Tim here. If it’s possible for a little boutique studio with the most self-selecting audience imaginable to engage in a “media blitz” Aardman Animations (creators of Chicken Run and the Wallace & Gromit shorts) is having a very media-blitz sort of a day.
First, they’ve released the first image from Early Man, director Nick Park’s upcoming caveman adventure that’s currently pre-selling distribution rights at Cannes (it will be Park’s first directorial effort since the Oscar-nominated 2008 short A Matter of Loaf and Death; I imagine that I’m not alone in finding his return to filmmaking something of a religious event).
Next up, Lionsgate has released the poster and trailer for their release of Aardman’s impending feature, Shaun the Sheep Movie (yes, that’s its actual, grammatically disastrous title). After the jump we break the trailer down using TFE's famed and authoritative Yes No Maybe So system.
Yes
- New Aardman picture. We can be sophisticated about this, but let’s not. New Aardman picture.
- If, like me, you regard Aardman’s greatest achievement to date to be the beleaguered, unspeaking dog Gromit, the promise of a whole film full of silent quadrupedal animals who communicate exclusively in sarcastic reaction shots feels like paradise.
- This guy is set to be the cutest thing in a feature film this year:
No
- “Shaun the sheep... and his flock... know every trick” is the kind of trailer voice-over that sounds more like a parody than an actual good-faith attempt to sell a motion picture that anybody would be interested in seeing.
- A Hannibal Lecter parody in a children’s movie released in 2015? That’s a bold choice.
- And, of course, the evergreen “it looks like the giant fake animal is crapping out a man” sight gag
Maybe So
- Important to remember: this is a kids’ film, in the very strictest sense. It’s hard to tell from an ad what the “feel” of the movie is going to be, or whether there’s going to be anything for grown-ups to latch onto. Given Aardman’s track record, it’s easy to be optimistic, but from here it’s tough to tell.
Are you a Yes, a No, or a Maybe So? I'm such an easy "Yes" it's not funny. Again, it's an Aardman picture.