Don't buy this tree, Foxy. You're borrowing at nine-and-a-half with no fixed rate, plus moving into the most dangerous neighborhood in the country for someone of your type of species.
You're exaggerating, Badger.
[scoffs]
I'm sugar-coating it, man. This is Boggis, Bunce, and Bean; three of the meanest, nastiest, UGLIEST farmers in the history of this valley.
Really? Tell me about them.
[sighs]
All right. Walt Boggis is a chicken farmer, probably the most successful in the world. He weighs the same as a young rhinoceros. He eats three chickens every day for breakfast, lunch, supper, and dessert. That's twelve in total per diem. Nate Bunce is a duck and goose farmer. He's approximately the size of a pot-bellied dwarf, and his chin would be underwater in the shallow end of any swimming pool on the planet. His food is homemade donuts with smashed up goose livers injected into them. Frank Bean is a turkey and apple farmer. He invented his own species of each. He lives on a liquid diet of strong alcoholic cider, which he makes from his apples. He's as skinny as a pencil, as smart as a whip, and possibly the scariest man currently living. The local human children sing a kind of... eerie little rhyme about him. Here, listen to this. [turns on the radio]
C Children
[singing]
♪ Boggis, Bunce, and Bean. One fat, one short, one lean. Those horrible crooks so different in looks, were nonetheless equally mean. ♪
[turns off the radio]
In summation, I just think you gotta not do it, man. That's all.
I understand what you're saying, and your comments are valuable, but I'm gonna ignore your advice.
The cuss am I? Are you cussing with me?
Don't cuss, and point at me!
If you're gonna cuss with somebody, you're not gonna cuss with me, you little cuss!
You're not gonna cuss with me! [Both start snarling at each other. Linda pushes the typewriter and they settle down] Just buy the tree.
Ah, so good of you to come! I'm happy to see you! You both looking splendid! How ya been, Walter? In good health, I trust.
Wonderful! Any fox problems?
B Boggis
Are you joking?!
B Boggis
We're miserable!
B Bunce
He's laughing at us!
B Boggis
It's humiliating!
B Boggis
I don't even want to talk about it.
[drinks a glass of cider]
Perhaps we ought to kill him.
B Boggis
Well, that seems rather obvious.
Ah, yes. He's very clever, isn't he? Might be a bit difficult, I suppose. [shoots every light around in one fluid movement] But I already figured out where this fox lives. So tomorrow night, we'll camp in the bushes, wait for him to come out of the hole in the tree, and shoot the cuss to smithereens. How does that grab you, fellas?
B Boggis
Yeah, don't see why not.
Coach Skip Let's see some hustle!
Coach, we don't have whack-bat where I'm from. What are the rules?
Coach Skip There's no whack-bat on the other side of the river?
No, we mostly just run grass sprints or play acorns.
Coach Skip Well, it's real simple. Basically, there's three grabbers, three taggers, five twig runners, and the player at whack-bat. The center tagger lights a pine cone and chucks it over the basket and the player tries to hit the cedar stick off the cross rock. Then the twig runners dash back and forth until the pine cone burns out and the umpire calls "hotbox". Finally, you count up however many score-downs it adds up to and divide that by nine.
Coach Skip Go in for Ash.
I'm going to lose my temper now.
Well, when-- [Felicity slashes at his face with her claws, Mr. Fox shouts in pain]
Twelve fox years ago, you made a promise to me, while we we're caged inside that fox trap. That if we survived, you would never steal another chicken, turkey, goose, duck, or a squab, whatever they are, [voice breaking] and I believed you. Why? Why Did You LIE To Me???
Because I'm a wild animal.
You are also a husband, and a father.
I'm trying to tell you the truth about myself.
I don't care about the truth about yourself. This story is too... predictable.
Predictable? Really? What happens in the end?
In the end, we all die.... Unless you change. [leaves]
[in a cellar with many of the other animal characters]
Alright, let's start planning. Who knows shorthand? [Linda raises her hand] Great! Linda! Lutra lutra - you got some dry paper? [she holds up paper] Here we go. Mole! Talpa europaea! What d'you got?
P Phil
I can see in the dark.
That's incredible! We can use that! Linda?
Rabbit! Oryctolagus cuniculus!
B Beaver
I can chew through wood.
Explosions! Flames! Burning things!
Demolitions expert! OK! Linda?
[grabs Weasel]
WEASEL! MUSTELA NIVALIS!
Ha! Ha-ha! Whoo! Okay. Ash, you and Agnes team up with these little kids and put together some kind of KP unit to keep this sewer clean. It's good for morale.
Done. [to Agnes] What's KP?
A Agnes
I think it means janitors. [Ash spits]
V Vole
Hey-hey! Down here. I wanna go with you, too. I wanna fight!
Good, fabulous! Microtus pennsylvanicus!
[Vole laughs]
Hey, I didn't get a job yet, or a Latin name. What's my strength?
Listen, you're Kylie. You're an unbelievably nice guy. Your job is really, just to...be available, I think. I don't know your Latin name, I doubt they even had opossums in Ancient Rome.
Why a fox? Why not a horse, or a beetle, or a bald eagle? I'm saying this more as, like, existentialism, you know? Who am I? And how can a fox ever be happy without, you'll forgive the expression, a chicken in its teeth?
I don't know what you're talking about, but it sounds illegal.
[yelling]
YOU SCARED THE CUSS OUT OF US!!!!!!
[growls angrily]
A lot of good animals are [yelling with rage] PROBABLY GONNA DIE...BECAUSE OF YOU!!! [everyone looks shocked] [angry tone] We've been digging in circles for three days! Half the woods have been obliterated, nobody can get out, Right now my wife's huddled at the bottom of the flint-mine with no food, no water, and 27 Starving Animal Brats!
P Phil
I just want to see a little...sunshine.
But you're nocturnal, Phil. Your eyes barely even open on a good day.
P Phil
I'm sick of your double talk! We have rights!
BS Beaver's Son
We don't like you and we hate your dad. Now grab some of that mud, chew it in your mouth, and swallow it.
BS Beaver's Son
Cuss yeah, you are! [picks up a large glob of mud and shoves it in Ash's face. Ash makes a gagging sound but does not react further]
[takes off his shoes]
Don't do that.
BS Beaver's Son
Why'd you take your shoes off?
[pushes Ash away]
So I don't break your nose when I kick it. [proceeds to take Beaver's son out with some precision karate moves, ending with a throwdown on the ground. Beaver's son then gets up and walks away crying]
I can fight my own fights.
[turns to Ash]
No, you can't.
I guess now that Kristofferson's dad's already down to single pneumonia... ...and getting better, he'll be going home soon, huh?
Actually, when he spoke to me from the hospital, he said... ...he was already talking to Weasel about real estate availabilities ...down in our sewer system.
Oh, really? Well, now's the time to buy.
[Mr. Fox sips his juice]
I spotted a couple of broken burglar bars underneath the back door to Bean's secret cider cellar.
We're breaking into Bean's house?
Where he keeps the cider.
[appears behind them]
Below where he lives.
Where'd you come from? You go back to the tree and do your homework.
I wanna help you steal some cider.
We're going to a book party, and you keep your mouth shut about any cider because no one ever said that. Now get out of here!
But Nothing! You're gonna get me in a lot of trouble! Besides, you're too little and uncoordinated. [Ash scowls, twitches his ear and spits and Mr. Fox points at the tree] One, two, three! [Ash growls with rage and storms back to the tree] Where the cuss does that kid get off? Can you believe that? How did he get tipped off?
Wake up, everybody, they're digging us out!
They'll kill the children!
Over my dead body, they will!
That's what I'm saying! You'd be dead too in that scenario!
Well, I'm arguing against thatǃ
[They begin arguing over each other]
What are you talking about?
WHY ARE YOU YELLING AT ME?ǃ
STOP, STOP, STOPǃ! You say one thing, she says another, and it all changes back againǃ
[after the animals have been flushed into the sewers by Bean's cider, Mr. Fox goes into a tunnel to be alone, Felicity follows]
Badger's right. These farmers aren't gonna quit until they catch me. I shouldn't have lied to your face. I shouldn't have fallen off the wagon and started secretly stealing chickens on the sly. I shouldn't have driven these farmers so far and tried to embarrass them and cussed with their heads. I enjoyed it, but I shouldn't have done it. And now there's only one way out of this. Maybe if I hand myself over and let them kill me, stuff me, and hang me over their mantelpiece...
Darling, maybe they'll let everyone else live.
[sadly]
Oh, why did you have to get us into this, Foxy?
I don't know, but I have a possible theory. I think I have this thing where I need everybody to think I'm the greatest, the quote-unquote Fantastic Mr. Fox. And if they aren't knocked out and dazzled and slightly intimidated by me, I don't feel good about myself. Foxes traditionally like to court danger, hunt prey, and outsmart predators, and that's what I'm actually good at. I think at the end of the day, I'm just...
I know, we're wild animals.
Hmm. I guess we always were. I promise you, if I had all this to do over again, I'd have never let you down. It was always more fun when we did it together, anyway. [both foxes kiss and hug] I love you, Felicity.
I love you, too. But I shouldn't have married you.
[Mr. Fox and Kylie are sneaking through the Fox family's kitchen. Meanwhile, Felicity sees them from a doorway]
Another book party?
[surprised]
Oh! I didn't see you sitting in the dark over there. [grins sheepishly] Yeah! No actually, there's a fire. I just got the call. They said maybe it's arson. I've got to interview the marshal and see if it's...
[turns on the light]
Kylie, is he telling the truth?
[turns to Mr. Fox]
I... I don't want to be put into the middle of this.
[notices something off to her right, points to Kristofferson wearing his bandit hat]
Why is he wearing that bandit hat?
[Kristofferson, who is halfway out the door leading to the kitchen from the stairwell leading upstairs and pulls his bandit hat up to obscure his face]
His ears were cold. He's not with us. [to Kristofferson] Go back to bed.
[Kristofferson leaves and closes the door, Felicity looks back at Mr. Fox and Kylie]
If what I think is happening is happening... [zooms in to an extreme close-up] it better not be.
[in his letter to the farmers]
"Dear Farmers Boggis, Bunce and Bean, I have no alternative but to agree to your terms. Move the station wagon and open the manhole cover below the foot of the drainpipe next to the cobbler shop, and meet me there today at 10 AM sharp. I will hand myself over to you in exchange for the boy's safe return. Cordially, Mr. Fox."
