks; these include, in order, the Washington Monument, the Equestrian statue of Lieutenant-General George Washington, the Jefferson Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the National Gallery of Art (East Building) (Exterior and Interior), the Capitol Building, Smithsonian Castle, Washington National Cathedral, the Mark di Suveroand Red Sculpture, the Hirshhorn Museum, and the Watergate Complex.
- Sequel Hook: The Queen vows that she will return. However, so far no sequel is forthcoming. Maybe wait until Bee Movie II comes out.
- Shoddy Knockoff Product: The film itself.
- Sleep Deprivation: Once Bellza becomes the Queen's second-in-command, he forces the workers to collect honey 24/7, working them to the point of exhaustion.
- Stock Animal Name: Zigzagged. Many of the Bees have names starting with B, like Bing, Bonnie, Buffy, Bellza, etc. However, there are exceptions, including Joey and Akif.
- Stock Beehive: The beehive starts out just looking like a normal fictionalized beehive, sticking out from the bottom and looking like a golden version of a wasp's nest. However, as the bees start to expand the hive, it grows massive and tall, sticking out on both sides of the branch like a tower.
- Sudden Name Change: The Bee usually referred to as 'Joey' is introduced as 'Zoey'.
- Sycophantic Servant: Bellza is one to Queen Akif.
- This Is a Drill: At one point, the bees in Plan Bee drill into the flowers to collect nectar, complete with the sound of a dentist's drill.
- Universally Beloved Leader: Everybody likes Queen Beatrice. Except presumably Bellza, who is not shown to have been exiled.
- The Usurper: Queen Akif, during her confession, demonstrates that she usurped the throne from Queen Beatrice.
- Valley Girl: Buffy talks like a valley girl.
- Virtuous Bees: With the exception of Bellza and the Queen, the bees are all pretty friendly and heroic. In fact, they not only show concern about the flowers they're forced to kill, but they also have an understanding of freedom and democracy, and feel guilty for disrupting a memorial for George Washington. Thoroughly averted with Queen Akif and Bellza.
- 0% Approval Rating: All three jury vote for Queen Akif to be deposed. Furthermore, apart from Bellza, almost no one in the hive likes her. They all work because they fear her wrath.
I shall return to reclaim my throne, and next time, I won't be so nice!
