Fantastic Mr. Fox Trailer: Wes Anderson Is Quirky in Stop-Motion, Too

Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on July 30, 2009

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Yahoo Movies has debuted the first trailer for Wes Anderson’s upcoming stop-motion animated children’s book adaptation Fantastic Mr. Fox. And even though it is stop-motion, it is still very much a Wes Anderson film — color tones, quirky dialogue, Jason Schwartzman stealing the entire trailer with only a few lines of dialog — it’s all right down the middle, Wes Anderson stuff. Check out the official synopsis for the film below.

Mr. and Mrs. Fox live an idyllic home life with their son Ash and visiting young nephew Kristopherson. But after 12 years, the bucolic existence proves too much for Mr Fox’s wild animal instincts. Soon he slips back into his old ways as a sneaky chicken thief and in doing so, endangers not only his beloved family, but the whole animal community. Trapped underground and with not enough food to go around, the animals band together to fight against the evil Farmers — Boggis, Bunce and Bean — who are determined to capture the audacious, fantastic Mr. Fox at any cost.

The trailer gives the inclination that the movie could be a bit of fun, in the way that I find all of Wes Anderson’s films to be fun. The stop-motion animation has moments of cool and moments of choppiness, but who’s to say that isn’t intentional. Overall, I’m still jazzed for this flick — I always give Wes Anderson a chance.

The voice cast includes Michael Gambon, Meryl Streep, Willem Dafoe, George Clooney, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Brian Cox, Adrien Brody and Anjelica Huston. You know, a bunch of people who’ve never worked with Wes Anderson before. Fantastic Mr. Fox is in theaters November 13, 2009. And yes, it is still on our list of The 25 Most Anticipated Movies of 2009.


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  • After watching Coraline, the animation looks very jumpy. But it also looks hysterical. Jason Schwartzman is just...fantastic.
  • Cole_Abaius
    Couldn't agree more. The animation is really jumpy. Not just after seeing Coraline either.

    Although I do wonder if that has to do with the color. With Selick's stuff there are a lot of slick surfaces and black and white, but here it's full color with fur - tricky stuff to deal with.

    It does look pretty funny though. Not sure how Schwartzman is able to steal every scene.
  • chille
    Correct me if I'm wrong but shouldn't they be British? It is a Roald Dahl adaptation.
  • Bezzy
    Yeah, but in england, all the animals speak in american accents. Actually pretty accurate.
  • Visually, it looks, well... fantastic, but the movie star voices effing ruin it. Absolutely wrong. As for the expanded storyline, I guess a trailer isn't the best way to judge, but it feels wrong as well.

    Anticipation sufficiently dampened.
  • zerosum0101
    I can not get past the choppiness of the animation. It seems like it would be a very enjoyable, but if the whole movie is jumpy like this I don't think I could stand more than a couple of minutes. I love Wes Anderson but I have no idea why anyone would let him make a stop-motion movie where its so choppy. I'm just blown away that no one stepped in and said something. From what I've seen from other comments and my own feelings as well, this movie could be horrible just because of some poor artistic choice made by Anderson.
  • Not just Coraline, comparing it to Wallace & Gromit, the animation just isn't great. It not just the jumpiness but they all look pretty stiff.
  • Sorry to be a jerk (as I have hated on this movie before), but now that I have actually seen the trailer, this movie is officially on my 'to rent' list; and that's only if I have a sufficient number of kids to watch it with me and bring out the enjoyment of the lame humor.
  • kagi
    Just going out on a limb here, but I think the animation style is probably intentional: it totally fits with Anderson's ongoing obsession with his 1970s childhood. If you grew up in that era, you saw tons of cheap children's TV that looked just like this (well, not yellow-orange, and not ironic, but you know what I mean). Some of it was even cheaper and jumpier -- for some reason, "Supercar" comes to mind. A lot of that stuff got shown on Nickelodeon's "Pinwheel" in the '80s, too. Wes is all about the "obsolete vernacular," y'know? I'm close to Wes's age, so I totally dig; if you're much younger or much older, though, it might not work for you.
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