For the most part, Wat's Pig is another worthy Aardman film. The puppets are excellent, as are the backgrounds (in a nice touch, the skies are rendered in coloured pencils), and the expected smattering of sight gags is in place - at one point Wat's brother and the rival king stare eye-to-eye, but a longer camera shot reveals that the former is nearly half as tall as the latter, and just standing on a platform. There's also a strong cinematic quality, and the split screening is used to great effect.

But in other respects - particularly compared to the Wallace and Gromit shorts, all of which came out beforehand - the short is kind of weak. It lacks the cohesiveness and scope of Wallace; this can be attributed to the shorter running time, but there are some aspects that just seem badly thought out - notice that the pig has very little to do in the story, raising the question of why he's in the title. Why not call it Wat and the King?

But hey, it's the kind of film that's really not meant to be examined that closely.

Here in Australia this is a relatively well known Aardman short. The plot is well outlined in the synopsis. As usual there is considerable amazement at the ability of the Aardman crew to wring such comedy/pathos and fantasy from claymation, particularly without any dialogue. The production isn't really up to the quality of the Wallace and Gromit shorts, but it is still better than some of their earlier shorts (such as 'Adam').

This is another one I had to wrestle with over the score, and it only just made 3.5, since I feel that once you take away the novelty of the claymation medium, you're left with a short which is just very good, not great. (I wrestled with it a bit more, and it got downgraded to 3.0)

Still, it's a bit of a landmark in Aardman's development, being about the longest thing they'd made up to that time. For any claymation fan it's a must-have. And as usual, it's quitessentially British.

NB I suspect the 'Wat' who is the central character in the film is a reference to Wat Tyler, who lead the peasant rebellion against the poll tax in 1381.

Aardman never fails to amaze me with their shorts. While their full-lenght features ("Chicken Run" and "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit") are a bit slow and not as funny as they could be, the shorts created by these claymation wizards are the real deal. "Wat's Pig" is eleven or twelve minutes long and tells an epic tale with obvious similiarities to "The Prince and the Pauper". The animation is as terrific as usual and I especially liked the sets and the beautiful backgrounds. "Wat's Pig" may not be Aardman's best-known work but it's definiatly worth checking out (here in Germany it's available on the DVD "Aardman Collection" along with "Next", "Creature Comforts", "Never Say Pink Furry Die" and a couple of other shorts, so you might get it from Amazon or Ebay).