Shaun The Sheep - The Movie [DVD] [2015]

What a surprise to see this on blu ray from the UK. We here in the US have been waiting sooo long for this sleeper hit to hit the cinemas (finally opened August 5, 2015) so I broke down and bought this region B blu ray. How excited I was to be able to see this funny movie after seeing the trailer so often. We do not get great films like this here in the states (we are too busy producing sequels and remakes) and I am hoping it makes money for these guys because I want to see more exploits with Shaun and his flock (love the baby!). Kids will be excited by it as the older folks will try to catch all the film references in this movie. After seeing this movie I learned that Shaun the Sheep has a series in the UK. I have since located many on Amazon (US) Instant Streaming.As far as the quality of this Studio Canal blu ray, it looks and sounds marvelous! The 1080p image is nice a crisp with plenty of color and detail. The audio must be switched to play the awesome (and full of bass) lossless DTS-HD 5.1 track. There are a few special features that I have not made it through because I keep watching this short (under 90 minutes) movie over and over again. Making me feel (and laugh) like a kid again (and I am in my 50s). Great purchase of a great movie!! Love Shaun the Sheep!

It is so rare that the movie version of a TV program lives up to expectations. The tendency is so often to try too hard or to stretch a story beyond snapping point. I am very happy to say that this is most definitely not the case for 'Shaun The Sheep' Movie. This is epic. This could quite possibly be the best thing Aardman have done so far. The jokes are all new & original. The story is fresh. There is no rehashing of previously over-used ideas or story lines. As with the TV episodes, there is no dialogue, so everything is universally understandable. This is one of those films that you can watch over & over again. We had already seen the film three times before we even bought the DVD. The first time was at a cinema in Sweden. Language is not a barrier. If you were only going to buy one film this year, I don't think you could do better than buying this one.

SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE [2015] [Blu-ray] A Baa-rilliant Family Adventure! Aardman At Their Best! Genuinely Perfect!When Shaun decides to take the day off and have some fun, he gets a little more action than he bargained for! Shaun’s mischief inadvertently leads to The Farmer being taken away from the farm, to the City . . .Join Shaun, Bitzer and The Flock on their hilarious, action-packed, big screen adventure as they make plans to rescue the missing Farmer. Aardman Animation, the creators of ‘Wallace & Gromit’ and ‘Chicken Run,’ brings you ‘Shaun The Sheep Movie.’Voice Cast: Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes, Omid Djalili, Richard Webber, Kate Harbour, Tim Hands, Andy Nyman, Simon Greenall, Emma Tate, Jack Paulson, Sean Connolly, Henry Burton, Dhimant Vyas, Sophie Laughton, Nia Medi James, Stanley Unwin (archive footage) and Nick Park (Himself) (uncredited)Directors: Mark Burton and Richard StarzakProducers: Alicia Gold, Carla Shelley, David Sproxton, Julie Lockhart, Kerry Lock, Nick Park, Olivier Courson, Paul Kewley, Peter Lord, Ron Halpern and Sean ClarkeScreenplay: Mark Burton, Richard Starzak and Nick Park (characters created by)Composer: Ilan EshkeriCinematography: Charles Copping and Dave Alex RiddettVideo Resolution: 1080pAspect Ratio: 1.85:1Audio: English: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, English: 2.0 LPCM Stereo Audio and English: 2.0 Audio DescriptionsSubtitles: English HOH /SDHRunning Time: 85 minutesRegion: Region B/2Number of discs: 1Studio: STUDIOCANAL / Aardman AnimationAndrew’s Blu-ray Review: The big screen debut of Aardman Animations beloved TV character is a gloriously crackpot, silent comedy wonder. Everything is sheep shape in this cleverly off-kilter big-screen debut for Aardman Animations lovable farmyard adventurer. Only Aardman Animations, the British creators of Wallace & Gromit, Morph and other lovable “Claymation” moulded characters, could find an irresistible film in industrial amounts of clay and a story of an amnesiac farmer and his flock at loose in the big city.Conventional wisdom may have it that sheep are supposedly the dumbest of all livestock, but the woolly ones’ wits get a collective sharpening in ‘Shaun the Sheep Movie,’ a sweet-natured but cleverly off-kilter feature-length debut for Aardman Animations plucky farmyard hero. Retaining the gentle, non-verbal comedy and daffy sight gags of the popular stop-motion TV series which itself is a loose spinoff from Aardman Animations cherished “Wallace and Gromit” franchise. Here we find Shaun and his flock on an urban “day out” escapade that is more expansive than their usual short-form animation on TV.Originally introduced 20 years ago in the Oscar-winning Wallace and Gromit outing in ‘A Close Shave,’ but here the diminutive sheep Shaun has since headlined more than 100 miniature adventures for the small screen, each one cramming a complex degree of farce into a seven-minute running time, before returning affairs to a rustic status quo. In devising a feature narrative 12 times the length of any single episode, writer-directors Mark Burton and Richard Starzak have wisely kept a number of the series formal restrictions intact. Most cannily and crucially, the film remains dialogue-free, with the animals communicating solely through expression and gesture, while for example the human characters in something like the “Peanuts” franchise films and specials, that speak in unintelligible stupid gibberish.The film opens with a tightly rhythmic montage and shot Super 8-style, illustrating the cheery daily grind at Mossy Bottom Farm, where the flock is tended by a balding, nameless human farmer and his bright, put-upon sheepdog Bitzer. As in every episode, the animals seek an escape from the mundane demands of farm labour, this time ingeniously sending the farmer to sleep via a live chain of fence-jumping. The snowballing sequence of mischief that follows sees him accidentally transported to the big city (London in all but name) and losing his memory.Naturally, it’s Shaun and his bleating entourage, ranging from super-sized ewe Shirley to helpless lamb Timmy to the rescue, though it’s not long before they require rescuing themselves, with their arrival in town triggering unwanted attention from animal containment services. By way of apparent homage, the pic is a happy reminder that the critical rehabilitation of ‘Babe: Pig in the City’ is complete. Meanwhile, their amnesia-afflicted master The Farmer has stumbled into an unlikely new career as a celebrity barber to moneyed urbanites: The current vogue for severely undercut hairstyles isn’t a world away from sheep-shearing, after all. Complete with jabs at social-media marketing, this is one of the film’s few extended jokes likely to go over the collective heads of very young adults, but it’s the kind of absurdly exaggerated everyday detail and complete with the repurposing of familiar gadgetry, on which Aardman Animations comic brand is built upon. Other in-built games for adults include spotting various throwaway references to considerably less family-oriented films, like ‘The Night of the Hunter’ and Scorsese’s ‘Cape Fear’ included.The animation itself is pleasingly tactile and hand-posed, up to Aardman Animations usual high standards. If anything, the expressivity of the human characters impresses more than the animals', a reverse of the usual state of affairs in most animation. The backgrounds are richly detailed, peppered by the company's trademark shop-sign puns, while an impressive cast of extras wanders about in the street scenes. Visually, it all feels very much of a piece with the old-school, old-fashioned worldview that's part of Aardman Animations signature style, and the film is still an absolute delight in terms of set and character design, with sophisticated blink-and-you’ll-miss-it detailing to counterbalance the franchise’s cruder visual trademarks. For example, every sheep’s mouth still emerges sporadically from the side of its face; no wonder they never speak. Production designer Matt Perry deftly evokes the shifting, half-gentrified streetscape of London without resorting to obvious landmarks. Composer Ilan Eshkeri, taking a breather from scoring the more solemn likes of ‘Still Alice’ and ‘The Invisible Woman,’ contributes suitably jangly accompaniment, though assorted pop contributions on the soundtrack don’t quite mesh with the wordless story world at hand. But an exception to the rule of course, is the Vic Reeves sung theme tune, here given a rascally makeover by British hip-hop duo, featuring tunes by Eliza Doolittle and Rizzle Kicks.In a wider sense, as well as the more specific one of Shaun originating as a ‘Wrong Trousers’ spin-off, this film represents Aardman Animations return to Wallace-and-Gromit of old style favourites, and a consolidation of the seemingly homespun wistfulness that the company clearly does so well. It’s just that when we settle down with some “Claymation” animal human shenanigans, finds ourselves marvelling at some intricately constructed contraption, or is momentarily diverted by a snicker-worthy shop sign; it’s the cinematic equivalent of the perfect cup of tea. But the amber glow of nostalgia doesn’t induce backward-looking sentiment on the part of Aardman Animations vision of contemporary England is generous, because it is inclusive and a very fast-moving film about a smart-alec sheep can allow itself such grandiose ambitions and is genuinely inspiring.‘Shaun the Sheep Movie,’ incidentally, marks the first collaboration between STUDIOCANAL and Aardman Animations, whose past couple of features were financed and distributed by Sony. Although the deal was initially made as a one-off, it’s not hard to imagine a film franchise emerging from this happy new pairing; the baa, as it were, has been set high.Blu-ray Video Quality – STUDIOCANAL and Aardman Animations, presents a fantastic theatrically 1.85:1 aspect ratio and a brilliant awesome 1080p sparkling image, but as stated in only available Region B/2 code, especially for people in North America who is keen to purchase this brilliant Blu-ray disc. Shot digitally and in the “Claymation” stop motion filming, the detail is totally incredible and really reveals how intricate the models and sets are. The characters themselves are extremely well made, the wool of the sheep, the patterns on the clothing and facial expressions, eyes and water for example. The sets are just sublime, from brickwork to foliage, from road paintings to muddy tracks, from caravan interiors to open fields; which makes everything look pin sharp and textured. The colours are just brilliantly good, especially all the primaries colours coming off really well and notably the reds are bold, greens are lush and blues really cool. Digitally there were no compression problems or any edge enhancement, no smearing, or banding and being digital, there are no print issues either, so all in all it has a totally excellent picture image quality.Blu-ray Audio Quality – You have mainly two excellent audio choices, which consist of 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio surround sound mix or the 2.0 LPCM Stereo Audio, but of course it is best advice is to stick with surround sound mix. The surround sound mix is totally brilliantly and fantastic, especially with all the action where everything matches what you view of the screen action exactly matches the surround field, so making it totally stunning. Stereo effects comes thick and fast, especially with the sheep moving across the screen to wide open areas of the city scape, buses, cars, motorcycles and crowd chatter providing just some of the effects. There is no dialogue to the film, but the various noises that the characters make are quite natural sounding and are given plenty of directionality when called for. The music score is of the very high standard in the mix and gets some very wide separation, so making full use of the surround speakers, which is in near on constant use for ambient effects. Bass is very well integrated into the mix, and there are a few nice low frequency effects, but it never really goes subterranean, not that it needed to. On the whole this is a totally and very satisfying sound track.Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:Special Feature: Behind The Scenes [2015] [1080p] [1.78:1] [12:14] With this special feature, you will see it is split up into different sections and they are SCRIPT; STORY; MODEL MAKING; SET BUILDING; ANIMATING; VOICE RECORDING; MUSIC and FINAL CUT. At the start of this very nice feature, we first meet Mark Burton [Co-writer/Director] and Richard Starzak [Co-writer/Director] who are trying to put together a script and we just have music in the background to set the scene and we also see them on the Aardman Animations studio. Next up is Peter Lord [Executive Producer] who talks about the loveable character of Shaun the Sheep and why everyone loves this cheeky animal. Next up is Nick Park [Creature Maker of Shaun the Sheep] and talks extensively about what happens on the farm, that no one would normally see what the animals get up to when no humans are about, especially the sheep. As you know that we have loved all the short TV episodes of “Shaun the Sheep,” well Aardman Animations thought it would be totally brilliant to expand Shaun the Sheep into a big super movie. Next up is Julie Lockhart [Producer] and talks about the idea of having Shaun the Sheep wanting to get away from the farm, but Julie says, “Be careful what you wish for.” They also say that they feel Shaun the Sheep is like a 12 year old youngster and wanting to push the boundaries, but we also get people talking about the other characters that appear in the film, especially the stray animals and especially the dog catcher, who acts like he is still in the SAS, and Paul Kewley [Producer] goes into more detail about the character of the dog catcher and why his character is like we view. Next up is Nigel Leach [Senior Model Maker] talks in length about the “Claymation” sheep models and we also get to see some really beautiful colourful sketches of the characters in the film. Next up is Will Becher [Key Character Animator] who talks about how they make the models move and to demonstrate what Will talks about, we get several small clips of the demo animation of Shaun the Sheep all dressed up. Other contributors we get to see talk about ‘Shaun the Sheep Movie’ and the process that goes into making the film are Lloyd Price [Head of Animation]; Matt Perry [Art Director]; Helen Javes [Senior Set Dresser]; Mathew Healey [Senior Prop Maker]; Justin Fletcher [Voice of Shaun the Sheep] and Ilan Eshkeri. So all in all this is a brilliant special feature and well worth viewing.Special Feature: Meet The Characters [2015] [1080p] [1.78:1] [3:51] With this particular special feature, it is split up into different sections, that are as follows: SHAUN; SLIP; TIMMY and TRUMPER. What is nice about this feature, is that some of the people who worked on the animation film, talk with great affection to all the “Claymation” characters I have mentioned above and we get lots of extensive clips from ‘Shaun the Sheep Movie,’ especially the four characters I have already mentions. Again this is quite a nice little feature and a joy to watch.Special Feature: Join Shaun Behind The Scenes [2015] [1080p] [1.78:1] [2:26] Here we meet two of the crew in a look at behind-the-scenes, and they are Andy Symanowski [Animator] and Ellie Watson [Model Maker] who talk extensively about their particular tasks in dealing with the “Claymation” models. We also get to see some cheeky and very funny animation of Shaun the Sheep in action that is a joy to watch and this is where this nice little special ends and a joy to watch.Special Feature: Meet The Crew [2015] [1080p] [1.78:1] [2:58] With this special feature we get to meet people who was in the previous special feature “Behind The Scene,” but with some clever extra animation. Once again we meet Julie Lockhart [Producer] who talks about the premise of the story and especially the naughty and cheeky character Shaun the Sheep, but this time you get to see Shaun the Sheep in the background, doing a bit of animation. Next up is Mark Burton [Co-writer/Director] talks about the introduction of new characters, but this time we get to see “Slip” the dog wandering around behind Mark Burton. Next up is Paul Kewley [Producer] about his contribution of introducing new character to the film, and talks extensively about “Trumper,” but again in the background we get to see “Slip” the dog trying to catch a fly. Next up is Richard Starzak [Co-writer/Director] and talks about why the audience will love to watch ‘Shaun the Sheep Movie’ and again in the background we get to see The Farmer with his headphones on doing a sort of dance, like Dad’s do at weddings and you know what I mean. Next up is Will Becher [Key Character Animator] talks about why he likes animating Shaun the Sheep, plus of course all the other sheep in the film, because he loves the visuals, but again we get to see in the background “Shaun” and “Bitzer” [the famers dog] dancing together, but only a fleeting appearance. So to sum up this particular special feature, what I liked about it, is the addition of the “Claymation” characters being included, a really nice touch and just shows you why Aardman Animations is so professional in their outlook and well worth a view.Sneak Peaks: Paddington [2014] [1080p] [2.35:1] [2:28]. The House of Magic [2014] [1080p] [1.85:1] [1:46]. The Tale of The Princess Kaguya [2013] [1080p] [1.85:1] [1:56].Finally, anyone who has seen the Shaun the Sheep TV animations will have an idea on what to expect from this “Claymation” film, because the animation is totally top notch, the writing is really above par and as well as being extremely funny, it is also very entertaining. What may surprise is the amount of emotion that these simple stop motion puppets can be produced. The story of Shaun trying to rescue The Farmer who is trapped in the city with no memory becomes a heart-wrenching struggle for the sheep as they are thwarted at nearly every turn by situations of the own making or the machinations of Trumper. The jokes come thick and fast, most of them one-gag in style, some of them slap-stick and others aimed at adults, making this an extremely enjoyable film on many levels. The emotional core of Shaun’s dependence on The Farmer really pulls on the heartstrings; the climactic scene in the shed when the Farmer's memory is still unclear, cannot fail to bring a lump to your throat. And when Shaun thinks all is lost and those animated eyes well up, you’d need a heart of stone not to do the same. With top notch “Claymation,” it is totally witty and sharp script full to the brim with gags and an emotional core of love and dependence makes this animation film truly a winner. Aardman Animations have proven time and again they are a unique professional powerhouse in both animation and story-telling and ‘Shaun the Sheep Movie’ is just another in their long line of brilliant successes. As a Blu-ray, the set from STUDIOCANAL and Aardman Animations is pretty decent; the picture is stunning in its representation, especially the bright colours, totally incredible detail and wonderful depth, while the sound is fantastic in its surround environment. On the whole the animation “Claymation” film will win your heart and emotions so making it a terrific brilliant purchase and so happy to add this to my other Aardman Animations Blu-ray Collections, because Nick Park is a total genius. Very Highly Recommended!Andrew C. Miller – Your No.1 Film FanLe Cinema ParadisoWARE, United Kingdom

It may be aimed at children but the CBBC series has been liked by adults and this film has something for all ages, fun characters and some great references to the likes of The Beatles. It's also quite touching in places, rare for a animation film like this along with an original song produced for the film called "It Feels Like Summer" which sounds like a timeless soft rock song. The story sustains itself for the course of the film, the sometimes unexpected jokes don't just appeal to kids and Aardman's bold characters are appealing. Probably very nearly as good as The Wallace & Gromit film. It's not just a good family or animation film, it's a good film fullstop.

The greatest thing of all is that this film counts as a silent one, following in the footsteps of 'The Artist' (only without the audiences walking out in anger and confusion, I guess), and yet it is solidly in that close-to-perfect sweet spot that so many movie makers no doubt desperately crave.The second greatest thing is how unashamedly Aardman-esque the whole film is; it is a film for all ages, and is not even in the same league as all the cliched family films that I came to despise as a teenager; the silent sense of humour reaches out to every audience member with not much need for explanation for young ones, and the senses of humour vary, from slapstick to wordplay.The third and final greatest thing is that there is no need for prior knowledge of the Shaun the Sheep TV series. The movie just confidently zips along at a consistent pace, and never fails to make you laugh throughout. A film that is not just genius, but has a fantastic replay factor.