A thread for W&G fans. Is Christmas complete without them? Any news of further W&Gs? I read they were planning more TV film specials, the old shorter format which I like the best, but haven't seen any yet. The last was 5 years ago and that was my favourite yet. Surely there shouldn't be such a long gap between them, maybe 3 years seems reasonable. So what's happening there?
Nick Park was a hero of mine when I was a kid and even into my early teens when I'd try and create my own clay animations with the home camcorder, it wasn't easy!!
I can't say I get excited about new productions these days but he, along with his creations should go down in British film history as a great.
W&G are really what they should be focusing on, imo. Got a huge 1970s size audience share for the last outing. W&G have a massive fanbase and yet they're concentrating on silly sheep and other projects. I don't get it. If I owned W&G I'd be making one every 3 years or so. There have only been 5 proper W&G episodes in nearly 25 years! If an American animator owned this franchise there'd have been at least double that.
Looking forward to the new film scheduled for Xmas Day on BBC1. Delighted they changed their mind on not doing anymore after they said this when Peter Sallis passed away.
I do have reservations about Wallace's voice, as it was so distinctive and crucial to the production, but I'm assuming they've gone for as good impersonation of his voice as poss. A full length film like Were-Rabbit, not a short, so I'm a bit surprised it debuts on TV and doesn't go to the cinema as the other one did.
Were-Rabbit was great but I think W&G suit shorts best. Still if this new one is half as good as my favourite, Loaf & Death then it'll probably be the best thing on Xmas Day this year. Looking forward to it. No spoilers please if anyone finds a way of seeing it earlier.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 14th November 2024, 12:42 PMNo spoilers please if anyone finds a way of seeing it earlier.
Well, and you'll love this! You see, Wallace.....................
Curious to hear it without Sallis.
It'll be marmite I fear.
Quote: tenbeersbold @ 20th December 2024, 10:26 AMCurious to hear it without Sallis.
It'll be marmite I fear.
Well, they played a clip of him voicing a scene, Ben Whitehead, on the One Show and I thought he was very good, capturing Sallis' voice very well - I was impressed
I rewatched them all recently, for the first time in ages, and the three original short films are magical. I wrote a bit about The Wrong Trousers on Letterboxd:
Sensually uncanny - the intensity of my early memories of this is matched by the bounty of its visual detail and sound design. The stalls were set out by A Grand Day Out, a plasticine Eraserhead with Clangers mice that watched as a Northern man built a rocket in his cellar. Hadn't re-watched these in ages and hadn't realised that they were parodies of horror films. Studio Ghibli's Quatermass.
A Matter Of Loaf And Death is rotten, but Curse Of The Were-Rabbit has some really nice stuff in the first half an hour or so, even if the horror pastiche then gets stretched pretty thin - it feels like they wrote themselves into a bit of a corner there with the twist, meaning your main character isn't really in it for a lot of the film.
I'm not expecting the new one to be as good as the originals, but I'm hoping it'll be decent. We'll see.
