I don't recall if they mentioned it in the movie. IMDB says it was shot in Australia, but none of the characters have Australian accents. Cromwell keeps his American accent. Some of the other characters have a British accent. The house and the farm have always had a certain "English" feel to them. I don't know why.
Well, it is summer weather during Christmas and sheepdog trials are pretty big. That suggests Australia, even if they accents don't quite fit.
Enjolras/Grantaire '32
I had always thought that it was supposed to be set in New Zealand. Hogget does speak in an accent in a couple of scenes, whenever he speaks up. I see that some of the other human actors may have been overdubbed by american voices. For example in the scene where Hogget's wife is watching the sheepdog trials on tv with the other ladies, the lady to her left has LunchLady Doris' voice from the Simpsons, its definitely hers.
The electricians have conflicting voices, one of them sounds like a guy from Chicago, while the other one sounds somewhat british.
Yeah, for some reason as a kid I had gotten the idea that it takes place in New Zealand too. I remember being so jealous that it seemed like at Christmas and New Years the day was bright and summery and the night cool enough for a light jacket, but not so cold that it keeps you indoors.
I grew up in a place that's relatively warm all year (and damn hot in the summer, which lasts from about March to October), so the weather wherever this movie is set looked like it must be heavenly to me.
I was sure it was either set and/or filmed in New Zealand (and I chocked the American accents up to movie producers or directors thinking that American children wouldn't be interested in anything without American voices. It was a common theory when I was a kid, honestly. It's completely stupid (my 7-year-old loves watching reruns of, among other things, Star Trek: TNG. I've asked him before and he's never noticed that Captain Picard talks differently than the other crew members. He also loves Doctor Who and Harry Potter and he has no trouble understanding them. Yet I remember people saying when I was a kid that American kids wouldn't watch British shows because of the accents.
I'm glad I spotted this thread, it's the reason I came on to IMDB today. I just watched Babe for the first time and as a Scot just about everything in the movie screamed 'Britain', or more specifically, Yorkshire, England. So the American accents on the puppies threw me for six.
Maybe not exactly Yorkshire, but Lincolnshire, Lancashire or somethingshire, all those cosey little English hamlets look the same to a man who is used to glens and highlands.
Opinions are just onions with pi in them.
I always thought it was supposed to be New Zealand.
shareDon't forget, near the beginning the farmer guessed the pig's weight: "16 pounds, 5... 2 ounces."
Edit: I just did some research and learned that a lot of people in English-speaking countries still use imperial units in everyday conversation. Also, Australia (where the movie was filmed) didn't legally adopt the metric system until 1995. So that probably explains that line.
What is it with Americans not being able to pick the difference between any English speaking accents? The film was shot in Australia, with almost all Australian actors (besides James Cromwell). They did not sound anything like British/New Zealand accents
James Cromwell, Christine Cavanaugh (Babe's voice), Miriam Flynn (Maa's voice) and the narrator, Roscoe Lee Browne, are American. Miriam Margolyes (Fly's voice) didn't become an Australian citizen until 2013, long after the movie. She was born in Oxford, attended the University of Cambridge, and has the Oxbridge accent you'd expect. The main speaking roles are American or British actors. There are Australian actors, but "almost all Australian actors" is a huge overstatement except for the smaller roles or extras.
The author of the book the film is based on is English and set his book in rural England. It doesn't seem all that odd that the film could be considered to be set in England even though it was filmed in Australia.
Also, there are a couple regional dubbed versions of the film that use different accents so there could be a reason you don't think any of the voice actors sound British when others who have no trouble differentiating accents think they do.
I think, as with "Babe: Pig in the City," it's a kind of everywhere.
It was filmed in NZ but looks like Great Britain. However, the drivers drive on the right side (as in America), so to me it just feels like it takes place in an "everywhere" and "everytime" as all good fairytales do.
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I keep thinking I'm a grownup, but I'm not.
This, it's kind of a fanciful 'anywhere in the world' (that speaks predominantly English).
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