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WHAT I LIKED before I knew what I was SUPPOSED TO LIKE – Dan Watts.

WHAT I LIKED before I knew what I was SUPPOSED TO LIKE – Dan Watts.

As a kid I loved anything that was ‘wrong’. Funny stuff. Dark stuff. Magical stuff. The stuff I wasn’t allowed to watch. Stuff that did something fuzzy to your brain. I’d pick the London Dungeon for a family day out. I’d ask for Viz over the Beano. Anything that was naughty and went against the grain. Anything that stuck in your head for all the wrong reasons. It’s of no surprise then that nearly…

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Wallace and Gromit Retrospective FINALE: Curse of the Were Rabbit: Hop of the Heap

Hello all you happy people and welcome to the FINALE of my Wallace and Gromit retrospective! It’s been a heck of a fun ride: We’ve seen cheesy trips to the moon, criminal pengys in thrilling model train chases, robot dogs who can somehow own a business and whose business model is “muder a bunch of sheep, murder some humans ????” profit and...

...... the kind of things an elder god pops into your head to drive you hoplessly insane. IT’s been a fun ride, all thanks to my creative partner and fincial backer @weirdkev27​. If you have cartoons you want me to cover, just hit up my inbox, and you can commission your own reviews.

But the ride ends here... as I mentioned last time I decided to end with this film rather than Matter of Loaf and Death as I felt it was a far more fitting climax for this: Wallace and Gromit is one of the most iconic bits of animation in both the UK and US, and it only made sense not to end with the whimper of an okay, traumatizing short.. but with the bang of their first and most likely only feature film: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. 

Curse was Aardman’s second feature film after Chicken Run, an utter classic that also proved to be a massive box office success, and as of this writing 21 years later is still the highest grossing stop motion animated film, with a Sequel coming to Netflix next year thankfully Mel Gibson free. 

So with that momentum and a four film deal with dreamworks, it was only natural they planned a Wallace and Gromit movie.. AFTER their next planned film, Tortoise and the Hare. You all remember that childhood classic right? 

So yeah let’s talk about that for a sec because i’d never heard of this failed project and i’ts honestly fascenating: Aardman, wanting to get another hit out as soon as possible, rushed the script for TAH into production, something their own spokesman admitted in. This went about as well as trying to ride a bear after taking a bath in a tub filled with salmon: The film was a mess and aardman was forced to halt production and lay off over a hundred staff members, something to their credit they deeply regretted and took full responsblity fore unlike most layoffs. Here they ddin’t have a choicec and fully intended to, and likely did, hire them back once they got started proper on Curse of the Were Rabbit. 

So with it’s comptetition having caught fire and jumped into an oil derrick to douse the flames, Wallace and Gromit was bumped up to their current feature.  So naturally things went better this time with more planning and what not.

There was still a massive problem though... and that problem was Dreamworks. See despite the simple facts that Chicken Run was one of their biggest hits, Wallace and Gromit being both a fincial cash cow and a critical success with two oscar wins and one nomination across the original trilogy, the fact said oscar loss was to Creature Comforts ANOTHER aardman short that made Katzenberg want to do buisness with them in the first place, DreamWorks having thought anything about Antz from trying to make what’s essentially a woody allen movie with antz into a childrens film, to the horrible art style, to having anything to do with known child molestor woody allen.... Dreamworks decided they knew better and wanted to make some changes to make the film more “marketable” in the US by americanizing it. They wanted a more bankable name to play Wallace, him to drive a cool big dicked sports car, and in general wanted it to be “less british”. Nick Parks reaction to this was swift and just:

And he and the rest of Aardman stood their ground: Sallis was irreplacable as Wallace and his car being a throughly british junker was part of the charm. They made a valid compromise though adding some bigger name british stars to the mix in side rolls with Helna Bohm Carter as Lady Tottingham and Ralph Finnes as the Villian, Lord Victor Quartermaine, both of which are terrific and i’ll get more into that soon enough. 

As far as I can tell Dreamworks didn’t succeed in “amercanizing it” and as an american I kinda scoff at the idea they did: the terms, structure of the small town, and general everything still feels quintesentially british as always. And it’d be the last time dreamworks made a horrible mistake...

THE LAST TIME

As you can probably guess the partnership here didn’t last much longer: They made one more film with Flushed Away and ended it early, a story I will also likely get to someday. For the present join me under the cut as I take a look at Wallace and Gromit’s Finest hour. 

Cleanin Up The Town: So we open with the classic theme, amped up slightly for theater and a lovely intro where we see our heroes over the ages including Puppy Gromit and 70′s rocker hair Wallace. There’s even a really creative bit that has the heroes getting into a tiff, ending up in seperate photos and making up, including the sweet detail that gromit was knitting a new sweatervest for wallace that’s purple that I honestly wished while watching he’d wear in more stuff.. only for it to show up later in the movie! It just goes to show if you ask something of 16 year old movie it’ll give you what you want. Maybe if I try that with Are We There Yet? it’ll cease to exist. Ya never know till you try. 

So our film proper opens as we pan over the town with everyone preparing for the annual tottingham hall big veg competittion, where the biggest veg, the very british term used here, earns it’s owner the coveted golden carrot. We’re introduced to many of the old folks including the Vicar who i’ll get to later because he is a treat. 

The important one here is Mr. Growbag an old man who finds something nibbling on one of his wife’s pumpkins

Thankfully he presses a button and calls our heroes who are now running the cleverly titlted pest control service Anti-Pesto. Another touch I like is that there are paintings all around the duo’s house, each with a picture of a customer whose eyes light up when baldy and pupper are called to save their produce. 

Our heroes get a neat sequence and easily capture the offending rabbit and throw him in their van. It’s a nice, short, but sweet sequence that shows our heroes new job, how valued they are in town, the automatic sensors they have set up to summon our heroes right away, all sorts of important exposition delivered almost entirely through actions. It’s a masterclass in storytelling honestly and something I only realized as I sat down to write this review. 

So the next morning our heroes get on with their day: After Gromit feeds the rabbits, who their keeping on site for now in lieu of killing but are running out of space for, Wallace gets served breakfast which tragically isn’t some cool contraption this time but just him serving Gromit some veggies. Turns out Wallace is putting on some pounds, can relate, and is on a diet. Yes that old chesnut. It’s shown up in just about every sitcom, most comic strips, and I think was even chissled on some rocks some where in caveman days. Though it DOES occasionally work...

It’s just to me personally most diet jokes boil down to “the food dosen’t taste good” or 

This being Wallace and Gromit though, they manage to make it work: It’s a minor element of the plot more there to set up that Wallace dosen’t like vegtables for plot reasons so it dosen’t take up too much time and we get two really cracking good gags out of it: Wallace having to be HAMMERD down the chute due to his weight, with Gromit looking at a jar labeled middle aged spread while he presses the button for it, and when Wallace tries to get some cheese while Gromit checks on his watermelon for the contest from his secret stash, he instead finds a mousetrap. 

Though what also helps is unlike mos tof these plots where either someone’s forced to diet because someone else is or there’s just a lot of nasty sniping in general Wallace dosen’t resent Gromit and vice versa: Wallace gets it’s for his health, itt’s just like most of us he also dosen’t have any impulse control. 

So Wallace decides to go with the most Wallace sollution imaginable: use a nifty invention to fuck with his own brain, the mind manipulation o-matic. Because as Psychonauts 2 showed absolutley nothing can go wrong when experiment iwth your own brain, certainly NOT mass murder, MPD or goat based cooking shows no sir. 

Before Wallace can make his own brains extra crispy our heroes get another job and we’re introduced to one of the best parts of the film and it’s arguable third lead, Lady Tottingham. I honsetly didn’t remember totty much from my memories of the film so I was shocked at just how good a character she is. Helena Bohm Carter just fits perfectly into the flow of Aardman’s throughly british humor, bringing a nice amount of innocent, perky energy you normlaly don’t see in her rolls. Totty is a kind, sensitive and energetic young animal lover and rich lady and you just can’t help but like her and out of Wallace’s three love intrests, she’s easily the best. Granted one’s a murderer, but still she gets the most time and fleshed out personality and is one of the better love interests i’ve seen in a kids film. 

Wallace is excited about the job because having a high profile, wealthy client like this could really improve their standing socially and economically and Gromit is.. well Gromit about it but nonetheless the two speed off. 

A potetial obstacle to our duo’s big break pops up at the door though, Lord Victor Quatermaine, played by Ralph Finnes who like Carter does a REALLY amazing job, having a perfect air of an egomanical jackass who thinks shooting animals compensates of his lack of caring, personality and junk that dosen’t spotantiously light on fire when he’s arroused. Victor has been “courting” her ladyship . And by that she’s been reluctantly dating him while he’s been pushy, trying to shove her into marriage, and ignores her opinon on anything, wanting to gun down her Rabbit Problem when she not only keeps telling him she already has professionals on teh way but wants this done humanely. 

Another thing I only noticed when I thought about the film for this review, and something I really like is it has a message: the film is clearly for no kill pest control, with our heroes running a no-kill service and it being very clear that while the people of namleless wallace and gromit town deserve not to have their hard raised crops eaten, these bunnies don’t deserve to die for it. Furthermore hunting, and hunters themselves are shown through victor which while not subtle, given rich white idiots like Victor love going to other countries to shoot precious wild life to replace the love their parents never gave hem with a big dead carcass, is something that really DOSEN’T need a subtle hand. It dosen’t whack you over the nose and GO this is bad.. it simply SHOWS why via victor, and shows an alternate method, if in a fantastical way: simply caputring the animals and finding somehwere else to put them. 

That’s what our heroes end up doing, arriving to find a whole yardfull of bunnies.. .and while their usual neck trap won’t work on THAT many, they have a vaccum for that. Granted I don’t know how humane grabbing rabbits by the neck or sucking them up via vaccum is... but compared to lord “shot them and use their dead carcasses to prove my love to you”, it’s still far less psycotic. They also suck up Victor’s hairpiece, to his annoyance. 

Her Ladyship though is throughly impressed.. and throughly turned on by wallace. And while as we’ve established the thought of Wallace climaxing...has an effect on me

I can see why he’d be attractive to someone given he’s kind, thoughtful and while a little attracted to her ladyship a through professional. She invites him to stop by any time. Lord Incel is not amused now that his girlfriend you know, has an option that cares about her and not trying to break his neck swimming aorund in a pile of coins because unlike Scrooge he has no upper body strength. Profiteering!  

There’s still the storage issue though. I mean i’d love pile upon pile of rabbits in my basement, but that’s on a conceptual level. Feeding them’s expensive, the waste situation would be too horrifying to comptemplate and my brother currently lives down there so I think he’d have a few objections to that. So Wallace goes for the simple solution: Brainwash the bunnies into not liking veg using the mind manipulation-o-matic!

But lucky for Wallace the ethics commity for small wallace and gromit town consists of a really stern poster of alan rickman that says DON’T under a picture of him that Wallace already lost, so tampering with the minds of innocent creatures it is! 

So Wallace hooks himself up to the Bun Vac which I gotta take a second to say is just a gorgeous effect, though one using CG. But it’s telling I honestly couldn’t tell watching it, and i’m perfectly okay with mixing cg into a stop motion animatied movie to do things you simply CAN’T do with clay or puppets. 

So shockingly Wallace trying to change a creatures basic nature with a giant fishbowl helmet hooked to a giant vacum on his head goes badly and a bunch of rabbits get jammed in the top of the vac an donce gets into Wallace’s helmet directly. The resulting explosion seemingly cures the Rabbit of liking Veg, Wallace considers it a success and the two go to bed.

Naturally given the film’s title and Wallace doing something that’s dumb even for him...

We get the titular were-rabbit that night that makes a mockery of Wallace’s own defenses, eats metric tons of Veg, and scares the shit out of the local Vicar, whose a parody of your standard doomsaying old man in a horror film.

So the next morning our heroes awake to ALL the alarms going off, and a pissed off town meeting ensues

Naturally our heroes are yelled at for not doing enough.. even though their traps were built for a regular rabbit and not the immortal hulk of hares. Though our heroes sleeping through it is on them.. and you know CREATING this problem in the first place. 

The Vicar naturally rambles for a bit about the beast in classic Hammer Horror fashion. What a pro. Crazy Ralph would be proud. To throw assholine on the fire, Victor comes in, says the poor old man is drunk, and then wants to shoot this monster in the head. 

Thankfully Totty stands up for our heroes and shoots down, pun not intended but welcomed, Victor’s “kill the thing we don’t understand plan. So our heroes now have the biggest job of their lives catching a beast they unknowingly created.  So Wallace naturally has a plan: Build a sexy lady giant killer rabbit to lure it out and have gromit show it off. 

SHOCKINGLY this only results in said puppet falling off the roof and Wallace going to repair it .. only to disappear. Suddenly the beast shows up, if only underground.. but making a giant hill as it goes. Gromit gives chase and we get an excellently crafted chase sequence... but despite having a lasso, Gromit looses the beast. 

The next day Wallace is mad because Gromit supposidly abadoned him.. which is the ONLY time in this entire retrospective he’s been rightfully mad over anything. Who knew?

But Gromit soon gets distracted when he notes a trail.. and finds it leads to their basement, seemingly confirming that one of the rabbits, Hutch, is the monster.  

So they go to their specalities: Gromit actually tries to solve the problem by building a trap and Wallace welll....

And don’t get me wrong he makes all the gadgets.. .but at the same time those gadgets have also caused problems in 4/5 of these works: Leaking oil, which pissed off the Moon Meter Robot Thing, allowing the plot of wrong trousers to happen, giving preseton the means to make sheep into meat and of course deciding to play god with a rabbits mind then being shocked that it went horribly horribly wrong. So it’s really hard to give him credit for his inventive mind when it screws him over as much as it helps him. 

So while Wallace goes to tell her ladyship the good news, and her ladyship invites him for a light super/date, Gromit finds more tracks after imprisoning hutch.. that go straight to wallace’s room.. which is caked in half eaten vegtables. Wallace is the Were-Rabbit... and the suns about to go down

And Then There’s The Other Guy....

So Gromit scrambles to go rescue Wallace from himself...

While Wallace has a good dinner with chemistry with her ladyship, even wearing the purple sweatervest.... while also showing signs he’s a  rabbit man now. It’s just a cute as hell scene. 

So Totty takes Wallace to her secret place.... which thankfully isn’t some slang term but her vegtable garden, which is worse for her than if she had actually taken him to bed but better for me and my sanity after last time. So anyway, we then get the two giggling together sensually offscreen just as Victor arrives for another half assed courting attemped and is naturally incredibly cross about this.

....

Okay putting my horror in a box and shoving it under my desk with all my other garbage, let’s talk about the fact Totty is semi-cheating on her boyfriend. She IS in a relationship with Victor, and shoudln’t be doing this and shoudl’ve just broken it off with him as it’s implied she was simply too polite to tell him she dosen’t want the kind of relationship he does. Just because your partner is an asshole it does not make it okay to cheat if you CAN break it off. She still retains some sympathy because Victor is a massive asshat and clearly dosen’t care about her, but it’s clear Aardman didn’t think the implications through on this bit. 

Victor stomps off while Gromit pulls up to stop the date and uses the sprinklers to do so. Wallace is ONCE AGAIN actually legit pissed at Gromit... granted he’s not asking WHY Gromit’s doing these things but at the same time Gromit isn’t TRYING to explain it. Though in this specific case, he dosen’t have a choice. He can LATER but right now he needs to get Wallace too. 

Unfortunately for our heroes they hit a few road blocks: a giant log in the road, without the proper hm to take care of it.. and Victor who shows up as Wallace is trying to remove the log and, in a shocking show of smarts, has his hunting dog keep Gromit inside as even someone with his head up his ass like Victor can see who the real threat is. Victor wants to beat Wallace up for “stealing” lady from him, which even if I don’t like the cheating thing... isn’t exactly how to solve this, and if she wants someone else beating the other guy up isn’t going to make her want YOU more. If you being a hypermasculine pile of orangutan cocks was something that was attractive to her in the first place why would she be going to someone like wallace?

Still the point is moot as there’s a bad moon on the rise... and thus we get our transformation sequence. And as you’d expect from Aardman, it, is, GLORIOUS. It’s horrifying, played completely straight and really would fit in a claymation horror movie, but also beautiful, easily topping some actual horror movies i’ve seen, with Wallace’s pain and slow growth hauntingly desplayed. victor is terrified as is his hound who wants in the truck with Gromit just.. giving him a slow motion head nod no in the best way possible. 

And thus we meet Were-Wallace.. and he’s naturally adorable as the real thing, and props to them for this puppet. It’s still a practical effect, though unlike the usual puppets due to it’s size parts of it are automated so they can control it remotely, something that really COUDLN’T be helped given it’s size. Still it looks fantastic. Wallace then throws the giant log.. but not at victor he just wanted to get home. Gromit speeds off, hitting his lordship on the way...

Though Victor.. has plans and goes to the Vicar to get himself prepared... to slay wallace. Yes he’s decided to MURDER the guy just for dating someone he was also dating.

The scene with him and the vicar is fucking amazing though including the classic line where the Vicar says what will take out the rabbit is...... is..... a bullet. Victor of all people has to get him to specify what kind.. which turns out to be gold. 

24 Carat to be percise. God I love that pun. 

Back at home wallace, despite having Rabbit ears now is in denial about being a rabbit monster, and Gromit is naturally annoyed with it and takes Wallace downstairs, showing that Hutch not only is still locked up.. but unleashing the HORROR that is his current form.... or rather the adorable as we get our animal sidekick for the picture. 

Turns out Hutch has become a mini wallace, wearing his sweatervest and saying pitched up old lines from past shorts and this very film. I love everything about this and have no notes. 

So Wallace finally accepts he’s become the very thing he’s been hunting and resolves to fix it, while in town at the festival turns out Wallace went on the rampage last night again, so the town wants to cancel things, which Totty is against because this is her family’s legacy. Victor offers a solution though: he’ll shoot the creature and everyone but Totty agrees.. with Totty forced to go along with it for her family name and promising the asshole to make it quick. My heart just breaks for this poor woman and given how Callous victor is about just.. ignoring how she’d feel about this and taking blatant advantage of her desperation, yeah I can’t blame her for cheating. Still don’t think it’s 100% right for personal reasons, but Victor is a monster through and through.

So that night Wallace TRIES to fix things.. but his brain is too rabbity and unfocused to access his usual genius, which makes the poor guy break down. Thankfully Hutch inherited his poppa’s genius and begins fixing the mind manipulation o matic, while Totty shows up with the bad news and her disappointment in Wallace for seemingly lying to her, when in fact he simply jumped the gun. He’s forced to shoo her off... and transforms again, once again looking amazing and with that we’ve reached our climax. 

Rabbit Rampage:

To avoid his master being shot, which for a refreshing change of pace feels earned in this film compared to “Wrong Trousers” and “Loaf and Death” as Wallace hasn’t actively done anything ot make the dog’s life worse this time and the worst he’s done, create this whole mess by turning himself into a were bun, is just as bad for him as it is for everyone else. 

So Gromit uses the rabbit puppet from earlier to fool Victor and lure wallace out.. who procedes to grab the rabbit puppet’s ass.

I.. I couldn’t end this retrospective with my brain in tact could I aardman? you just had to put in twice the horny Wallace. 

But naturally Victor tries shooting the puppet and while this allows Wallace to escape, it also leaves him amok, gives Victor free reign to toss Gromit in one of his own traps and then into his own greenhouse and then head after Wallace. 

At the fair everyone assumes Victor won and is happy about it... except Totty who understandably isn’t happy a sentient creature was snuffed out for something he coudln’t control. Things take a turn for the panic as Victor TRIES to tell the local constable the rabbit is still alive quitely.. and he procedes to shout it into a megaphone. 

So with that a panic insues as Victor tries to dispell the panic... by shooting into the air, leaving him with one bullet.  We also get a great scene with Mrs.Growbag, the customer from the begining, running off with her “baby”.. only to run into Wallace.. and then to bring Wallace right TO them. 

Thankfully Gromit arrives> While all this has been going on he’s been trying to escape only to give into despair.. only for Hutch to save him, since his voice pring also works as he has wallace’s voice just a bit squeaky, and the two team up, using Wallace’s prized melon to lure the hungry bun-man. It almost works.. until victor naturally screws things up again by shooting. He misses thankfully, but he proceeds to dig himself digger by trying to yank the golden carrot, the prize for the festival, as he’s out of golden bullets. 

He made one mistake though.. he made an ex green beret mad.. no wait no.. he made a giant hulk-like rabbit man made. That’s actually worse. Nick Park admitted he had fun with this scene as it was a reason for Wallace of all people to go on a rampage as Wallace as he attacks Victor and hurls him away

This of course looks to the crowd like he’s just hurling an innocent man protecting them aside and not a steaming bag of dicks given human form so a king kong homage insues. In order to catch up to him, wallace takes one of the coin operated plane rides at the contest, it also has alls orts of neat carnival stuff, and RIDES IT UP A BUILDING IN ORDER TO CHASE AFTER HIS MASTER. But wait, there’s more, then Victor’s hunting dog Phillip decides to give chase leading to a LITERAL DOG FIGHT IN CARNIVAL RIDE PLANES ATOP A SKYSCRAPER AND SOMETIMES IN THE ACTUAL AIR. 

It’s every bit as magical as it sounds and proves that Aardman CAN do a theatrical sized climax. We have Wallace pulling a king kong, Phillip chasing after him having stolen the carrot and put it in an elephant gun that’s on display for some reason, and Gromit trying to get to him while dog fighting ANOTHER dog. It might tie “Close Shave” for best climax in the series. 

We also get a great bit mid-dog fight where Phillip has gromit on the ropes via a bar, about to push him over when Gromit’s plane, which is coin operated runs out, so they have to stop to refill it, with Phillip even having a lovely flower pouch for his coins. It’s just.. beautiful. 

So while Gromit has the fight of his life, Wallace gets Totty alone, and eventually shows her who he is, by doing the little rabbit gesture he did at dinner I forgot to mention because this review has taken several days longer than it should've. 

So Victor comes in and tries to shoot him only for her to mentoin it’s wallace and you know, maybe don’t shoot a person.... only for Victor to let it slip he KNOWS that and wants to kill him anyway. Thankfully Totty finally comes to her senses, sprays the guy with Pansy Spray...

And dumps him.. which she shoudl’ve done earlier but hey. No time like the present. Victor isn’t deterred though and has a villianous breakdown chasing after Wallace into the fairground. 

Thankfully Gromit finishes his dogfight in time and takes the bullet, so to speak, for Wallace with his plane, saving him, winning the crowds respect for.. some reason.Wallace and Gromit fall into the cheese tent, while victor tries to gloat.. only for Lady to smack him with the reclaimed trophy.

So with all four now in the tent, Wallace seemingly dies only to be revivied by some Stinky Bishop cheese.. which is a real, actual factual brand of cheese. With that he’s saved, and they put Victor in the rabbit costume and let the mob chase him into the sunset. A fitting end for sunch an unfit wanker. 

So with that our heroes go back home and un-wallace hutch, Totty presents gromit with the award and says she can’t be with Wallace, and Wallace has a smaller portion of cheese. Huh a bit unsatisfying really, seems like it’s just a lesser version of the close shave ending.... and as the creators said Hutch was so much of a character at this point, it seemd a shame to basically kill him. Really weak stuff

Yup that was just the alternate ending to the film. The real ending has Totty give Gromit the carrot and it seem like her and Wallace are getting married.. only for it to be her and the constable them breaking up amicably and our heroes letting the buns loose on the Worchestcire border, a joke so british my yankee ass dosen’t get it. A little better.. but let’s try this one more time shall we?

Yeah as you could probably guess, this was ANOTHER unsused endings, both rejected for obvious reasons: the first not only basically killed Hutch, but was again a retread of Close Shave, intetionally so but clearly underwhelming> The second was a BIT better and they were going to pipe in audio, but they felt wasn’t nice to wallace.

So we get our real ending. We get the carrot, which Gromit damn well earned, and the wedding fake out.. but this time instead Totty has turned her manor into a bunny sanctuary. The buns are freed onto her lawn included hutch, giving them a new, safe home, Totty friends and Wallace and Totty a future at some point. I like to think the next flim happened, THEN they got together after as they were just friends during the course of that film. I mean their just cut together. 

So our heroes drive off into the sunset as we conclude this epic story.

Final Thoughts on the Film: 

This film is excellent and I hope it streams again someday so everyone can share in how awesome it is. Aardman has the rights so WHY it isn’t I have no idea. But regardless this is the finest work in their catalouge, an epic journey with great side characters, a wonderfully daft main concept in a were rab bit and using vegtables as the victims in a horror spoof and SOOOOO many jokes I couldnt’ cram them into this review without it getting tedious. If you can find this movie cheap on dvd, pick it up. It’s gorgeously animated, acted and scrpited and is Aardman’s finest work i’ve seen to date, and that’s high as praise as I can give any film. It has everything that makes the franchise work stuffed into a 90 minute magnum opus. 

Final Thoughts on the Franchise:  Well that does it for now. If it turns out I can play the game on my comptuer, or it ever comes to switch, i’ll review the telltale game at some point, and I might return someday to do the shorts and the world of invention series. But ofr now the sun has set on everyone’s faviorite british duo. 

So in rewatching the series what did I think of it? Simple.. it’s excellent. I had my issues here adn there but overall these films are STILL masterworks, some of the best short subjects ever spawned, and easily one of both Dreamworks and Aardman’s finest films with this one. The sheer mind boggling feats they can do with clay, the warm and loving humor and the utterly amazing climaxes make this series a true classic and worth revisiting if you haven’t in a while. I was happy as could be to revisit it over these past few weeks and would gladly do so again and again and again. 

So to close this out a quick ranking of the works just for funs sakes, though if you’ve been following these you can probably guess. From best to weakest...

Curse of the Were-Rabbit A Close Shave The Wrong Trousers A Grand Day Out A Matter of Loaf and Death

So with that I bid these boys a fond farewell. I do intend to return to Aardman at some point, though I can’t say for certain when as i’d have to grab most of their filmography first, but if nothing else this film made me want to grab the rest of the aardman catalouge and relive my life a bit. So look forward to that. 

As for what Kev, who made this whole thing possible’s got cookin for me next: this week I go back to the disney afternoon for the tailspin and chip n dale pilots, and then.... it’s time to face a god. After that.. it’s halloween... and I think things are going to get a bit...

Thanks for reading. 

[wallpaperpainter]

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Here are some places armchair travellers can about explore.

You won’t charge to asphyxiate yourself in beige balm to airing forth the iconic Art Deco sidewalks of Miami’s South Beach, or watch the apple go by while sipping on a Cuba Libre in Little Havana. ‘See Miami’ uses the latest webcam technology to accompany the artery activity of Florida’s best acclaimed beach in to your home.

“Over the accomplished two decades we accept gone from webcams that booty account to amend to alive alive in HD and now 4K, but the camera is the accessible part,” says Katherine Donoghue of ‘See Miami’ webcam providers EarthCam. “The ambush is befitting bags of cameras alive above platforms seamlessly. Creating reliable, able-bodied technology to address adumbration over continued periods of time in all kinds of environments is the challenge. Our cameras affection able ‘self-healing’ and analytic systems to accumulate them online and operating and we accept able-bodied basement on the backend in accumulator and datacentre technology.” Area abutting for basic travelling? “The approaching is higher-quality alive streaming, bend recording and AI-powered services,” she says.

‘See Miami’ webcams

A agriculture white rhinoceros, the alarm of a black-backed jackal, the coo of a Cape turtle dove, and a mother bobcat acquisition her cubs. The chirps, barks and roars of African wildlife are brought to the assurance of your daybed in ‘Safari for the Senses’ created by Thanda Safari, a clandestine bold reserve.

Thanda’s citizen wildlife columnist and complete recordist Christian Sperka extracted the complete from iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone Max videos supplemented by a Rode Video-Mic Me-L directional microphone. He was acquirements on the job, but the technology was not his better challenge. “The wind and the adversity in accepting abutting abundant to the animals for acceptable recordings are the bigger issue,” says Sperka, who afraid about the affiliated accident of advancing the wildlife he was recording as microphones accept far beneath ranges than camera lenses.

Listen to the carnival sounds [Warning: you adeptness charge to about-face the complete bottomward for the roars!]

If you go online at the aforementioned time as this Wiltshire wildlife allure would commonly open, you can booty a basic bout encountering tigers, cheetahs, wolves and the park’s acclaimed lions. The 30-minute adventure, anecdotal by wildlife TV presenter Kate Humble, uses a admixture of audio commentary, video footage and still images.

“We’ve accumulated the absolute Carnival Esplanade audio annotation by Kate, which visitors use back active through the park, with video footage and photos to try and carbon the absolute drive-through experience,” says James Bailey, Longleat’s business director. “The bout additionally appearance bombinate footage and video which gives admirers different new perspectives into the esplanade and its animals.”

Longleat’s carnival shows that there’s a huge appetence for online biking experiences. The aboriginal chargeless bout was watched by a over bisected a actor bodies over a three-day period, with basic tourists travelling with from as far afield as Australia, New Zealand, America, India and the United Arab Emirates. Many absitively to acquaintance the drive-through Esplanade as absolutely as possible. “Some absitively to watch it in their anchored cars,” says Bailey. “Others adapted their active apartment into mini carnival parks with beastly toys.”

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To accompany the tour, go to www.longleat.co.uk or any of Longleat’s amusing media channels at 10am on Saturdays

Thrill-seekers can creep with the adrenaline blitz of benumbed a roller coaster after any fear. On Efteling’s YouTube channel, there’s a accumulating of POV (point of view) videos filmed from the advanced carrying of the rides of this bogie account affair esplanade in Kaatsheuvel, south Holland, including baptize coaster De Vliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman) and a 360-degree appearance of double-track lath racer coaster Joris en de Draak (George and the Dragon). For the brave, there’s the Baron 1898 dive coaster, which plunges 37.5m in to a mineshaft at 90kmh. There’s additionally a beneath nail-biting airing through of the recently-opened Fabula, the 4D blur adventitious created in accord with British flat animators Aardman.

POV footage has existed back the aboriginal cameras were army in aboriginal airplanes and cars with the purpose of giving admirers the faculty of what it was like to see things aboriginal hand, through the operator’s eyes. Dick Barrymore, an aboriginal activity filmmaker, experimented with blur cameras and adverse weights army to a helmet and apparent he could ski unencumbered while capturing affecting footage of backdrop and added skiers, in aboriginal wearable technology. Numerous companies accept developed acknowledged POV designs since, from laparoscopic video accessories acclimated central the anatomy during medical procedures, to aerial tech blur and agenda cameras army to jets. Still, wearable technology continues to face challenges of adherence and affection of image.

To feel the thrill, go to Efetling’s YouTube channel

Trek through the Galapagos and attestant the islands’ agitable activity up close. Google Earth Outreach teamed up with the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galapagos National Esplanade to aftermath the online belvedere that allows visitors to apprentice about Darwin’s assignment on the islands in 1835 as if they were on an campaign themselves. His appointment was acute in the development of his access of evolution.

Image credit: c/o Lotus PR

Via 360-degree across-the-board images stitched calm and the first-person artery appearance mode, you’re taken on a modern-day mapping campaign as if you were the Victorian charlatan himself. The Galapagos are home to a ample cardinal of ancient species, including the acclaimed Giant Tortoise. You can additionally dive bottomward underwater to ascertain the islands’ abyssal life, such as the Abyssal Iguana begin boilerplate abroad in the world, through the Catlin Seaview Survey, a accurate analysis creating a baseline almanac of the world’s apricot reefs in high-resolution 360 amount across-the-board vision.

Dive bottomward and explore the Galapagos

Visit the Etihad Museum, accoutrement the history of the United Arab Emirates, aberrate through the adequate Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood or alike access through the comfortable doors of one of the city’s abundant hotels.

Dubai 360 (screenshot apparent above) is an online belvedere that offers across-the-board video and accurate agreeable of sites of absorption above the Emirati burghal accompaniment – the alone 360 city-wide basic bout in the world, with alone photographs, videos, and time-lapse panoramas. Creators Dubai Film, the aboriginal aggregation to put 8K resolution 360 videos on Youtube, acclimated the latest DSLR cameras and lenses, as able-bodied as custom fabricated rigs for all still photos, time-lapses and hyperlapses. “It was important to get the accomplished resolution possible, on boilerplate about 200-megapixel solutions, compared to Facebook’s 75 megapixels maximum, with panoramas up to 45 gigapixels,” says Michael Essey, ambassador at Dubai Film. “The bout has about 6,000 photos and dozens of 360 videos affiliated to over 32,000 hotspots. The 360 editors, with accordant coding and 360 bond capability, additionally comedy a huge role.

“The 360 VR solutions will anon become accepted accident as we abide to advance in the agenda age and we as a aggregation will either accept to acclimate or abandon into irrelevancy. Each day, new devices, new technologies and adapted software are accessible in the market. In the future, as VR goggles become added mainstream, we will eventually see Basic Reality (VR) admix with Augmented Reality (AR) for an added dimension.”

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Explore Dubai

We may be alive in isolation, but we’re befitting in blow through video conferencing platforms like Zoom, GoToMeeting and Ryver. We can additionally admit backgrounds images over the blooming awning of our laptops to beard and awning over our blowzy bedchamber offices, agreement ourselves anywhere in the world.

San Francisco Biking Association is alms seven chargeless backgrounds that can be uploaded to Zoom, including the West Bank city’s iconic celebrated cable cars and the Golden Gate Bridge. “Naturally, we ambition anybody could appointment San Francisco appropriate now, but until things change we appetite to accord bodies a way to attending like they’re accepting a about abundant time in our city,” says Joe D’Alessandro, president, San Francisco Biking Association.

Zoom’s basic accomplishments affection allows you to affectation any angel or video (including your own anniversary snaps) as a accomplishments during a meeting. It works best with a blooming awning and compatible lighting, to acquiesce Zoom to ascertain the aberration amid you and your accomplishments (if the affection is acclimated on an iPhone 8 and after models, instead of computer, no blooming awning is necessary).

Zoom backgrounds accept become a badly accepted way of travel: a contempo analysis showed that 57 per cent of users said the adeptness to change the accomplishments angel is their favourite aspect of Zoom. Times Square in New York is the best acclimated day-tripper allure accomplishments angel on Zoom, carefully followed by the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Upload the Zoom backgrounds

All you charge is a acute buzz to see the zookeepers agriculture Elvis the abyssal crocodile at the Australian Reptile Park, Sydney, or accept a adventitious to admix with marsupials at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Brisbane. Australian zoos and wildlife parks accept jumped at the adventitious to accompany online visitors abaft the scenes, creating a arrangement of alive alive into the cages, enclosures, fields and tanks area usually alone keepers are accustomed to tread. You can accompany the penguins for cafeteria at Sea Activity Sydney and try to bolt a glimpse of the snow bobcat cubs at Werribee Accessible Range Zoo (they absorb best of their time sleeping). BirdLife Australia Discovery Centre’s EagleCam has a alive beck of a citizen brace of Sydney’s white-bellied sea eagles. Citizens of the Abundant Barrier Reef, an organisation alive to bottle reefs worldwide, are alive real-time abstracts so you can clue the movements and area of tagged turtles, sharks and manta application off the Queensland coast.

Watch Australian wildlife online:

Australian Reptile Park

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

Werribee Accessible Range Zoo

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SeaLife Sydney

Great Barrier Reef

Don’t aloof watch – take allotment in accurate bounded experiences, from hula dancing to ukulele performances, above the four islands of Oahu, Maui, Kauai and Hawaii. You can alike booty a ride on a baiter as if you were sailing it yourself.

‘Hawai’I VR’ is the world’s aboriginal immersive Basic Reality acquaintance that combines interactivity with accurate live-action footage. Application boring apprehension and customised adaptable headsets, armchair travellers baddest one of the four islands afresh float down, from a aboriginal being perspective, by paraglider to get a afterpiece look. These absent adventurers authority up the two Vive controllers in advanced of them as if they were the handles of a paraglider and ascendancy the acquaintance through a brace of august hands. As they access the island, the beheld acquaintance fades in to a 360 alive activity acquaintance area calm tourists can adore Hula in Hawaii, surfing in Oahu, sailing in Kauai, and wading through the waterfalls in Maui.

“Our abrupt from the Hawaii Tourism Authority was to carriage bodies to the Hawaiian Islands and advertise the different adventures in means they never imagined. We’ve created an acquaintance that allows our consumers to be allotment of the adventure,” say Framestore Pictures, leaders in the acreage of VR, who created the app. They additionally formed on addition far-off, if fantasy, acreage for Game of Thrones.

Download Hawaii VR: Let Hawaii Happen from the App Store.

This alien nation in the North Atlantic – center amid Iceland and Norway – can now be visited in absolute time through the eyes of a bounded islander. The bounded day-tripper board’s new Alien Tourism site, the aboriginal of its kind, allows those who can’t biking to analyze the Faroes’ asperous mountains, to see close-up its bottomward waterfalls and to atom the acceptable grass-roofed houses of this Nordic nation by interacting with a Faroese, who will act as their eyes, aerial and anatomy on a basic basic tour.

The Faroese adviser is able with a alive video camera, acceptance visitors not alone to see the angle from an on-the-spot perspective, but additionally to ascendancy area and how they analyze by application a joypad to turn, walk, run and alike jump. Aloof like a real-life computer game, the capital amateur will ascendancy the moves of the guide. They can accept to analyze on foot, horseback or by kayak. They can alike go up in a helicopter to calculation the 18 islands’ 80,000 sheep, bisected as abundant afresh as the animal population. The tours run alert daily, during which time any one company can ascendancy the bout for aloof one minute, although a bottomless cardinal can watch.

At the aforementioned time, Appointment Faroe Islands day-tripper lath aggregation are on Instagram and Facebook Alive to acknowledgment any questions. Guðrið Højgaard, administrator of Appointment Faroe Islands, says, “This new belvedere enables those in abreast to booty a airing above our agrarian landscapes, to achieve a faculty of abandon and to analyze above their own four walls.” The day-tripper lath already has a acceptability for avant-garde alien tourism: Google Sheep Appearance saw sheep allowance to map the island for Google Artery View.

Sign up for a Faroe Islands tour

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