Cheese-loving inventor Wallace and his long-suffering canine Gromit have spent four decades experimenting with technology – often with disastrous consequences. However, their creators are planning to be cautious when it comes to the next Wallace & Gromit film and AI methods.
Nick Park and Peter Lord, the producers behind Wallace & Grommit, have warned of the “danger” around relying on artificial intelligence to create art.
Speaking to The Times, Park said that the team use technology when making the films as “an instinctive thing”.
“Slowly technology came along to help us,” he said. “We used it to do anything that we couldn’t do with clay, basically.”
However, he now worries that animators “rely too much” on technology – particularly AI.
“Obviously I can understand why people would want to try and experiment [with it], but at the moment it’s too easy to create rubbish… there’s a veil of blandness that seems to cover everything,” he said. “And that’s where the artist comes in to make it something more individual and more unique.”
Park added that the “danger” of it is that while some animators and artists have “spent years painstakingly creating with blood, sweat and tears”, others can “press a button” and say they’re an artist.
Meanwhile, Lord said that AI’s impact will be “dramatic” and that they will be exploring it – but reassured fans that the next Wallace & Gromit film won’t be AI-generated.
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“The best thing for us to do is experiment,” he said. “To be clear, I don’t mean that the next Wallace & Gromit movie will be AI. Don’t worry on that score.”
Aardman Animations touched on the topic back in December, with Park saying that they planned to “embrace” AI while remaining “very cautious not to lose our values”.
The animators have stuck with stop-motion techniques since their first Wallace & Gromit short film, A Grand Day Out, aired in 1989. The characters are made from clay and metal wire, with animators moving them by hand to capture each frame – meaning that they sometimes only produce two or three seconds of film per day of production.
Often, the projects can take years to make, with 2005’s feature-length film The Curse of the Were-Rabbit taking five years to produce.
The last film to star the iconic plasticine duo was Vengeance Most Fowl, which became the BBC’s most watched scripted show in 22 years when it aired on Christmas Day in 2024.
The special ironically explored the problems of new technology, with Wallace’s newly-invented “smart gnome” wreaking havoc on West Wallaby Street.
Wallace and Gromit is set to be the focus of an upcoming immersive Aardman show – Larger Than Life: Starring Wallace & Gromit, Shaun and More. The exhibit opens at London’s Lightroom on October 14.
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