New “Arthur Christmas” teaser

By
on

This fall it’s Spielberg versus Aardman, Weta vs. Sony Animation, Tintin versus Arthur Christmas:

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  • Rat

    Wow, a rather shameless rip-off of Disney’s Prep and Landing. “Ho-Ho-Go”, ornament grenades, Mission Control and all…

    Gee…I wonder where they got the idea for elite brigades of commando elves?

    • Wile F. Coyote

      Yes, it’s not like it’s been in production for three years and Aardman aren’t normally known for copying other people. No coincideces. Not in this world. Not in movies. That said.. it’s a bit shit for Aardman innit? More Flushed Away than Creature Comforts.

      • http://www.sweetposer.tk/urbmn/ Cameron A.

        If Nick Park and/or Richard Goleszowski are directly involved in an Aardman project, that’s usually a seal of approval for me. I think Rex the Runt and Creature Comforts are underrated series.

        That said, I’m also familiar with the Aardman behind Chop Socky Chooks, Planet Sketch and Angry Kid. Arthur Christmas comes across as a generic service project for me. I like Aardman best when its projects are esoteric as all hell.

  • tommy

    Is that the guy from Ratatouille?

  • Scarabim

    I noticed the resemblance with Prep and Landing as well. But somehow, the trailer was still rather charming. I’ll probably still go see the movie, since Aardman is involved.

  • Chris Powell

    Visually, it looks like it could be a fun film and the Arthur character looks charming in his own way but the bottom line: I feel like we’ve seen all this before. Ill give Tintin a try

  • Silence Dogood

    Aw, now, it does look like a prep and landing rip-off…but it seems to be taking a different story angle here. Looks like fun.

  • Inkan1969

    Does Aardman do stop motion animation anymore?

    • http://thatfellowinthecoat.com Stefan

      Aardman has a stop-motion feature coming out next February. It’s apparently about pirates.

    • 2011 Adult

      They do both now, apparently.

    • http://wallysketches.wordpress.com/ Wouter

      Yes, a feature called ”The Pirates: Band of Misfists”.
      You can find the new trailer on youtube right now.

  • Amy

    Who in their right mind would rip off prep and landing?

  • dingle doodle

    That is some pretty poor animation with extremely generic acting choices. What happened to appealing poses, readable silhouettes and fluid motion?
    I feel insulted, they just copied the same animation onto the same 3 characters, didn’t bother to take ten minutes to clean up the knee pops, and the lipsync is just wow.

    But I guess I shouldn’t notice those things since his sweater looks so realistic. It seemed like Sony was making steady progress on every film. Surfs Up was filled with amazing acting and Cloudy was hilariously offbeat, but this looks like a giant generic step backwards. Maybe it was Aardman’s influence?

    I hope the film is better, but this trailer should be put in the Delorean and sent back to 2002 where this level of animation was acceptable.

    • matt shepherd

      it is what it is. I don’t think its a matter of blaming one side or the other.

      $ + good directing + quality animators + realistic expectations/deadlines = decent films?????

      Look who was in charge of surfs up and cloudy

      Surfs Up- Ash Brannon(Toy Story) and Chris Buck(Disney..directed Tarzan)- both accomplished ANIMATORS

      Cloudy – Phil Lord and Chris Miller(creators of Clone High..very awesome series) – talented writers?

      Arthur Xmas- Sara Smith (experience on animated films??? no) Barry Cook (Disney. accomplished EFFECTS ANIMATOR)

      See any differences between the directing core??????? I do.
      I rest my case. Channel your frustrations else where, don’t blame the artists for the look or style of the product.

      • http://markpudleiner.blogspot.com/ Pudleiner

        Barry Cook was one of the directors for Disney’s feature ‘Mulan’.

      • http://andrewatteberry.blogspot.com Andrew Lee

        He also directed a handful or Roger Rabbit shorts.

      • dingle doodle

        Oh matt shepherd, you speak the truth. the artists on this film are most certainly only responding to the specific pressures that the production puts on them. Still doesn’t change the fact that the product being shown in this trailer falls well below the current industry standards.

        as for the Directors, Barry Cook left the production in October of 2010. There has only been one extremely unqualified director for the majority of the production. Actually, the list of qualified people that left the production is quite extensive.

      • matt shepherd

        So, with Barry Cook out, that leaves just Sara Smith. Who replaced Barry Cook???

        Surfs Up- Ash Brannon and Chris Buck (Toy Story, tarzan…etc)

        Cloudy – Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Clone High..awesomeness)

        Arthur Xmas- Sara Smith

      • Amy

        Explains why surf’s up story and characters were weak–animators often don’t make the best directors.

      • Jason

        Brad Bird disagrees.

      • matt shepherd

        Who said anything about Surfs Up being weak? I personally have nothing against that film, Surfs Up, I rather enjoyed it.

        Wasn’t it nominated for an Oscar I believe, was it not?

      • Elf

        I was one of the artist that worked on this movie, quite frankly, this trailer doesn’t do the movie any justice at all. This takes place at somewhere that looks totally bland, white north pole with nothing interesting in the environment and no other important characters being introduced. Here’s how some of the scenes in the movie looks like:

        http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JSFimWF1UNg/TfU3CMD8kTI/AAAAAAAAAZE/Je7CPXvbBcE/s1600/JamesMcAvoy_arthur-christmas-still.jpg
        And the official website that shows more glimpse of other characters in the movie.
        http://www.arthurchristmas.com/site/

        And it’s a beautiful movie. However, I cannot deny that it is a difficult movie to work on. I wish Barry Cook was with us.

  • matute

    Arthur Totally looks like the guy from Ratatouille.

  • http://stringstornasunder.blogspot.com Chris Powell

    His name is Linguini!! C’mon People!! hahaha (just joking, but that is his name ha)

  • david

    at the end the panda bear roars…..the guy’s reaction is super small and stiff, kinda like an animation executive’s… JUST KIDDING. this is gonna be a hit.

    • Ronald McGoddamn Donald

      Are you sure you didn’t mean polar bear?

  • http://artnote.blog.com Stephen

    The snow is pretty crusty for Summer – Arthur leaves no footprints.

    • Sam

      Budget concern. CG Snow foot prints are expensive you know! And you know how marketing people are. ;)

  • Jason

    Yikes the animation is really rough. I guess the Sony layoffs of it’s older artists is showing some signs.

  • http://www.myspace.com/crumbcrispcoating Jonathan the Bellboy

    I’m pleased to see the North Pole has finally integrated.

    Otherwise, I’m not too interested.

  • 2011 Adult

    Yeah, Prep & Landing, yada yada we get it. Not every clever twist on the Santa myth in CG movies needs to be compared to Prep & Landing, since there is only so much you can do with it. I won’t hear the end of that now.

  • Wile F. Coyote

    Just watched this again. It really isn’t a teeny tiny bit Aardman-like is it? Could be anyone… That’s a great shame. In the UK the company has an almost ‘national treasure’ status, mostly built on Nick Park, but also a reputation for general quirky quality. This is very ordinary, very avarage and very not much like them at all.

  • wgan

    i’m expecting pirate from Aardman a lot more

    • 2011 Adult

      The trailer for that is already out on Apple trailers!

  • wgan

    and yes he’s a bit like Linguini
    just like the guy in Rio is a lot like the dad in coraline
    and just like Nicolas Marlets’ style get copied everywhere
    i have to say character designers these days have a hard time cracking everything

  • http://wingingitstudios.deviantart.com/ Alissa

    Irregardless of who’s copying or not copying, why are everyone’s eyes so dang small? Is it an attempt to make things more ‘realistic’? If it is then it’s not doing a very good job, because those beady-eyed elves freaked me out. Especially the one at 1:03. Creepy beady-eyed elf monsters throwing grenades at my face.

    However, is it creepier than the mo-cap moving corpses wearing masks in the Tintin movie? Not sure.

    The polar bear was pretty cool though; I’ll give them that.

    • Sam

      It’s their style, I guess. Because Disney already have characters with enormous pair of eyes, they decided they will go with small eyes to make themselves still look.. ORIGINAL! :-)

  • darrow

    I read Aardman have been working on this long before prep and landing came out, this and the pirate movie have been in development for about 4-5 years. co-incidences like this always seem to happen in animation.

  • http://ibbleart.com MrSib

    Here’s the trailer for Aardmans Pirates.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2011/jul/14/pirates-animation-hugh-grant

    Looks Brilliant.

  • Wile F. Coyote
  • http://www.okgrillo.blogspot.com Oscar Grillo

    Isn’t the character in the opening shot “mo-capped”?

  • http://dana-draws.blogspot.com Dana T

    20 seconds through: Tin Tin already looks better.

    • snip2346

      What?!

      These characters are already more expressive than the ones in Tin Tin!

  • Metallicfire

    Just a note, the joke of Arthur Christmas being the son of Father Christmas is completely lost to us in the states.

  • Michel Van

    I Hope there more british Humor in final Movie
    as in This “not a Disney” Trailer by Aardman

  • http://zeteos.blogspot.com/ mick

    my pal worked on this and he is a complete genius so there will probably be some reall really marvellous bits in there