#Flik is a workaholic stickler

[mable-stitchpunk]

A Bug’s Life: The Ant and the Grasshopper

For years, the ants have been living with two mortal fears: the bird that nests nearby and the grasshopper swarm that passes through every year at the beginning of fall. The bird they have hidden from and avoided, but the grasshoppers are ruthless. The ants know to leave food out and to hide underground until the horrifying screeching that accompanies the grasshoppers’ arrival fades away. The ants live in fear.

But one hardworking ant has always been a skeptic. Flik has devoted his life to science and inventing, which is uncommon for ants. He’s also an extremely hard worker, but all of this has left him a social outcast. He’s usually seen as the oddball out, but Flik doesn’t care much. He’d rather work on his inventions.

Until the day when the grasshoppers arrive and Flik has gotten stuck by a bird’s nest with his malfunctioning invention. The other ants flee into the hill and Flik attempts to follow, even abandoning his machine, but the noise gets closer. He hides and watches as the grasshopper herd appears.

...Except it isn’t a herd. It is a single grasshopper with a fiddle.

Enter Hopper, a grasshopper con-artist whose been using the fake story of this mighty ‘grasshopper army’ to scare the ants into providing him enough food to last through the winter. In fact, Hopper’s been scamming the ants for years, all so he doesn’t have to work.

Flik is furious, especially with Hopper’s total lack of care and lack of concern at the ant’s threat that he’ll tell the others. A fight breaks out between the two that leads to them catching the attention of the bird, which chases them both into the anthill, having now noticed it. Eventually the bird flies off and they think it must have headed south for the winter, but they know it’ll be back in Spring.

And now the ants know about Hopper’s scam. Hopper deflects some of the blame in catching the bird’s attention though, getting them angry at Flik too. To save himself, Hopper tries to run another scam and claims that there is a ‘Bird Eating Spider’ who will be able to come scare off the bird for good, and he can go find them if they let him go.

The ants believe him... Somewhat. Deciding that it’s too likely that he’ll split, they decide to get rid of two birds with one stone and send Flik off with him. Neither are happy in this arrangement, especially when they put a specially made clip on Hopper’s wings to keep him from literally flying off. It is of Flik’s creation and only he can remove it, but he only will if Hopper keeps up his end of the bargain.

And while Hopper pretty much bluntly tells Flik that the Bird Eating Spider is a legend (and not real) as soon as they step outside the anthill, the two are stuck going out to search for another solution to the bird problem.

After a long trip full of frustration and hardships, Flik and Hopper arrive at the city where they run into a group of travelling performer spiders and learn, blatantly, that the so called ‘Bird Eating Spider’ is just a myth. It is then that Flik comes up with an idea to use the performers and their silk to make a fake spider and scare the bird off, to which Hopper goes along with it, as do the spiders.

They return to the anthill where the spiders introduce themselves as the Followers of the Great Bird Eating Spider, and claim that this giant spider is just outside of the city. The ants believe they have a savior in the wings and Flik and Hopper are reveled as heroes. Flik does not let Hopper go though, instead insisting he stay and help them see this through. Hopper agrees to it and the two continue the con.

For a while the spiders and Flik continue working on the giant spider and during this time Hopper becomes closer with the ants and even friendly with Flik. The plan is going fine until they are taken off-guard when the bird appears again, revealing that it actually hasn’t flew south yet. It is through this that the ants learn about the farce and that the Bird Eating Spider does not exist.

But when Flik is about to tell them about the fake spider, which is incomplete, and his knowledge of the events, Hopper steps forward and surprisingly takes the fall for it himself. Claiming that Flik was tricked like they were and that it wasn’t his fault that the bird found them. The ants accept Flik back into the colony and command Hopper and the spiders to leave.

Flik catches up with them and releases Hopper’s wings, allowing him to fly off but asking him to stay and work on the spider plan with him. Hopper doesn’t think it’ll work and leaves, leaving Flik to work alone- as he is used to. Instead of flying away, Hopper leaves in the spider’s caravan.

But the spiders don’t get far before they change their mind and decide to head back. Sent away by the ants or not, they know the ants need their help, as does Flik. Hopper is still doubtful, now falling into self-pity as he realizes that what Flik has said before- about him only caring about his own needs and not thinking ahead- is true. The spiders go back without him and help Flik.

But soon afterwards, right before a storm descends on the land signalling the beginning of the heavy rain season, the bird returns and attacks the ants and anthill. The spiders and Flik use their Bird Eating Spider machine to try and scare it off, but it doesn’t work, and the machine is destroyed. 

Flik is almost eaten in the wreckage of the spider when Hopper flies in and grabs him, saving him at the last moment. They flee into the canyon, luring the bird away and allowing the ants and spiders to escape. Eventually they get cornered into the bird’s nest and are about to surely be eaten. 

Right before the bird dives for them, Hopper apologizes to Flik and Flik assures him that Hopper isn’t as unreliable as he thought. In their last moment, Hopper begins to play his fiddle and Flik prepares to be eaten.

...Except that the noise the fiddle makes causes the bird to recoil. Flik notices this and tells Hopper to keep playing, and before the bird can come for them again Flik manages to use things scattered in the nest- including his invention he lost in the beginning of the film- to create an amplifier. They use the sound to scare the bird away.

Flik and Hopper return to the anthill as heroes. The queen gives them and the spider circus praise and their past crimes have been forgiven. The spider circus leaves, making a balloon out of webs to carry their caravan and fly off. Hopper plans to follow, but the ants ask him to stay and offer him a place in their colony if he accepts the job of protecting them.

Hopper seems unsure and it it Flik’s insistence that causes him to agree. Just as long as Hopper can take his job seriously, then Flik will try to loosen up with his own work. They have become friends; they are each others’ first friends. 

A cut to winter shows the anthill fixed and Hopper now playing music for the ants, while Flik puts work aside to join in. The end.