New Wallace and Gromit film for Christmas '24; Peter Sallis still dead

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Aarsman

Wallarse and Gromit

[notjosh]

Always wondered what the makers of Inspector Gadget thought of Wallace and Gromit. Clumsy bloke who doesn't know what's going on gets into scrapes and gets saved by his super intelligent silent dog.

They borrowed a fair bit from Fireman Sam too:

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"A tiny amount."

Every seen the Aardman documentary "A Grand Night In"?

It's essential viewing, and here:  https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x80u3nu


And, the reason I'm mentioning it right now - one of the animators is clearly a Fast Show fan; skip to 35 minutes 30 seconds.

[George White]

Also, everyone forgets that the Victoria Wood As Seen on TV titles were Aardman

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Also, everyone forgets that the Victoria Wood As Seen on TV titles were Aardman

There - you're forgetting it already!

[Uncle TechTip]

Also, everyone forgets that the Victoria Wood As Seen on TV titles were Aardman

I watched a bit of the doc and instantly learned that they did the Scotch video "re-record, not fade away" guy, the Anchor Butter guy and even the Chewits Muncher. Basically any stopmtion work in the 80s. My hat.

Cracking thread (vomit)

[Old Nehamkin]

They also did some bits and pieces for Pee-Wee's Playhouse I believe.

[JesusAndYourBush]

I watched a bit of the doc and instantly learned that they did the Scotch video "re-record, not fade away" guy, the Anchor Butter guy and even the Chewits Muncher. Basically any stopmtion work in the 80s. My hat.

Cracking thread (vomit)

Did they do Mr Soft?

Edit: Course they didn't, I'm an eejit, that was live action.



It seems very early to announce it though.  Xmas 2024 is more than 2 years away.  Should have waited until Nov 2024.  Nobody's enthusiasm lasts that long.

[beanheadmcginty]

Just realised that "A Meater of Loaf and Death" would've been a good post for one of the 45 Meat Loaf dead threads that were on here the other day.

[Catalogue Trousers]

Me too.  It made more sense within the logic it had set up for itself (albeit logic lifted entirely from the 1950s version of The Fly) and wrapped up the plot so much more neatly.

But Nick Park (and/or others) couldn't bring themselves to "kill" the new rabbit character they'd created, so they rewrote the ending.

So you've instead got this deranged cheese-eating rabbit in the wild that will definitely die soon because it refuses to eat any vegetables and thinks its mission is to go back inside the house and wear slippers.

I don't have the DVD handy - how did the film end originally?

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I don't have the DVD handy - how did the film end originally?

Wallace and Hutch were both restored to their former selves by putting them back into the brainwaves machine.

You might recall that a lot of post-production work was required on later scenes shot with Wallace having rabbit ears.  Relatively costly CGI was employed to replace his rabbit ears with human ones.  This is because even quite far into filming, the cheese was going to revive Wallace from the fall, but not completely restore him to his usual self.  So all those scenes were filmed with rabbit ears with the expectation that they would still be merging Wallace with Hutch later on.

[madhair60]

I had a little look at Loaf and Death last night and it is truly poor. Far worse than I remembered, even.

[H-O-W-L]

You could see their arses in Rex the Runt too.

What's the opinion of Rex the Runt around here? I remember it being brill but it's been a decade or more.

And Angry Kid!

[Old Nehamkin]

I loved the first series of Rex the Runt but found series 2 very underwhelming. It seemed to suffer quite a lot from the departure of Andrew Franks and Kevin Wrench, who originally voiced Rex and Bad Bob respectively as well as writing for the show (and co-composing the theme tune, apparently). Not sure what went on there.

[Thomas]

You might recall that a lot of post-production work was required on later scenes shot with Wallace having rabbit ears.  Relatively costly CGI was employed to replace his rabbit ears with human ones.  This is because even quite far into filming, the cheese was going to revive Wallace from the fall, but not completely restore him to his usual self.  So all those scenes were filmed with rabbit ears with the expectation that they would still be merging Wallace with Hutch later on.

I didn't know that. I've just rewatched the scene, and the original ending explains why Wallace gives a little rabbit-like nibble to the cheese when he's revived. He's not fully reWallaced yet.

The unfortunate law about a whimsical animated world is that, the longer it goes on, the more anatomical questions are likely to come up. Wallace has buttocks, but no nipples. There must have been a studio meeting to decide whether or not to endow him with nips.

[George White]

both redolent of Thunderbirds, though.

They borrowed a fair bit from Fireman Sam too:

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Buttocks are not equivalent to nipples, no way.  You can have buttocks without nipples on any day of the week.

If you were telling me that Wallace had an anus but no nipples, we'd have a talking point.

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

Just noticed they did some eery uncanny CG Angry Kid episodes a few years back

[Nowhere Man]

Looked at the short films on IMDB

A Grand Day Out - 7.8 rating
The Wrong Trousers - 8.3 rating
A Close Shave - 8.1 rating



I always assumed that the popular consensus was that A Grand Day Out was second in popularity after The Wrong Trousers! Is this the Americans doing or something? I have some serious questioning for everyone who gave A Close Shave a higher rating than a Grand Day Out.

A Close Shave is good, but A Grand Day Out is almost perfect in how it's structured. Perfectly charming, with just the right amount of underlying menace.

[popcorn]

I find it easy to believe people like A Close Shave more, because Wallace and Gromit didn't really "settle" until The Wrong Trousers. A Grand Day Out is a bit like the first season of The Simpsons - the characters look a bit different, the tone is a bit different, etc.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

It doesn't have much of a story either. The only real plot points are, "Lets go to the moon" and " Lets put more money in this killer robot, for some reason."

A grand Day Out is delightful, but I would probably rate it slightly lower than the other two.

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Yes, in my experience most people place A Close Shave above A Grand Day Out.  I think they are wrong, but my priorities are different - I'm keener on seeing the animation process breathing and spending time with the characters doing nothing than I am watching everything whizz by in a densely-paced action story.

Most people prefer Wallace and Gromit once the character models have been 'set' more strictly; half of A Grand Day Out was filmed before Wallace had even said "cheese" so his mouth hadn't branched out yet. 

I love A Grand Day Out but I think the Simpsons season 1 comparison is a good one.  I would say The Wrong Trousers is series 2-8 era Simpsons and A Close Shave is inching towards seasons 9 and 10.  Maybe that's cruel but I always wished there had been more Wallace and Gromit with the magic of The Wrong Trousers.  They hit it perfectly there - lightning in a bottle - and A Close Shave showed that Aardman had already changed their production methods too much to touch on it again.

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

Though Grand Day Out is far better relative to Wrong Trousers than Simpsons Season 1 is to, say, Season 3

[mothman]

"Lets put more money in this killer robot, for some reason."

"Hello? Boston Dynamics? This is your cousin! Marvin Dynamics! Hey, you know that new mission statement you were looking for? Well, just listen to this!"

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Though Grand Day Out is far better relative to Wrong Trousers than Simpsons Season 1 is to, say, Season 3

I'll agree with that. 

[Catalogue Trousers]

What's the opinion of Rex the Runt around here? I remember it being brill but it's been a decade or more.

And Angry Kid!

I mentioned Rex a little earlier in this thread. I wasn't joking when I said that, much as I love Wallace & Gromit, I'd sooner have Rex and company back - even with the different, not-as-good series 2 voices for Rex and Bob. And Angry Kid is marvellous - short, sharp bursts of nasty, juvenile humour - but couldn't really sustain a major plot in the way that W & G - or, I reckon, even Rex and friends - could.

[Old Nehamkin]

Is Angry Kid unique in the way that it applies the stop-motion technique to an actual live human moving themselves "just a tiny amount" at a time? Gives it a brilliantly uncanny look.

That was how they made it, right? I may be misremembering this.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Not unique: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixilation

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Is Angry Kid unique in the way that it applies the stop-motion technique to an actual live human moving themselves "just a tiny amount" at a time? Gives it a brilliantly uncanny look.

That was how they made it, right? I may be misremembering this.

Think so, yeah.  It felt like a lot of student animation projects I'd seen up to that point, if I'm fair, but it was still very well done considering where technology was at that point.  And of course people have themselves been stop motion puppets since the days of early cinema.

Somebody upthread said that there has since been a CGI version, which completely misses the point.

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No https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixilation

That's what he said, though.