- Accidental Nightmare Fuel: While the scene where the tights of Esme's clown costume inflate after a waiter accidentally pulls the activation tag off the back of her pants is Played for Laughs, it's unintentionally scared some of the film's younger audience due to both the flesh coloring of the tights making it look like Esme's body itself is mutating and the inflation happening without warning.
- Adorkable:
- Esme is a short, plump and very clumsy older lady, whose plain appearance and rural mannerisms are completely out of place in the extravagant and darker environment of Metropolis. Thanks to her innocence and ignorance on how to handle life in a world that's completely different from her home, she gets dragged into various embarrassing situations, with each growing worse than the last. Yet she refuses to give up no matter what the city throws at her. Her efforts to rescue Babe and keep him safe even as her dignity is torn to shreds are a mixture of awesome, touching and darkly funny all at the same time.
- The Landlady, a kindly woman who adores animals and wants to create a peaceful sanctuary for the many stray ones that inhabit the city, despite apparently suffering from several allergies to them.
- Angst? What Angst?: Despite going through several degrading and humiliating experiences during her time in the city (most of which happen in public), the innocent country dweller Esme Hoggett never seems to lose her determination, and by the end of the movie is as cheery and smiley as ever. Granted, things do end well for her at the end, but it can still come across as odd she doesn't let the messy and difficult misadventures she gets dragged into discourage her, and how she doesn't react to them with more than embarrassed looks.
- Awesome Music:
- Je ne regrette rien features prominently in the movie, well before Inception used it as its central theme.
- The soft, instrumental version of "If I Had Words" playing when Babe jumps into the water to save the bull terrier from drowning.
- "Protected by Angels"
playing when the humans break into the motel to remove all the animals, is simply gorgeous. - The end credits, featuring the gentle "That'll Do" by Peter Gabriel.
- Broken Base: The slapstick comedy scenes involving Esme are subjected to some debate among fans of the film. Some believe that they are too cartoonish and totally out of place when compared to the serious tone of the movie's other scenes, others find them genuinely entertaining and view them as a welcome relief from the movie's more dramatic sequences.
- Contested Sequel: To some, it's a terrible film that simply doesn't do the original justice because of how dark it is and because it takes Babe off the familiar farm setting. To others, it's a brilliant follow up to an already great film, and some people (including both Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel) thought it was even better than the original.
- Crosses the Line Twice: The increasingly humiliating situations that Esme goes through as the plot advances. They can come across as a shock, especially to those who weren't expecting this type of comedy or tone in the sequel to the relatively grounded first film, but they're so cartoonishly over the top and exaggerated when compared to the rest of the movie that they become hilarious instead of genuinely offending.
- First, she gets accused of carrying illegal substances at the airport, which results in the security staff dragging her to a room for a strip search. Her shocked expression and baffled "Pardon?" when asked to remove her clothes is what really sells it.
- Later, she ventures into the city to look for a missing Babe, following false instructions given by Fugly Floom. She ends up accidentally attracting unwanted attention from both a biker gang and unfriendly police officers. The bikers attempt to steal her purse, and after defending herself, she ends up causing a riot... which results in a bucket of billboard glue dropping on her head, covering her hair and clothes in the stuff. To add insult to injury, she ends up loosing her purse anyway, as one of the rioters snatches it after the glue falls on her. And, of course, she also ends up in trouble with the law once again, and is arrested alongside her attackers.
- Then, once she gets released from prison and returns to the hotel, her glue-covered dress splits open, which forces her to race to Babe's rescue while wearing nothing but the goofy clown suit of Fugly.
- And, finally, she gets dragged around in more comical slapstick violence scenes during the climax at the fancy dinner party, which includes this portly woman battling chefs and flying around the ballroom like a circus acrobat. For a while, it seems like she actually has the upper hand over her adversaries this time... but then she ends up bumping into a waiter, who pulls off a tag from her clown costume. This results in the worst humiliation yet, as it causes a rubbber suit beneath the clown costume to begin inflating out of nowhere to an alarming size, which once again results in the destruction of her clothes and leaves her turned into a bloated humanoid balloon in front of dozens of staring people. The stunned look on Esme's face, the fact that it happens out of nowhere, the silence that falls on the ballroom after it's over, the rather good practical effects during the scene, and the entire idea of a single person having such rotten luck makes this a nice punchline to the chaotic climax, as well as some good dark and surrealistic comedy.
- There's also the fact that the parts of the inflating rubber suit that inflate the most are around Esme's backside, and that the suit itself is flesh coloured, which makes it look like it's Esme's own rear that's growing. This, combined with her grunts and moans as it expands, makes the entire sequence feel rather suggestive. But it's precisely this, as well as the fact that such an inappropriate thing is happening to an older motherly woman, what makes it genuinely funny.
- Also, the scene in which Ferdinand lands in a shooting range. The idea of one of Babe's friends being shot at is quite frightening, but the people attempting to drown the duck in bullets are so comically trigger-happy that it turns the scene right back into funny.
- Cult Classic: A few decades past its unsuccessful theatrical run, its quirky charm has slowly earned it a cult fanbase.
- Jerkass Woobie: He's stoic, and kind of an ass, but Thelonious has moments where you can't help but feel bad for the guy. He just wants to be human.
- Les Yay: At times during the film, there is sexual tension between Esme Hoggett and the Landlady, most notably the scene where Esme returns from jail back to the Hotel to meet up again with the Landlady.
- Narm Charm: The movie's climax can come across as this. It features Esme finally taking a more aggressive attitude in the unfriendly city in order to finally get Babe back, invading a fancy party together with the Landlady, and getting involved in aerial slapstick battles with said party's security staff, all while wearing an inflatable clown suit. It may feel completely ridiculous to see an old and plump woman dressed as a clown fighting chefs while bungee-jumping among dozens of rich and well-dressed people, particularly when the worst happens and her suit is accidentally inflated, but yet it still manages to create a good balance between action and comedy, managing to be both an engaging and funny conclusion to the movie's story.
- Retroactive Recognition:
- Nathan Kress of iCarly fame makes his debut voicing a puppy at the hotel.
- One of the lab women in the airport was played by Jennifer Kent, who was later the director of The Babadook.
- Unintentional Period Piece: The shot of the city through Babe's window in the animal hotel and the film's cover shows the original World Trade Center among the other world landmarks. It may have been seen as nothing too out of the ordinary in the film's release year of 1998, but then three years later, something happened that would forever change its perception...
- Vindicated by History: Was a Box-Office Bomb and received polarizing reviews, resulting in George Miller not helming a live-action film for seventeen years. It's now slowly but surely gaining a sizable cult following.
- What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Part of the reason why the movie proved to be so divisive when it was released, and (to a lesser extent) still is. The first movie, while quite mature for a children's movie, was still generally light-hearted in its themes and story. This title, however, features Babe's home being dangerously close to being foreclosed after Arthur Hoggett suffers a nasty accident within the first minutes and becomes unable to work. The rest of the story proves to be just as serious and dark, as most of it takes place on the city of Metropolis, which has a much more surrealistic and oppressive atmosphere than the peaceful rural fields of the first movie. And while there is still plenty of humor in this title, most of it (particularly during the scenes involving Esme) is much more violent, mean-spirited and suggestive than the humor in the first one. Notably, the movie was originally planned to be even darker, rated PG-13 or even R, suggesting it wasn't even being planned as a traditional children's movie at first.
- The Woobie: Flealick stands out especially. He's perky, nice, and yet comes closest to dying, along with the fact that his back legs don't work.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Ymmv/BabePigInTheCity
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