Wallace and Gromit are returning on Christmas Day with a brand new feature length film, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.
The all new outing features the return of Penguin/Chicken Feathers McGraw and is set to be one of the most watched shows this Christmas Day when it broadcasts on BBC One at 6.10pm.
But fans of the Nick Park and Aardman Animation duo, who first appeared in A Grand Day Out in 1989, are fuming at the quality of their latest release.
While Vengeance Most Fowl is predicted to be a good film based on early previews, the pair’s new 4K Ultra HD Bluray has been hit with complaints.
The release, which came out on disc just in time for Christmas, sees the four half-hour specials of Wallace and Gromit remastered in 4K for the first time.
The box set contains A Grand Day out plus The Wrong Trousers from 1993, A Close Shave from 1995 and 2008’s A Matter Of Loaf And Death.
The additional standard Bluray also has The Curse of the Were-Rabbit feature film along with some short films, so the collection is bound to be under a few Christmas trees this year for fans of Wallace & Gromit.
But some fans who have bought and watched the box set already have complained that the new 4K episodes look like they have been remastered using AI, which adds some odd problems to the picture.
Posting on the 4KBluray subReddit, user @Walopoh said: “Very sad to report the new Wallace & Gromit 4Ks have garbage AI remasters. This is the quality that Aardman/Shout Factory are giving us and currently charging us $120 for.”
@bulldug_blues added: “Of all the things you could use AI to remaster and improve on imperfections, Wallace and Gromit (or any claymation) is just about the worst thing to apply it to.
“A huge part of its charm comes from the textures and stuff like seeing the modellers' fingerprints on the characters. If you take that away you're taking away part of the original magic of the shorts.”
In its review of the set, Slant Magazine said: “Comparisons of still frames do show instances of considerable noise reduction, though the most egregious evidence of sloppy A.I. application can be found in details that reveal lettering on certain objects has visibly altered. The short most affected by this is 'A Matter of Loaf and Death', which has been so drastically de-noised that it suffers from a clear loss of detail in some shots.”
But it did reassure anyone who has bought them as a Christmas gift: “It should be said, though, that these shorts have never been well served on home video, and for the most part these are still clear upgrades over the transfers included on Shout!’s 2009 Blu-ray release of The Complete Cracking Collection, which boosted the lighting levels on the shorts up to the point of washing out the image.”
Express.co.uk has contacted Aardman's PR agency and Shout for comment.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl will be on BBC One at 6.30pm on Christmas Day and on BBC iPlayer and Netflix after.
