Aardman! (Wallace and Gromit, Creature Comforts, Chicken Run, Nick Park, etc.)

No, like aaronhz sez, there were three short films total and they've all been on DVD for a while. Currently they're working on a full-length feature, due next year.

The Wrong Trousers = THE FUNNIEST FILM EVER. The homage to Hickcockian thrillers was great, but the homage to silent comedy is even better. Obvious highlights: the train chase + "It's you!"

A Close Shave = back to pretty good. Some of the setups are too complicated this time, and Wallace's romance with a lady that looks a lot like him is just... weird.

I think I underrated Chicken Run when I saw it, becuase it wasn't a 90 minutes version of The Wrong Trousers. The characters are well-sketched, Charming Mel Gibson is as well-cast as Sparky Julia Sawahla, ans it contains one of my favourite depictions of Happiness .

I don't think I've ever seen Creature Comforts, and I wish I'd never seen Angry Kid.

When next year is the feature film due? I've clicked on the studio link above, but it's taking its sweet time loading....

I wholeheartedly agree with this.

I have a mate who works for Aardman also, nice place to be employed by the sound of it

Yeah, this is great. Though I admit I pretty much like everything Aardman has done so far (even stupid Angry Kid).

Monty Python star John Cleese is writing the next feature film for Aardman Animations, the makers of Wallace and Gromit have announced.

Aardman co-founder Peter Lord said the Fawlty Towers actor was currently writing the "pre-historic comedy".

He said the new film was still in the early stages and would follow after Flushed Away, which is due to be released in 2006.

"It will be great comedy adventure about a pre-historic culture clash between two tribes, one comparatively evolved tribe, and one un-evolved tribe," he said.

"Some might consider one tribe might be the English, and some might consider that the other to be the French, the Gauls.

"Let's just say it's the start of the Entente Cordial and it explains why the English Channel is there."

But on the bright side, Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Wererabbit released in October! No trailer yet as far as I can tell, though.

Movie deal ends early

From what I have heard, yes. It's cheaper and quicker to produce 3D, even if the results are as ugly and charmless as Madagascar.

So I was flipping through channels during a commercial break yesterday and found a bizarre Aardman-esque show with animals talking about art and stuff...and it turns out it IS Aardman, and was apparently already a tv series in the UK? Very nice surprise.

Creature Comforts, that is.

Also Flushed Away was actually pretty good - not as good as Wererabbit or...

The Wrong Trousers = THE FUNNIEST FILM EVER

Yeah, I caught the last 10 minutes or so of Creature Comforts by accident too, it was really funny and weird!

Creature Comforts was a one-off yeeeeears ago, real interviews with old people, shut-in aspie rubes etc, dubbed over zoo animals done in yer standard Aardman style. It's a classic. They then used the same idea in a few adverts, before resurrecting it as a series recently. The series is good but not as good as the original.

:-D

http://www.wallaceandgromit.com/films/loafanddeath/

"trailer, clips COMING SOON"

that's a bit cautious when it's already been on TV twice here!

(the only one not to have a cinema run first ;_; )

Yes, unusual that Australia gets a British TV show before Britain. Almost makes up for the fact that the ABC wait until May to play the Doctor Who Christmas specials.

I watched Loaf And Death via the magic of the Interweb. Very reminiscent of A Close Shave and again Gromit really runs away with it.

very moderate spoiler: a book called "Electronic Surveillance For Dogs"

I saw it on the big screen cos I'm special, and absolutely loved the spooky house bits. Can't believe it's been something like 10+ years since the last non-feature one!

good to see a new one, I was under the impression the fire had destroyed everything, I guess they've rebuilt them though. this is much more likely to be good than Flushed Away, which was just dull

wait until May to play the Doctor Who Christmas specials

January 25 this year. Er, next year.

How do you know this thing?

The only thing that was affected by the fire was a warehouse full of archived models that they wouldn't have used again. The offices and studios are in different locations and were fine.

Watching Loaf And Death on Netflix now. <3 Wallace and Gromit, they make me soo happy.

Ah Gromit you are so smart, if only you could talk though! haha

I really love Creature COmforts. It's on Netflix "watch instantly" right now & it always makes me laugh so hard, but I find I can only watch it in short bursts.

Aardman goes 3D CG. Hm.

(Flushed Away (2006) was also 3D CG)

Was it 3d? They've had a CG division for years, though. Really looking forward to the Pirates as well as this.

I don't much care for the 3D they have done so far.

don't remember flushed away being 3D. liked it though.

not that kind of 3d, no. the cg models weren't flat though 8)

(odd that i didn't twig that ned meant that kind of 3d. my idea of 3d computer graphics = alien8 on the spectrum. haven't seen any off the recent slew of 3d movies, they just don't appeal)

My 2-year-old is obsessed with Wallace and Gromit right now; he calls all of the first 3 shorts "cheesegromit."

I don't much care for the 3D they have done so far.

not that kind of 3d, no. the cg models weren't flat though 8)

gotcha. wondered whether that might be what you & ned meant. yeah, in making 2D films, they've gone from physical/in-camera 3D animation to the digital sort. so far, i prefer the clay.

Er, like what?

Flushed Away was pretty bad.

ah, 3D confusion as above.

http://www.aardman.com/about-us/news-events/james-mcavoy-hugh-laurie-jim-broadbent-bill-nighy-imelda-staunton-and-ashley-jensen-join-the-cast-of-%E2%80%9Carthur-christmas%E2%80%9D/
Bit more info has gone up; Peter Baynham (Alan Partridge, Borat, millions of other stuff) co-wrote the screenplay.

there was a 30 minute inventions thing on last night starring wallace and grommit. was an interesting watch for something educational aimed at kids - festo penguins for instance.

New trailer!

I thought my goodwill towards pirates had been exhausted with that Doctor Who episode, but this looks fantastic.

I enjoyed "Trousers" and "Day Out", but..

Am i alone in thinking them massively overrated?

I take my hat off to their animation techniques, but boy do they need to change the story.

Stone him.

Pirates! is out next week in the UK and next month in the US!
UK trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWOFLtsDvbw&feature=player_embedded

US trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPJF6mR6krM&feature=player_embedded

It's getting good reviews already. They had to drop the leprosy gag "following protests by leprosy support groups".

This movie is sooo good, sooo funny, and extremely clever. Plus mildly subversive. I'm looking forward to seeing it on the big screen a second time, but everyone even remotely a fan of Aardman should see it a first time.

The soundtrack features the Clash, Pogues, Jimmy Cliff and Supergrass!
The bad guys are the Queen and Charles Darwin!
There are a million sight gags nestled in the background!
The 3-D actually looks good!

Yeah, hoping to catch this before it goes from the theaters if possible, but these next couple of weekends are mostly out (though maybe next Sunday...)

Saw this alone in an empty theater today. Film is funny as hell.

The art design and sets are SO insanely detailed and packed with gags, like a proper Monkey Island/Lucasarts game.

It was even better the second time. Lots of hidden ham jokes and little maps and rules and stuff hanging in the background.

I spotted a Wallace statue in the Queen's Horde, but no Gromit

i live in a little cotswold town just north of bristol.
apparantly the town has a multitude of aardman animators as its within commuting distance to their hq nearby.
so, a few weeks ago the animators put together a local showing of "pirates.. " in our community cinema.
we saw the film, after which they then gave some presentations as to their role in the production.
then judged a kids pirate fancy dress comp for which the prizes were some very cool pirate stuff.
then came my fave bit - the folks had brought along one of the original sets and some of the actual characters.
proper animation nerd heaven.
i had no idea i was surrounded by these people.
needless to say when i see them in the pub next time, i will be full of nerdy questions.

oh, and i loved the ham jokes.

one of the guys did recommend watching it a second time due to the detail ..

yay I saw a showing in SF (US version is slightly different to UK version, aard-fans) and Pete Lord did a Q&A and they had some of the models.
(we then took PL out to see the sights of SF, which was great fun)

this got buried here, only screening in two cinemas across the city, only at 9.50am on Sundays

weird, my wife and i love Wallace & Gromit etc. but every time we saw ads for Pirates we just went 'ugh that looks terrible' and it never occurred to us that it might be an Aardman thing

Seriously, it is sooooooo good. I was listening to Jimmy Cliff the day or so after, and my younger daughter perks up. "This was in the movie!"

Pirate movie was SO FUNNY. My movie of the year maybe? So good!

Really must see that, I missed it in the theaters!

They had it as some summer kids movie in the cheap theater so I lucked out! My sister was lording it over me that she'd seen it in the theater and I hadn't, so...ha to her. Totally gonna buy it when it comes out. It's a repeat watcher for sure and the bonus features on stop motion films are always geek paradise.

saw it in the theater and talked about it on some thread or other. pretty great! not great great, maybe, but at least good great. loved the beards, jokes, monkeys, smashing of things, etc. hell of a lot more enjoyable than any of the big, blockbustery superhero/sci-fi films i've seen this summer.

It's criminal that it wasn't better promoted in the U.S. It deserves success and a sequel!

Not seen Pirates! but Shaun The Sheep is their best UK-set feature-length so far :)

My favourite portrayal of Manchester on film maybe (JC Clark / The Fall poster!), brilliantly animated (like, better than before), no dialogue at ALL (this felt pitched both younger and older than previous fare) and some genuinely lovely observations about modern England - teasing affection towards smartphone culture but a sly & unswerving hatred of paperwork, bureaucracy and officiousness.

The sets are extraordinary and the visual wit more ingenious than ever. When you're making three seconds a day, there's room for attention to detail, and boy do they maximise it. Probably worth a rewatch just to catch everything.

British kids' pastoralia in decent health thanks to this lot. They even make Rizzle Kicks palatable ffs!

cant wait to see this.
love the tv show.
so, your rundown makes me even more keen.

I found Pirates! rather uneven, though far from a failure. The jokes were often good, but the central pirate characters hadn't the strength of Wallace and Grommit, or even the chickens in Chicken Run, so it lacked a core. I eagerly await Shaun the Sheep.

Having real difficulty finding an animation done in the main Aardman style, maybe they ripped the style off because I can't find it in any Aardman list, but I don't know the title so it might well be listed.
One of the bleakest films I've ever seen, it's a short film about a dog that gets left at home with a lizard friend, the lizard seems content but the dog is desperate to turn into a human. Ring any bells? I'd love to see this again.

Can't view it on my phone but:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ORNbu47UEKc

Thankyou very much! Not quite as depressing as I remember, I thought he screamed at the end "I hate being a dog!"

Nooo

http://io9.gizmodo.com/rip-peter-sallis-the-voice-behind-wallace-gromits-lo-1795821840

But 96, that's a hell of a run. RIP indeed.

Wonderful late career run with aardman

Honestly hard to imagine anyone else in the role.

farmageddon is awesome :)

just as good as the first one, except they've conjured the cutest animated alien ever

We dragged out a DVD of Pirates! and watched it last night. I am convinced that Nick Park and his core Aardman production team had very limited creative input on the script. The characters, their problems and their solutions were very much off-the-shelf Hollywood stock elements, gaudied up a bit, but ultimately flat. It relied on pushing the action; you didn't need to absorb the humor or savor it as Aardman usually prefers. The design, otoh, showed a lot of the Aardman flair for backgrounds.

I'd rate it as 80% Sony Pictures heavy-handedness and 20% Aardman light-heartedness.

The screenplay is adapted by Defoe from his own books, and the movie is directed by Aardman head & co-founder Peter Lord. Park doesn’t even work on the spin-offs of his own characters, and iirc his only recurring co-writer is Bob Baker, who has never been an Aardman employee.

(And is now 80, so unlikely to be on retainer as a regular consultant)

farmageddon is awesome :)

just as good as the first one, except they've conjured the cutest animated alien ever

― imago, Sunday, 20 October 2019 20:20 (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

VINDICATION

Why yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bx1tfy3JuKI

feels important that this be good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icfv_T5pkdI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-Kz67kea8Q

The arduously crafted sequel that no one asked for, lol. But ... sure.

https://www.avclub.com/chicken-run-studio-aardman-is-apparently-running-out-of-1851033934

Modeling Clay. They're running out of Modeling Clay.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/nov/21/wallace-and-gromit-aardman-animations-reassures-fans-over-clay-shortage

how odd, it seems an incorrect rumour was reported at exactly the same time Aardman have a movie out

glad i didn't put that in the good news story thread now

Doesn’t seem to be any contradiction between the incorrect rumour of “their supplier closed down so they bought up all the stock and will have to source a new supply in the future” and the statement of “we have lots of stock currently and have been investigating new supply for the future”

can they mould a fresh Julia Sawahla voicebox from the new material, though