I watched “Farmageddon: A Shaun the Sheep Movie” on Netflix and I loved it! "Shaun the Sheep” has been around for more than a decade. It started off as a T.V. series, then Aardman Animation gave Shaun his first movie. Now we see him have a close encounter…….of the friendly kind. After Shaun’s first movie was made, the people at Aardman Animation were trying to figure out what the character’s next adventure should be. Then it was suggested that an alien would crash land on the farm and everyone thought it was perfect.
(Spoiler Alert)
Bitzer the sheepdog usually lets things slide when Shaun wants to do things that could cause trouble. But now he is banning fun at the farm. All Shaun wants to do is enjoy himself, instead of just wasting his life away doing nothing. An alien, Lu-La, is hiding out at the farm and Shaun discovers her. Lu-La is the answer to Shaun’s problems. Her way of having fun can be a little extreme compared to Shaun’s way. Lu-La has never been on Earth before. She is enjoying her time on it while she can. Her favorite part about Earth is it’s food.
Lu-La needs to get back to her ship, which is hidden in a forest, and Shaun escorts her. Shaun is trying to keep things on the down low. He’s looking after Lu-La and trying to make sure she doesn’t get seen, but it’s hard when she’s jumping all over the place. Lu-La is only a child and Shaun has to act like a responsible adult. He’s a leader, but I don’t think he’s ever taken on a job that requires responsibility. But that doesn’t mean he’s also going to get serious. No, Shaun and Lu-La have fun as they journey to her ship.
Bitzer always finds himself next to Shaun. He finds his way to the ship even though that was never a plan. It’s best not to leave Bitzer out of the fun, even though he has a strict no fun policy. Blitzer gets to know Lu-La’s story and he wants to get her back where she belongs. Everyday, Bitzer has to look after sheep that act like teenagers who go around and do whatever they want. Handling a creature from another planet shouldn’t be hard for him. He handles Lu-La quite well.
Stop-motion is physical work, and a lot of people know it. It’s also professional work. The animators are making the stop motion puppets move frame by frame, and it takes more than 24 hours to animate one scene. During the scene where Lu-La is in the grocery store, she has a sugar rush and is jumping all over the place at a fast pace. I can’t imagine how many hours went into animating that scene.
There’s always a secret government agency after aliens of the E.T. kind, but the ones in "Farmageddon” you’ve never seen before. They are the silly type. There’s a lot of guys wearing contaminated suits and a robot who is always the first to go in while investigating an alien sighting. They are not mysterious like the ones you’ve seen in other movies or T.V. shows. You can't see their faces because they are covered up, but they do express themselves a lot through their movements. The robot has a lot of personality and feelings to it. Also, it feels like the agency’s pet.
The female who is in charge of everything, Agent Red, has been looking for alien life ever since she encountered them when she was a little girl. Everyone laughed at her when she told them she saw aliens. She’s not a bad guy, she’s just been going through bad times in her life. Seeing aliens was the only highlight of her life. Aliens made her a laughing stock, but it also helped her figure out a career. I mean finding aliens is what she became obsessed with and now she is in charge of a secret agency that is looking for them.
Things are never easy, otherwise the film would be boring. Lu-La not only needs to get back to her ship, but her home planet too. Shaun and his friends are doing everything they can to help Lu-La get back home.
“Farmageddon” explores life outside Earth and explores color as well. There’s a lot more bright colors in “Farmageddo” compared to the first “Shaun the Sheep” movie. That’s because Lu-La really brightens things up by making them fun. There’s also the brightness of an alien ship. There also a lot of blue.
I love the filmmakers choice of music for “Farmageddo”. It’s good traveling music, not just for when you’re on the road, but when you are hovering through space.
Everyone loves doing parodies of classic Sci-fi movies. The people behind “Farmageddon” were having too much fun with the sci-fi stuff while making the movie. There’s tons of parodies in this movie. At the beginning there’s an Easter egg from another space adventure fans of Aardman Animation are familiar with. “A Grand Day Out”, the very first Wallace & Gromit adventure. There’s also a building that says "H.G. Wheels Autos”, which stands for H.G. Wells the author of famous books such as ‘The Time Machine”, “The Island of Doctor Moreau”, “The Invisible Man”, and “The War of the Worlds”.
There’s also parodies of other famous sci-fI features like “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. You need a code to get into the secret base where alien life is being studied and it's the music from “Close Encounters.” The mothership that Lu-La’s parents arrive in looks “Close Encounters”.
The farmer is making toast and when the toast goes up it represents two things. One it represents a lightbulb for an idea, and two it is made to resemble the Monolith that shows during the prehistoric scene from “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Another thing about that scene is the music from “2001” is playing in the background.
The scene where Lu-La explains to Shaun how she got to Earth reminds me of when E.T. was explaining to the kids where he comes from by levitating balls. Lu-La has a screwdriver, which looks like Doctor Who’s. One of the sheep characters dresses up as a Garlic from “Doctor Who” as it sneaks into a amusement park and who does it run into? Doctor Who! But who can take a guess on which Doctor Who it is?……………………..the answer is Tom Baker.
“Farmageddon” has even done parody posters of “Stranger Things” season 3.
The Farmer puts together his own amusement park to attract people who believe in aliens. Everyone in town has been seeing signs of UFOs. The amusement park is used to lure in paying customers. It’s not much, but those people are in for quite the show and it’s going to be worth every cent they payed for. It made me think of my favorite Muppet movie, “Muppets from Space”. Gonzo was realizing he was an alien, and was waiting for his race to arrive which drew in a crowd of people who wanted to see aliens.
The characters in “Shaun the Sheep” never talk. They do make sounds, but there’s no dialog. The characters say more through their facial expressions, and movements than using words. Even though the characters aren’t saying anything, still it’s not hard to figure out what’s going on in the story. It’s hard to imagine the characters of “Shaun the Sheep” talking after listening to them mumble all the time. Of course there is a scene where Agent Red is going after Shaun and Lu-La and they try to project themselves by throwing the Farmageddo letters from the theme park. For each letter that hits Agent Red, she makes the sounds of each letter. The ‘O’ is the only letter she doesn’t say. Shaun and Lu-La make the ‘O’ sound when Agent Red jumps on them. And then when Agent Red falls so does N and O which spells “No”.
Lu-La’s parents show up, and Agent Red comes out of the ground, but then stops when she sees two familiar faces. Agent Red never wanted to hurt the aliens, just prove to the world that they exist. Agent Red not only found the aliens she had been looking for her whole life, but she found happiness as well. I thought Lu-La’s family would have taken Agent Red with them. Aliens are her life and she could make a fresh new start for herself on another planet. It would be like “Muppets from Space” when Gonzo’s alien kind wanted Jefferey Tambor to live with them on their planet and he was grateful to get that kind of offer. Agent Red’s last scene shows her hugging Lu-La’s parents and I asked myself what became of her after that? During the end credits it shows a 2D version of Agent Red replacing her shades with funny glasses. It looks like she is doing fine.
Its time for Lu-La to go. Shaun and Lu-La were on a mission to get her back to where she came from, and they had fun while doing it. Playtime is over now and it’s time to say goodbye, which is hard for both of them. One of the things Lu-La had gotten out of this experience was a best friend. Shaun has never said goodbye before. This is an emotional moment for him. All his life, Shaun has had Blitz, the Farmer and the other sheep to keep him company and they stick together like glue. He’s so used to having friends around. Shaun and his pals will miss Lu-La.
The little sheep of the group makes sure Lu-La doesn’t leave without her stuffed animal. She dropped it while trying to stay away from Agent Red. The little guy knows how important a stuffed animal is to a child. After all, he loves his stuffed animal.
Lu-La leaves, but Shaun still has Blitz and the other sheep. They'll always be there right by his side. Shaun and the others have learned that they are not alone in the universe, and now Shaun’s friends are showing him that is not alone in life.
The audience won’t need a refund because they have just seen the show of a lifetime. There’s an after credit ending and as you wait for it, the contaminated suit people will continue to entertain you with a conga.
Shaun has had a lot of adventures, but this one was out of this world. Now to wait and see what Shaun the Sheep will be up to next.
Parodies
On top, the Monolith from “2001: A Space Odyssey”, and bellow, a burnt piece of toast.
