h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Ultimate Aardman Animated Film Guide: 2015 - 2019 - A87954853
Author: Bluebottle - U43530

Happy 2020!

Should this be accepted, the original Aardman film guide entry may need a tweak.

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Yay Shaun the Sheep

Is the football team mixed rather than all male, causing the Bechdel Test 'dodgy pass'?

I haven't seen Farmageddon yet, but it looks good fun! It will be good to see how well it does overall in due course

Thanks for your comments there.

Football is a game – and therefore gender neutral - but in this case the rival team are all men. So is a discussion about playing a game against a team of men by definition a conversation about men (in which case it fails), or a conversation about a game (in which case it passes)?
Personally I lean towards the latter, on the grounds that football players are largely irrelevant. Take any team – let's say Nottingham Forest, which was founded in 1865. This is considered today to be the same team, even though no players are still playing who had played back when the club founded: therefore football players are irrelevant.

I've tweaked the Farmaggedon ending.
'Farmaggedon' – which had a budget of $25million and has only been released in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand – has made over $32million to date, and has overtaken 'Missing Link' – which had a budget of $100 million and made only $26million worldwide. (It seems that an animated film with a Darwinian theme did not make any money in the Southern States – who could have predicted that, eh? This may well a loss that Laika Studios cannot recover from (particularly when you add marketing costs. Aardman's marketing budget would be quite low as they've only released in six countries, but Laika released worldwide so their marketing budget could be as high as $100million). 'Missing Link' being given the Golden Globe Award a couple of days award might be a golden handshake… Have they reached the (shoe) event horizon?)

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"So is a discussion about playing a football game against a team of men by definition a conversation about men (in which case it fails), or a conversation about a game (in which case it passes)?"

Depends on the discussion, but I don't know exactly what was said so I can't guess what "discuss the opposing team" means... The Bechdel Test website says the film fails, but they didn't notice the two female characters speaking, so you've gone one better there!

"who could have predicted that, eh?"

Who indeed?

On reflection I'll just change it to 'fail', though it definitely passes two of the three tests but doesn't clearly pass the third. (Interesting that the Bechdel Test website doesn't mention the second pass –perhaps because the Stone Age female characters are portrayed as heavy-set Neanderthals and not blatantly feminine, the reviewers didn't realise that Gravelle was a female character?)

Incidentally, an 'Event Horizon' can mean a point of no return, and losing over $100million can do that to a company, however the reason I said 'Shoe Event Horizon' is that Laika is owned by the owners of Nike Shoes.

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"perhaps because the Stone Age female characters are portrayed as heavy-set Neanderthals and not blatantly feminine, the reviewers didn't realise that Gravelle was a female character?" - highly possible...

Just reading the Entry again, I can follow the plot of Early Man, but I wonder if it could be made clearer - 'surviving cavemen' suggests we're in a world where cavemen and dinosaurs co-existed, 'the heat' refers to the asteroid rather than the weather, 'crater' means the asteroid was large enough to create a valley as well as being small enough to be kicked about?

"A young alien lands near the farm and finds himself lost at Shaun's farm. While Shaun the Sheep tries to help the ET phone home," - better to avoid using a gendered pronoun for the alien?

The supermarket chains were Gateway and Safeway?

The 'Into the Future' section is good, to lead into the next Entry in the series, but probably needs less detail so it won't date too quickly. How has Farmageddon been getting on in the last few weeks?

Thanks for your comments there, changes have been made.

'surviving cavemen' suggests we're in a world where cavemen and dinosaurs co-existed – yes, that was the intent; the dinosaurs died but the cavemen didn't.

'crater' means the asteroid was large enough to create a valley as well as being small enough to be kicked about – Yes, this is perfectly possible. Barringer 'Meteor' Crater in Arizona is ¾ mile wide and it is believed to have been made by an asteroid roughly about 40-50 metres in diameter. On impact craters are typically ten times the size of the asteroid that impacted, so a mile-wide asteroid would typically leave a crater 10-miles wide (depending on numerous variables). If my A-level science memories are right, I think that's because gravitational acceleration is just under 10 metres/second2?
If the asteroid was already travelling at a considerable speed before reaching than it will leave a crater even larger, with other factors including angle at which the asteroid impacts and also what the asteroid comprises of. So if we assume that the asteroid impacted at an angle and speed that will create the largest conceivable crater and had an outer layer that vaporised on impact, it isn't impossible that the impact left only the solid icosahedron-shaped core intact. Although (dare I say it) the chances of an asteroid being perfectly icosahedron-shaped is astronomical.

According to IMDB, 'Farmaggedon' has made $41 million to date at the box office, but that excludes however much the Netflix deal was for, and the DVD is out now too. So it has definitely recouped production and marketing costs and made a profit.

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The Ultimate Aardman Animated Film Guide: 2015 - 2019

Hi Bluebottle

This talks about films 6-8, suggesting that there must be another entry that covers films 1-5, but there is no link or reference to it.

an inventor and his dog Wallace and Gromit -- would this be better as "an inventor Wallace and his dog Gromit"?

dabbled in Computer-Animation --> dabbled in computer animation

it was their stop-motion filmmaking that they had found their niche -->
it was in their stop-motion filmmaking that they had found their niche

the second of which, Missing Link (2019), was made for the same budget as Aardman's three films made in the same period put together

-- this is slightly confusing, because it looks as if it is comparing the budgets of the films, but I think it is comparing the budget of one to the profit made on the other three. Could you make it a little clearer?

"The Bechdel Test. This can be summarised as whether the film involves two or more named female characters who have a conversation together that does not include or mention any male characters."

As I've said elsewhere, I believe your description of the Bechdel Test is incorrect. According to the original cartoon in which it was defined:

One, it has to have at least two women in it who, Two, talk to each other about, Three, something besides a man.

There's no mention in this, in the Wikipedia article or the h2g2 Entry about the test that the conversation must not mention a man.

The intention of the test is to highlight the bad treatment of women in the film industry, where a lot of women were only included as a love interest for the men, and if they did talk to each other, only talked about the men who they were there for.

If two women have a conversation about something that is not a man, and mention a man in passing, then the film passes the Bechdel Test.

particularly ideal for international distribution
-- ideal is one of those words like unique and perfect that is all or nothing. Either something is ideal or it is not. It can't be particularly ideal. You could "particularly suitable for international distribution".

Shirley (Richard Webber) Timmy's mother -- there's a missing comma before Timmy

the start of the Chinese New Year's Year of the Sheep -->
he start of the Chinese Year of the Sheep

most-successful stop-motion animated film of ever -->
most-successful stop-motion animated film ever

asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs landing in Manchester -- is it a city called Manchester, or is it the place that later became Manchester?

Lord Nooth, Premiership of the bronze age people -- do they use the title "Premiership"? It should be "Premier". And bronze age should be capitalised each time you use it.

football commentatorsRob Brydon) -- something missing here

Mossy Bottom Farm and Mossingham, neighbouring town
-- this would be better as:
Mossy Bottom Farm and neighbouring town Mossingham

Shirley (Richard Webber) Timmy's mother -- again missing a comma

one of the delights with this film -->
one of the delights of this film

Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds as well as a petrol station named HG Wheels

You can't say A, B, C as well as D. "as well as" is used for tacking something on the end of a complete list. You could say "A,B and C as well as D", or you could just say "A, B, C and D".

Even the very first Wallace and Gromit short film A Close Shave appears -- I thought the first W&G film was "A Grand Day Out".

Aardman have signed a deal with Netflix, giving them distribution rights -- giving who distribution rights?

G

Thanks for your thorough read-through – changes have been made as you suggested, except for:

Premiership – this is indeed the title that is used for the character. I believe this is a reference.

And it was comparing the budget of the Aardman films (both Shaun the films were made for around $20-25 million with 'Early Man' more expensive at around $50 million, total approximately $100 million, roughly the same production budget as 'Missing Link' – which only made $26 million at the box office. I don't know how much the marketing budget for 'Missing Link' was, but it definitely lost over $100 million.

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That is good news about Farmageddon - I haven't seen it yet, but will definitely look out for it on DVD

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