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Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl: The wild effort it took to bring Aardman's most dastardly villain to Netflix is worthy of Feathers McGraw's scheming

Feathers McGraw's plans are not only the most devious that Wallace & Gromit have faced in the past, they're also the most complex. And according to animators at Aardman, bringing him to life also took an almost criminally complex plan

News by Grant DeArmitt, Staff Writer

Published on Fri Jan 10 2025

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You were probably just as excited as we were when we learned that the newest Wallace & Gromit movie - Vengeance Most Fowl, streaming now on Netflix - was bringing back classic villain Feathers McGraw. the diamond-thieving penguin and master of disguise is maybe one of the most memorable baddies of the stop-motion medium, in part because of his complex yet ingenious plans. And now, thanks to a recent report, we've learned that the plan to bring him to life is just as ingenious, and one has to admit, just as complex.

The story comes from a recent interview Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park did with Variety. During the course of conversation, Park reveals that McGraw originally wasn't even part of the plan for the film, but fell into place when the plot required a devious force behind Wallace's haywire mechanical gnomes.

"t was like a lightning strike," Park proclaims, "Feathers could be behind all this!"

But that electrical current would need quite a bit of wiring to make it to viewers (a record 16M in the UK on its Christmas release). As Park would go on to explain, bringing Feathers back to screens was an ornate and exceedingly detailed process.

"Keeping him on this very steady line of not getting expressive and keeping the mystery behind the eyes," Park says, "it’s been quite a feat, because it all depends on that lack of expression, that kind of simplicity. It’s his strength."

In order to keep Feathers's simplicity, the production studio of Aardman Animations had an ironically complex road to walk. According to Park, crafting Feathers's signature expression (which Park calls "the most challenging thing" about the film) required animators to test a whopping 500 black pins just to create the perfect eyes for the devious penguin. After carefully measuring every single one, the Aardman team wound up selecting only 15 pins for use in the film.

Even for those of us not in the world of stop-motion, that kind of dedication to craft is circuit-blowing. It's the kind of scheme that is as mad as it is exhaustive, as whimsical as it is uniquely focused on perfection...

Exactly the kind Feathers McGraw would be proud of.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (and its expertly crafted villain) is streaming now on Netflix.

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Grant DeArmitt: Grant DeArmitt (he/him) likes horror, comics, and the unholy union of the two. As Popverse's Staff Writer, he criss-crosses the pop culture landscape bringing you the news and opinions about the big things (and the next big things). In the past, and despite their better judgment, he has written for Nightmare on Film Street and Newsarama. He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, Kingsley, and corgi, Legs.