Wallace and Gromit Are Back

Wallace and Gromit are unlikely heroes: a not-very-good amateur inventor from the north of England and his long-suffering dog. But they have won hearts and minds all over the world since their first appearance in 1989 and now they are back in their second feature film: Vengeance Most Fowl. They have to face an old enemy: the penguin Feathers McGraw last seen in The Wrong Trousers (1993).

Wallace and Gromit were created by Nick Park as his film school final project. He wasn't able to finish his short film before graduating, but it impressed Aardman Animations enough to give him a job as an animator. He carried on working on the film, A Grand Day Out, which was released in 1989. It was nominated for the best animated short Oscar, losing to another Park-directed film, Creature Comforts.

Two more Wallace and Gromit shorts, The Wrong Trousers (1993) and A Close Shave (1995), followed, both winning Oscars.

The first feature film with the pair, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, was released on October 5, 2005, winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar at the 29th Annual Awards.

In Vengeance Most Fowl, Wallace has decided to create a "smart gnome" to help Gromit with gardening and other tasks. But when Norbot seems to develop a mind of his own, Wallace and Gromit wonder if he's been hacked. And if so, who is responsible?

Wallace and Gromit, like most of Park's and Aardman's work, is stop-motion animation using puppets made mainly from modelling clay. (Which is why the technique is also called claymation.) It's incredibly painstaking. The puppets and props have to be moved a tiny amount for each frame of film to create the illusion of movement: between 12 and 24 times per second of film. An animator usually produces just 4.2 seconds of film in a week. Even with 30 animators using multiple sets, that's only just over 2 minutes a week, 127 seconds.

Wallace and Gromit have always been archetypically English, or more specifically from Lancashire, Parks' home county (keep your eyes peeled for little visual jokes about the Lancashire-Yorkshire rivalry). Wallace loves nothing more than a nice cup of tea and a slice of Wensleydale cheese on a cracker. This film was produced by Netflix and Parks said they had to explain some of the northern English expressions in the script to the production team, but there are still plenty in there. Wallace isn't going all Hollywood any time soon!

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl is available on Netflix.