Wallace and Gromit Creators on ‘Vengeance Most Fowl,’ AI in Art

After nearly 20 years, the bumbling, cheese-loving inventor Wallace and his long-suffering dog Gromit are back. Nick Park‘s beloved claymation creations, introduced to the world in his 1989 Oscar-nominated short A Grand Day Out, return for their first outing since the 2008 short A Matter of Loaf and Death and only their second-ever feature-length film, following 2005’s Oscar-winning The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

The new feature, punningly titled Wallace & Gromit: Vengence Most Fowl, is a direct sequel to Park’s 1993 short The Wrong Trousers, which introduced the dastardly diamond-stealing penguin Feathers McGraw, a master thief and a master of disguise (he pulls a rubber glove over his head and pretends to be a chicken, fooling everyone but the sharp-eyed Gromit). Co-directed with Merlin Crossingham, who worked as an animator on Were-Rabbit, Vengence Most Fowl sees Wallace taking technology dependence a step too far. When Norbot, his A.I.-powered “smart gnome,” goes rogue, moving from gardening to grand larceny, it’s clear sinister forces are at work and it will be up to Gromit to save his master. Yet again.

Vengence Most Fowl is the first Wallace & Gromit film from Park’s Aardman Animation made under its 2019 production deal with Netflix and follows its Shaun the Sheep movie Farmageddon in 2019 and last year’s Chicken Run sequel, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget. It has it world premiere Sunday in Los Angeles and will debut on the BBC Christmas Day in Britain and on Netflix worldwide on Jan. 3.

Speaking exclusively to The Hollywood Reporter, Park and Crossingham talk A.I. vs claymation, the return of Feathers McGraw, and whatever the heck a “flipping Nora” is. The following interview was edited for length and comprehension.

Why did you want to return to Wallace & Gromit after more than 15 years and when did you know this film would be a feature, and not another half-hour special?

Nick Park We’d been kicking around the idea at least since Curse of the Were-Rabbit that Wallace invents a smart gnome, a robot gnome, out of the kindness of his heart, to help Gromit with his garden chores, but with complete insensitivity to what Gromit wants or needs. We went with that idea for quite a while, thinking it would be another half-hour TV special. Then we suddenly got that idea of having some sinister force that made the machines go wrong and it seemed a great idea if Feathers were behind all this. It was a great opportunity to bring him back. What could be more perfect and more personal as a sinister motive than the guy who they locked up in the zoo 30 years ago seeking vengeance?

Merlin Crossingham At that point, it became clear the story needed to expand and be bigger. And so it outgrew the half-hour format. Everyone understood it needed to be a feature.

Has there been a lot of fan demand to bring back Feathers McGraw?

Nick Park We recently discovered how much the fans really love Feathers. Many people have suggested bringing him back over the years, but there never seemed a good enough reason or context to do so, without feeling we were exploiting it.

Merlin Crossingham But we found out doing releases in the run-up during production how enthusiastic our fans were about Feather’s return.

Nick Park It’s been like a double whammy. It was: “Wow, Wallace & Gromit are back” and then it was “Feathers McGraw is back! That’s my childhood.”

How many bad puns did you go through before you landed on Vengence Most Fowl for the title?

Nick Park A lot. Many, many, shamelessly bad puns. But none had the teeth that we wanted or felt relevant until we knew it was going to be more of a revenge movie. Then it fell into place.

Wallace & Gromit is British from the bottom up, but this is a Netflix film that will be going around the world simultaneously. Did you get any notes from the Netflix folks to turn down the British? And are there anything jokes folk outside of Britain won’t catch?

Nick Park First of all, it’s been great with Netflix. They’ve been great partners from the beginning and have recognized, as you say, how British this is from the bottom up. There might have been one or two British phrases that some didn’t quite understand…

Merlin Crossingham I remember a note about “Flipping ‘Nora.” There is a scene where Chief Inspector Macintosh is on the top of the bridge, and he says “Flipping Nora!.” We got a call: “What’s a flipping Nora?” And we were like, “Well, it’s just a sort of gentle expression of surprise.”

But the film is so hot off the press, we haven’t seen it with an audience yet, When it premieres [at the AFI on Sunday] it will be the first time we will watch it together with an audience. There’ll be some British people in the audience, but most are going to be an American. So we’re curious to see what jokes land or even register.

Nick Park We couldn’t make a version for America and a version for Britain, but there were moments like when Chief Inspector Macintosh opens the safe in the museum, and the combination is 999 [Britain’s emergency response number]. We were thinking, should we make it 911 for America? But we decided to stay true to ourselves, even if it means that gag won’t get a laugh in this country.

But the film is going out first on the BBC?

Merlin Crossingham Yes, on Christmas Day on BBC One.

Nick Park That was something we were really happy about because the home of Wallace and Gromit has always been the BBC. And Netflix was happy to agree to it.

Like any good Wallace & Gromit film, this movie is packed with movie quotes. What are some of your personal favorites?

Nick Park We like to have fun with that, and we like to make classic references, to not be referencing modern culture too much. Village of the Damned is in there. The Midwich Cuckoos in the way the children walk through the streets and kind of turn in unison. Cape Fear is a big one. The Italian Job in the final scene on the aqueduct. One of the barges is called the Accrington Queen. Accrington is a town in northern England, but of course, that’s a reference to The African Queen, one of the movies I grew up watching with my dad.

How much has changed in terms of technology since the last Wallace and Gromit film and has it changed how you made this movie?

Merlin Crossingham The core technique is exactly the same. We use little puppets on small stages like a mini-studio environment. The core craft technique of stop motion is the same as it ever was. But the support structure around it has definitely evolved. When we started we were shooting in 35 mm, which doesn’t limit your vision but changes the way you execute your vision. Now we shoot in digital, which can make things faster.

Nick Park Since A Matter of Loaf and Death we’ve been shooting only on digital cameras, which really helps when a shot goes wrong, you more easily fix something. Compositing is something that’s more easily available now. If an animation goes wrong, you can more readily edit and speed up little bits of movement using the digital technology. Sometimes you can almost reshoot it. The whole chase scene at the end, with all the water effects, would have been a nightmare 20 years ago.

Merlin Crossingham Even five years ago, I’d say. CGI water has been around for quite a while, but its been a real advancement to make it look right for our film, to be able to mold it so it doesn’t look real, like in a live-action movie, so it’s more chunky, with clay textures.

But a lot of the biggest advances have actually been in things like material technologies, not digital technologies. So Wallace’s sleeves used to be made out of modeling clay, and we still do use modeling clay for their faces and hands, but now we can use silicone. Just a few years ago, you could either make silicone look good but it wouldn’t move correctly, or you could make it move correctly, but it wouldn’t look good. Now there are silicones that can do both. Which means that the animators don’t have to constantly sculpt the clay. It speeds the animation up. It’s the difference between them doing maybe half a second or one second a day, it can double the speed of their work.

The theme of this film, and I would say the theme of the entire Wallace and Gromit saga has been this tug between the promise and threat of technology, though here there is a direct reference to A.I. Can I ask your personal feelings towards the use of A.I. in cinema?

Nick Park It’s hard to talk about it, because there are obviously many benefits, in the medical world, for example, in being able to identify tumors or benefits I couldn’t even imagine. But we are a bit suspicious is its use in the creative industries.

Merlin Crossingham We should be very clear that we haven’t, and we wouldn’t use A.I. as part of our creative process, because we believe in the human touch. It comes down even to the aesthetic itself. In our films, you can see the thumbprints, and that’s really important to us.

Nick Park The authenticity is so key to the charm and to the humor. I have to question whether an A.I. computer will ever come up with a joke, will it ever come up with charm, will it understand what absurdity is, or irony?

Merlin Crossingham At the speed at which things are moving, I don’t know what will happen with all these technologies. But my personal view is that there will be people out there who make wonderful art with A.I. and all power to them. If it’s original. The thing I am not a fan of is art or creativity that’s used by essentially plagiarizing other people, that’s is not getting my support.

Nick Park I feel there’s something deeply human that we could be giving up with this rush to A.I. When we are talking about creativity, whether it’s writing or designing or whatever, there may be ways it could be helpful, but I think we should be very wary.

Merlin Crossingham The biggest benefit of A.I. in his film was it gave us an excuse to get Wallace to say “(H)A.I. lad!”

You have mildly updated the sort of aesthetics of Wallace & Gromit in this film though, haven’t you? It’s not quite modern but there is some computer technology in here, not 2020s technology but maybe 1980s.

Nick Park There’s been a natural evolution that’s happened throughout the films where the characters have slightly changed their shape, becoming friendly and rounder. But I think we deliberately contradict modern technology, to keep that original, handmade charm, to keep the thumbprints, almost as a rebellion against the modern age.

Merlin Crossingham We try to make the time non-specific. It’s a time gone by. You are right about the computing. Wallace’s computers are old magnetic tape computers but he’s got a monitor with a keyboard since we needed a computer interface. We talked about it quite a lot. We felt tablets wouldn’t be appropriate because that’s too contemporary. So the monitor from the 80s has got rivets on it, it looks slightly steampunk.

Nick Park A smartphone wouldn’t work. It’s too simple, square and flat.

Merlin Crossingham We were going to give Wallace a mobile phone at one point, but it was going to be an old-fashioned, rotary telephone mounted on a small steam engine.

How do you feel that these characters and their relationship have evolved over these past decades?

Nick Park It is pretty much the same as it always has been. You know, Wallace being insensitive, well-meaning, but insensitive. And Gromit is his long-suffering, put-upon dog. But they both would do anything to help each other in the end. It’s a kind of a very human, very family kind of relationship.

Merlin Crossingham This film actually has the biggest emotional arc and the biggest wedge that we’ve ever put between these characters because Gromit starts to question whether Wallace should keep inventing.

Nick Park And we’ve given Wallace more of an arc than we’ve ever had before. Normally he doesn’t learn anything. He’s a blank page. It’s Gromit that has to come to terms with him. In Were-Rabbit, Gromit tries to change him and finally realizes he can’t. But in this film, Wallace actually realizes that his obsession with inventing, technology, is hurting Gromit.

Merlin Crossingham It’s very new territory. It’s an emotional roller coaster. A very British emotional roller coaster. So quite calm. A pink knuckle ride, if you will.

It seems selfish to ask, after getting a chance to revisit this world after so long, but can we hope for a sequel in the near future?

Merlin Crossingham Give us a minute! We’ve only just finished this one. Literally we saw the final film last week. We did the final grade and mix last Thursday. Now we’ve flown to Los Angeles for the premiere. We’re still a bit in shell shock.

Nick Park After we’ve had a little lie down, maybe a week or two, we can talk. But no, I mean Wallace and Gromit are like old friends. They’re always available. Personally, I can’t stop thinking of new Wallace and Gromit ideas.