Laserman said:

When I worked on Babe Pig In The City, a *lot* of scenes were shot and never used, we even built a beautifully elaborate set for the opening sequence, had the motion control camera all set up, did a few test passes and then the director changed his mind.
He decided that as it was a sequel the opening sequence was no longer required, so it ended up not being shot, even though we had spent 3 months setting the shot up and were ready to roll camera. Had he been on another part of the set that day it would have been shot anyway, and then in edit may have ended up in the film.
Pre-vis has allowed shot ratios to be reduced in some instances, but it is a staple of film making to get as much 'coverage' as possible. Films cost big bucks, so shooting some extra scenes when you already have the set, the actors and the crew in place makes a lot of sense. Pickups and reshoots cost a fortune in comparison to grabbing an extra couple of scenes when you have the chance.
Even in post a lot of CG work was created that was never used, but was wanted so they had options when going into the final edit.

This little comment on Babe 2: Pig in the City always stuck with me and when somebody said Laserman was too sick to work on the X0 project any more, I remember trying to work out who he was.

Anyway, I just read that Philip Hearnshaw has passed away after dealing with Motor Neurone disease which he was diagnosed with five years ago. Realise that I'm just jumping to conclusions here but wasn't that around the time Laserman got sick? Hearnshaw worked as 1st Assistant Director on Babe 2 as well, which would explain the involvement of him preparing the sequence detailed above.

Apologies for posting in such an old thread, just thought that if anybody could confirm this theory they'd read this post. Apologies if I'm way off and Laserman isn't Philip Hearnshaw.