First of all, I will start with something that happens in both films, Chicken Run and The Great Escape, before you even see anything. This is of course the music. They share the mischievous tune and both start off with it in the same weird way to liven up a lot as it ends.
In the actual film the main picture is the same, they are in a prison and obviously want to escape. But one is based on a true story and the other is about Chickens who want to escape. No matter how many times they try, they fail, every time being sent to the solitary confinement. In there Ginger, the chicken from Chicken run, plays with a baseball and glove which is based on what happens when Capt Hilts is put in the room and plays too. So I think Ginger is based on Hilts.
Half way through, in both films somebody dies Haynes in Great escape and a chicken in the other. But seeing as chicken run is based on Great Escape there are many things that are the same. For example another thing that is the same is that there are people in each film that both disagree with the idea of getting everyone out at the same time and believe it to be insane because of the amount of bodies. However, in both films they manage to get one person out but both of them returns on there own because they went to help.
A lot of the characters have the same name too, for example; there are two Mack's who are Scottish and are also the brains of their escape. But when it comes towards their big escape they go different ways. In chicken run they fly out of the farm but are pursued by Mrs Tweedy. (She is like the Germans in Great escape) They manage to get all out and stay out. In Great Escape they get 76 of them out and only three or four actually escape away and rest are either killed or put back in. They dig tunnels to get out because in the real world there would be no way in such a secure prison they would be able to make a plane that could fly.
So yes there are a lot of similarities between the two films and a lot of things that had to be changed like the fact that fifty of them were killed in Great Escape at the end and in chicken run it was a happy ending with little baby chicks and happiness.
