A Bug's Life Characters:
The Ant Colony

Flik and Atta are A Bug's Life characters who help save the Ant Colony from the Grasshopper gang.

A Bug's Life movie starts out on Ant Island, an idyllic and peaceful place out in the country - that is until the Grasshoppers invade, demanding a huge harvest in the fall.

Few of these ants know how to stand up for themselves because of their drone-like mentality. But a few of them do and the lead character, Flik, is one of them. There are several more ants in the colony who stand out from the others, and they're all listed on this page. Let's find out who they are now...

Flik

The entire story of A Bug's Life revolves around Flik, the lead character of the movie. Flik is inventive and thinks outside the box for the well-being of the ant colony. He also fancies Princess Atta, the ant next in line to become Queen.

Despite Flik's good intentions, his ideas and inventions often go awry, leaving the colony in a worse situation than they began. Despite everything going wrong for Flik, he's likable and yet a bit annoying and at the same time I feel a little bit sorry for him that his efforts are largely ignored.

At the beginning of A Bug's Life, Flik's grass seed harvester goes berserk and ends up not only smashing Princess Atta with a stalk of grass, but ruining the food offering to the grasshoppers by tipping it over into the stream of water. This results in angering the grasshoppers who demand a double ration of food by autumn.

Flik comes up with an idea to go out and find bigger bugs to return with him to Ant Island to fight off the grasshoppers instead of bowing to their demands. He has no idea that the royal council allowed this mostly to get him out of the way.

Once at Bug City, he finds the recently-fired circus troupe bugs, who mistake Flik for a talent scout. Flik brings the bugs back to the colony, but soon he realizes they are not warrior bugs after all. Mistake #2.

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To make up for this, Flik comes up with yet another brilliant idea. Why not build a fake bird to attack the grasshoppers and scare them away? The entire ant colony and the Circus Bugs all work together to create the bird and they hoist it up into a tree to wait for the grasshoppers' return. The bird is quite well done and we can see how ingenious Flik is about his creation.

In A Bug's Life, Flik's new found heroism is short-lived, however, when PT Flea comes around looking for his circus troupe. His cover is blown and his lie is discovered. A very angry Princess Atta, who had begun admiring Flik, banished him from the colony. Flik joined with the circus bugs as they left.

Later the Circus Bugs and Flik, along with Dot and the Blueberries, (read further below for these characters) manage to launch the fake bird after the grasshoppers arrive to get their food. Hopper is quite mad that there is so little after he had ordered double rations.

The fake bird scares the grasshoppers and they are almost ready to abandon the colony when PT Flea accidently sets the fake bird on fire and the grasshoppers realize it's a decoy.

Flik stands up to Hopper courageously and tells the colony of Hopper's plans to kill the Queen. The ants realize they have all the power after hearing Flik and they all turn on the grasshoppers, driving them out.

With quick and clever thinking, Flik tricks Hopper into coming close to a bird's nest, where the bird ends up capturing Hopper and feeding him to her chicks. This saves the ant colony and Flik is elevated in status and recognition for his heroic deeds.

At the end of A Bug's Life, we see him holding Princess Atta's hand, who has since ascended to the throne as Queen and Flik has the appreciation and respect of the colony. AND they all end up using his grass seed harvester invention.

Princess Atta

The Queen's eldest daughter, Princess Atta is first in line to the throne. Atta is nervous about becoming the queen and she's generally strict and a bit uptight. She cares about the colony very much and wants to be a good leader once she's queen.

Princess Atta finds Flik a bit annoying with his crazy inventions. While Flik had a bit of a crush on her, she did not share in those feelings. Atta was angry with Flik when the food offering was toppled into the stream of water and was in a state of near panic when the grasshoppers arrived.

As a consequence of toppling the food, Atta told Flik to dig tunnels for a month, but Flik suggested his idea of bringing back warrior ants to fight the grasshoppers. To get Flik out of the way of the task of harvesting double the food for the new offering, she agreed after consulting with the council.

Atta begins to notice and appreciate Flik after he and the circus bugs all save her little sister Dot from being eaten by a bird. She apologizes to Flik for her treatment of him and begins to feel some affection as Flik's fake bird is being built.

However, after PT Flea arrives in search of his circus troupe, Princess Atta discovers the truth about the circus bugs. Feeling betrayed and a having fierce sense of protection and duty toward the rest of the colony, she banishes Flik from Ant Island.

Later in A Bug's Life, after Flik sneaks back to the colony to help them from the grasshoppers, Princess Atta hears Flik speak about the grasshoppers dependence upon the ants. Atta is completely surprised and caught off guard as Flik sheds new light on the ants' predicament.

This gives her new-found strength and Princess Atta orders Hopper and his gang to leave. The ants follow her in the rebellion against the grasshoppers. However, Hopper kidnaps Flik, and despite the circus bugs' attempt at a rescue, it is Atta who saves Flik from Hopper, who was beating him up.

At the end of the film, Princess Atta and Flik are together as a couple. Atta is now wearing the Queen's crown and she gives her little sister, Dot, the Princess tiara to wear.

The last scene shows Atta and Flik holding hands as they wave good-bye to the circus bugs as they ride away in their caravan. I think Atta makes a great Queen and is wise to have chosen intelligent Flik as her companion. What do you think?

The Queen

The aging, wise Queen of the ant colony has two daughters, Princess Atta, who is heir to the throne, and little Princess Dot. The Queen has an easy going temperament and is quite humorous about life in general. She keeps a little pet named Aphie, an aphid bug that is like a lapdog, under her arm.

In a Bug's Life, the Queen has her life threatened and is held hostage by Hopper, but is saved by Flik and the circus bugs. In the end, she retires as queen and gives her crown to Princess Atta.

Princess Dot

Dot is the youngest princess of the ant royal family. She's still a child and dislikes being so small and not being able to fly yet. Her mother, the Queen, admonishes her for trying to fly before her wings are ready.

Dot admires Flik and so comes to his aid several times during A Bug's Life. She admires his quest for defeating the grasshoppers and supports his plans wholeheartedly. Dot is overjoyed when Flik returns with "warrior bugs" who will help the ant colony.

The scariest part of A Bug's Life movie for Dot is when she drifts by dandelion puff into a dry river bed and is attacked by a hungry bird. A little bird is so small from our point of view as people; but to a tiny creature like Dot, the bird was a huge and terrible beast who was out to kill her. The chase by the bird and the rescue of Dot by Flik and the circus bugs kept me on the edge of my seat!

Dot is a member of the Blueberries, a type of girl scout troupe, and they all faun over Francis, the ladybug, who hurt his leg during Dot's rescue. Later in A Bug's Life, Dot and the Blueberries overhear Hopper's plan to kill the Queen.

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On hearing this, Dot races out and finds Flik as he's traveling away with the circus bugs, since he's been banished from the colony. Dot persuades Flik to come back and help, especially since Hopper has threatened the Queen with her life.

Dot and the Blueberries help pilot the model bird by controlling its wings. Later when Thumper, the deranged and crazy grasshopper, intimidates and scares Dot, she falls over a cliff.

But because the stakes are so high, she finally wills her wings to work and she flies back up to the top of the cliff again, fine and OK. Whew!

At the end of A Bug's Life, Dot catches Atta's princess tiara as Atta is now Queen and wears the crown.

Dr. Flora

This is the only female ant in the council except for Atta in A Bug's Life. Dr. Flora is the colony's doctor and pharmacist who carries around a flower that contains healing water. She's the ant who helps mend Francis' leg after Dot's rescue of the bird attack.

Mr. Soil

Mr. Soil is an accomplished actor who has played in many ant colony productions and is a leader of ant hill. Mr. Soil is the ant who helps a lost ant find his way after a fallen leaf blocks the line of workers. He also leads the celebration of the circus bugs arrival as well as directing a play about the future of the grasshoppers and ants.

Cornelius

Cornelius is the resident grumpy old ant. He's seen shuffling around all wobbly on his cane and he prefers Thorny's company because they complain together about Flik and his annoying inventions. He does not like new ideas.

Thorny

A short, grumpy ant, Thorny is a member of the council who greatly dislikes Flik and his bothersome inventions. However, by the end of A Bug's Life movie, Thorny comes around to Flik and realizes he has misjudged him. Thorny even uses Flik's grass seed harvester!

The rest of the ant colony is made up of about 300 or so ants, all of varying sizes and shapes. It's interesting to note that the worker ants are all blue while the Queen, Princesses Atta and Dot are a light purple color.

• Circus Bugs Characters
• A Bug's Life Characters: The Grasshoppers