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Subtitle: Of Sheep and Men
“[Harold’s] that most dangerous of animals, a clever sheep. He's the ring-leader.”—Eric Idle, Monty Python’s Flying Circus
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”—George Orwell
In the world of Aardman Animations, the life of a sheep is not an easy one: torn from bed at sunrise of each day, fed nothing but a few scraps of corn, marched off to the paddock under guard by a snarling dog, locked in a drafty barn again at the end of the day -- and occasionally sheared for the wool on your back, with no compensation for your labor. It’s exactly the kind of “boot stamping on a human face -- forever" world that Orwell imagined in his nightmares. This is hardly surprising, as Shaun the Sheep comes to us from the studio that brought you Chicken Run, a Swedish-cinema-noir-bleak study of man’s inhumanity to man, with the lecture delivered by using The Great Escape to draw parallels between the fate of innocent chickens destined for the meat pie factory with that of men imprisoned by the Germans during World War II. This is not your grandfather’s children’s movie.
Ahem.
Just kidding.
As anyone who’s ever seen one of the Wallace and Grommit shows knows, Aardman Animations has a unique gift for telling gentle, funny, heartwarming stories that are as much a pleasure for adults as for kids. You tend to leave the cinema with a big-ass grin on your face, and Shaun is no exception.
Plot synopsis: Shaun, our protagonist, has grown bored with the daily grind, and being that most dangerous of animals, a clever sheep, decides to break the mold. With the help of his woolly partners in crime, he tricks the farmer into falling asleep on the job (by having the herd run past his eyes, then behind his back repeatedly, so that the poor farmer finds himself counting sheep* ad infinitum). Once the farmer’s snoring, they place him in the cot of his camping trailer, draw the window shades, and enter the house for a day of recreation, planning to make popcorn and pizza, drink martinis (made from a bouquet of flowers), and watch videos on TV. Unfortunately, the trailer hasn’t been properly secured, and rolls downhill into The Big City, bearing the unwitting farmer. Plot complications ensue, starting with the farmer’s three pigs taking over the house (“While the sheep’s away, the pigs will play”?) and really getting going when the trailer comes to a halt, followed by the farmer emerging and getting bonked on the head, thereby losing his memory and ending up in the hospital. When freedom loses some of its attraction for the sheep, they sneak into town to mount a rescue operation.
* The level of background detail is phenomenal, since Aardman really pays attention to the minutiae that give a story three-dimensionality and a sense of being real. In addition to the “counting sheep to fall asleep” joke and the fact that little pigs come inevitably in threes, there are dozens of small visual or other jokes along the way. These include the four sheep, camouflaged as humans using stolen clothing, crossing the street in an hommage to the iconic Abbey Road Beatles album image; a signboard for The Big City that lists its sister cities as La Grande Ville, Grossestadt, and Gran Ciudad; a poke or three at the fashion-conscious and trendy; the sheep, being sheep, not knowing human social conventions for restaurants and playing the innocents abroad by emulating the behavior of those around them; a hilarious poke at prison films (including the scene in every cowboy movie ever in which someone busts the hero or villain out of jail); a QR code that went by too fast to capture but that turns out to be an easter egg; and the very-meta road sign labeled “Convenient Quarry” which leads up to the climatic and terrifying (at least, for a couple 5-year-olds in the audience) confrontation with the villain of the story. My favorite was the “baabaashop quintet” pun. For a possibly complete list, see Luisa Mellor's list on the Den of Geek! site. Honestly, how do people spot all these things?
It’s all good spirited fun, with nobody getting seriously hurt**, no foul language (other than some fowl language from the rooster), clever animation that uses facial expressions and other clues rather than actual words to convey almost all of the dialogue, and a sheer generosity of spirit that will leave you grinning like a fool. Do stay to the end of the credits for yet another easter egg.
** However, in a sinister but possibly unintended touch, there didn’t seem to be any statement that “no animals were harmed during the production of this film”, despite a solicitious note that brain injuries such as the one suffered by the farmer are potentially very serious, accompanied by a link to the Headway Brain Injury Association Web site.
For the official trailer and several other goodies, visit the official Shaun the Sheep Web site.
“[Harold’s] that most dangerous of animals, a clever sheep. He's the ring-leader.”—Eric Idle, Monty Python’s Flying Circus
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”—George Orwell
In the world of Aardman Animations, the life of a sheep is not an easy one: torn from bed at sunrise of each day, fed nothing but a few scraps of corn, marched off to the paddock under guard by a snarling dog, locked in a drafty barn again at the end of the day -- and occasionally sheared for the wool on your back, with no compensation for your labor. It’s exactly the kind of “boot stamping on a human face -- forever" world that Orwell imagined in his nightmares. This is hardly surprising, as Shaun the Sheep comes to us from the studio that brought you Chicken Run, a Swedish-cinema-noir-bleak study of man’s inhumanity to man, with the lecture delivered by using The Great Escape to draw parallels between the fate of innocent chickens destined for the meat pie factory with that of men imprisoned by the Germans during World War II. This is not your grandfather’s children’s movie.
Ahem.
Just kidding.
As anyone who’s ever seen one of the Wallace and Grommit shows knows, Aardman Animations has a unique gift for telling gentle, funny, heartwarming stories that are as much a pleasure for adults as for kids. You tend to leave the cinema with a big-ass grin on your face, and Shaun is no exception.
Plot synopsis: Shaun, our protagonist, has grown bored with the daily grind, and being that most dangerous of animals, a clever sheep, decides to break the mold. With the help of his woolly partners in crime, he tricks the farmer into falling asleep on the job (by having the herd run past his eyes, then behind his back repeatedly, so that the poor farmer finds himself counting sheep* ad infinitum). Once the farmer’s snoring, they place him in the cot of his camping trailer, draw the window shades, and enter the house for a day of recreation, planning to make popcorn and pizza, drink martinis (made from a bouquet of flowers), and watch videos on TV. Unfortunately, the trailer hasn’t been properly secured, and rolls downhill into The Big City, bearing the unwitting farmer. Plot complications ensue, starting with the farmer’s three pigs taking over the house (“While the sheep’s away, the pigs will play”?) and really getting going when the trailer comes to a halt, followed by the farmer emerging and getting bonked on the head, thereby losing his memory and ending up in the hospital. When freedom loses some of its attraction for the sheep, they sneak into town to mount a rescue operation.
* The level of background detail is phenomenal, since Aardman really pays attention to the minutiae that give a story three-dimensionality and a sense of being real. In addition to the “counting sheep to fall asleep” joke and the fact that little pigs come inevitably in threes, there are dozens of small visual or other jokes along the way. These include the four sheep, camouflaged as humans using stolen clothing, crossing the street in an hommage to the iconic Abbey Road Beatles album image; a signboard for The Big City that lists its sister cities as La Grande Ville, Grossestadt, and Gran Ciudad; a poke or three at the fashion-conscious and trendy; the sheep, being sheep, not knowing human social conventions for restaurants and playing the innocents abroad by emulating the behavior of those around them; a hilarious poke at prison films (including the scene in every cowboy movie ever in which someone busts the hero or villain out of jail); a QR code that went by too fast to capture but that turns out to be an easter egg; and the very-meta road sign labeled “Convenient Quarry” which leads up to the climatic and terrifying (at least, for a couple 5-year-olds in the audience) confrontation with the villain of the story. My favorite was the “baabaashop quintet” pun. For a possibly complete list, see Luisa Mellor's list on the Den of Geek! site. Honestly, how do people spot all these things?
It’s all good spirited fun, with nobody getting seriously hurt**, no foul language (other than some fowl language from the rooster), clever animation that uses facial expressions and other clues rather than actual words to convey almost all of the dialogue, and a sheer generosity of spirit that will leave you grinning like a fool. Do stay to the end of the credits for yet another easter egg.
** However, in a sinister but possibly unintended touch, there didn’t seem to be any statement that “no animals were harmed during the production of this film”, despite a solicitious note that brain injuries such as the one suffered by the farmer are potentially very serious, accompanied by a link to the Headway Brain Injury Association Web site.
For the official trailer and several other goodies, visit the official Shaun the Sheep Web site.