Aardman is honestly one of my top 10 animation studios! It's a shame that people don't pay much attention to them anymore. Also for those who are wondering, Flushed Away was done in CG due to the studio catching on fire.
I feel like The Pirates is one of the most underrated films ever. For a kids movie it is still enjoyable to watch. Sadly I don’t hear a lot of people talking about it. It could be that I’m from the U.S. and Aardman is U.K. based, but I feel like it should get more attention.
Don’t forget Sony pictures animation partnered with Aardman for 2 movies, the aforementioned pirates band of misfits and Arthur Christmas. Seriously the latter took forever to come out on dvd over here. Like 12 months after release at least!
The Croods wasn't exactly going to be Early Man, but it was going to be based on a script by John Cleese and it was originally going to be called"Crood Awakening." That said, it's very easy to see why Early Man was a massive failure over here. There was no way to market the film that mentioned the true story of the film, as there was no way it was going to appeal to an American audience. The film's message is essentially "Britain invented soccer, so why do they suck at it? That's no fair!" Even the home video release goes out of its way to hide the soccer storyline. The movie wasn't made for us, but they decided to release it here anyway, and I'm grateful for that.
As a kid I didn't want to watch Flushed Away because I assumed it was just going to be potty humor. Bought the DVD for five bucks a few years ago and was thoroughly entertained, glad I gave it a shot (Over the Hedge too, which I bought around the same time and likewise overlooked as a kid because of the commercials).
I've read Aardman's book "an Epic Journey, One Frame at a Time" and you're absolutely right with Flushed Away having Dreamworks meddling - to an extent that dwarfs Wallace and Gromit Curse of the Ware Rabbit. According to the book, Dreamworks insisted that the film had to be made in CGI to compete with Pixar's Ratatouille which was in development at the same time. Due to this, Aardman, an animation company, had to give the film to be animated in California by Dreamworks since Aardman didn't have any CGI animators. The main character Roddy also had these two butler characters in the trailers, which Dreamworks insisted to be scrapped too. (I'm actually a little in favour of this, because having butlers would likely undermine the theme of Roddy's loneliness without friends, but I would have preferred it to be Aardman's call to make)
Curse of the Were Rabbit isn’t the first UK film to struggle through executive meddling. Thomas and the Magic Railroad was screwed because of test audiences and important scenes got cut out, causing the story to fall flat.
I feel bad for aardman that they had to deal with dreamworld meddling and demands, though I’m not surprised that dreamworks did that, considering one of the Founders is the same idiots that demanded to Pixar that they make toy story more edgy, resulting in the disastrous Black Friday reel that not only almost got toy story canceled but maybe Pixar in general would’ve been canned too. I love the films that dreamworks did with aardman, (even flushed away, which does have its share of those typical dreamworks twitches like some pop culture jokes, a bit of low brow humour and pop music, but the way I see it, those elements don’t go overboard unlike a few other dreamworks films like shark tale and home and i think aardman’s charm made the typical dreamworks jokes work really well, plus it was my favourite aardman film until I saw Arthur Christmas) but it probably was for the best that they split.
"Chicken Run" is one of my favorite childhood movies. It blew my mind when I learned that it was basically a kid version of "The Great Escape". Would "Chicken Run 2" be a kid version of "Inglorious Basterds"?
Sean the Sheep is probably the peak of Aardman's feature-length movies so far. It's just so... simple. And that's what makes it so appealing. Also, Arthur Christmas is brilliantly conceived and executed - a real Christmas classic. Were-Rabbit has some great moments but ultimately feels a little stretched compared to to tight, punchy and inventive W&G shorts.
i wasn't born when any of these films came out, but i did watch Wallace and Gromit the curse of the were rabbit in 3rd grade, and that's when i started to watch more of it and getting closer to the aardman films.
Aardman is honestly one of my top 10 animation studios! It's a shame that people don't pay much attention to them anymore. Also for those who are wondering, Flushed Away was done in CG due to the studio catching on fire.
Their movies are so good, it’s a shame they aren’t as successful now just because they ended their partnership with dreamworks
I feel like The Pirates is one of the most underrated films ever. For a kids movie it is still enjoyable to watch. Sadly I don’t hear a lot of people talking about it. It could be that I’m from the U.S. and Aardman is U.K. based, but I feel like it should get more attention.
Don’t forget Sony pictures animation partnered with Aardman for 2 movies, the aforementioned pirates band of misfits and Arthur Christmas. Seriously the latter took forever to come out on dvd over here. Like 12 months after release at least!
The Croods wasn't exactly going to be Early Man, but it was going to be based on a script by John Cleese and it was originally going to be called"Crood Awakening." That said, it's very easy to see why Early Man was a massive failure over here. There was no way to market the film that mentioned the true story of the film, as there was no way it was going to appeal to an American audience. The film's message is essentially "Britain invented soccer, so why do they suck at it? That's no fair!" Even the home video release goes out of its way to hide the soccer storyline. The movie wasn't made for us, but they decided to release it here anyway, and I'm grateful for that.
As a kid I didn't want to watch Flushed Away because I assumed it was just going to be potty humor. Bought the DVD for five bucks a few years ago and was thoroughly entertained, glad I gave it a shot (Over the Hedge too, which I bought around the same time and likewise overlooked as a kid because of the commercials).
The slugs were okay in my opinion.
Aardman never fails to amuse me, whether their films are short or feature length.
I feel like their partnership ended after Universal Studios bought DreamWorks
I actually want them to reunite someday! DreamWorks and Aardman could be the biggest rivals to Disney and Pixar!
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DreamWorks: Wallace is supposed to be American and we're going to be replacing Peter Sallis
I've read Aardman's book "an Epic Journey, One Frame at a Time" and you're absolutely right with Flushed Away having Dreamworks meddling - to an extent that dwarfs Wallace and Gromit Curse of the Ware Rabbit. According to the book, Dreamworks insisted that the film had to be made in CGI to compete with Pixar's Ratatouille which was in development at the same time. Due to this, Aardman, an animation company, had to give the film to be animated in California by Dreamworks since Aardman didn't have any CGI animators. The main character Roddy also had these two butler characters in the trailers, which Dreamworks insisted to be scrapped too. (I'm actually a little in favour of this, because having butlers would likely undermine the theme of Roddy's loneliness without friends, but I would have preferred it to be Aardman's call to make)
Curse of the Were Rabbit isn’t the first UK film to struggle through executive meddling. Thomas and the Magic Railroad was screwed because of test audiences and important scenes got cut out, causing the story to fall flat.
Let’s say
I feel bad for aardman that they had to deal with dreamworld meddling and demands, though I’m not surprised that dreamworks did that, considering one of the Founders is the same idiots that demanded to Pixar that they make toy story more edgy, resulting in the disastrous Black Friday reel that not only almost got toy story canceled but maybe Pixar in general would’ve been canned too. I love the films that dreamworks did with aardman, (even flushed away, which does have its share of those typical dreamworks twitches like some pop culture jokes, a bit of low brow humour and pop music, but the way I see it, those elements don’t go overboard unlike a few other dreamworks films like shark tale and home and i think aardman’s charm made the typical dreamworks jokes work really well, plus it was my favourite aardman film until I saw Arthur Christmas) but it probably was for the best that they split.
"Chicken Run" is one of my favorite childhood movies. It blew my mind when I learned that it was basically a kid version of "The Great Escape". Would "Chicken Run 2" be a kid version of "Inglorious Basterds"?
Sean the Sheep is probably the peak of Aardman's feature-length movies so far. It's just so... simple. And that's what makes it so appealing. Also, Arthur Christmas is brilliantly conceived and executed - a real Christmas classic. Were-Rabbit has some great moments but ultimately feels a little stretched compared to to tight, punchy and inventive W&G shorts.
i wasn't born when any of these films came out, but i did watch Wallace and Gromit the curse of the were rabbit in 3rd grade, and that's when i started to watch more of it and getting closer to the aardman films.