“Wallace & Gromit” are back and this time they are better than ever. After a long break, directors Nick Park and Steve Box along with Dreamworks Productions are finally back with “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.” With its official release coming up on Oct. 7, audiences everywhere are going to be thrilled. In their first full-length feature film, Wallace & Gromit run a pest control company called Anti- Pesto and it is their job to keep the rabbit problem under control because the Giant Vegetable Competition is only days away. When Wallace (Peter Sallis) tries out an experiment to make the rabbits stop eating the community vegetables and it goes extremely wrong, they have to deal with their biggest pest yet: the wererabbit, which destroys all things vegetable once the moon is out at night. There is no stopping him. Joined by other crazy characters voiced by Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes, the audience is in for a hilarious and wild ride. This movie was incredibly well-made, using stop frame animation and clay (also known as plasticine) for the characters. According to director Nick Park, “It takes two or three days to do a three, four or five second shot.” One can only imagine how long a fulllength feature film would take.
Today there are so many different types of animation that are available and so there are also many ways that an animated film could be done faster than with stop-frame animation. When asked why he chose this type of animation, Park simply replied, “I certainly find it right for me. I am a big admirer of what is going on. I thought “Madagascar” had a good look to it… I am not on a quest to keep this kind of animation. But it’s just right for me. I love it.”
Park’s first “Wallace & Gromit” films originally came out in the late ’80s early ’90s and definitely had a different feel to them. Park said that it took so long for this full-length feature to come out because, “I think since we’ve had a certain success with these shorts. I was slightly cautious in a way. Sometimes something is successful because it’s short. Having a longer story with more characters was a bit of a challenge, really.” Park has a five picture deal with Dreamworks Productions, so fans everywhere can probably expect to see more from this amazingly talented director.
Park stated, “I can’t stop coming up with “Wallace & Gromit” ideas. I have them all the time. And now that they’re established as well, they almost write their own stories. I can put them in almost any situation and they’ll sort of find their way.