Production Designer Confirms ‘Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl’ Had a Very Subtle ‘Lord of the Rings’ Homage

In Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, there’s a scene that might remind some of The Lord of the Rings. The plot centers around the return of Feathers McGraw, the criminal penguin, who is out for revenge.

Wallace, the inventor, has created a robot gnome named Norbot to help with his gardening. However, Feathers manages to reprogram Norbot to be his evil ally, starting a plan to ruin Wallace and his business.

Norbot creates clones and builds a lair in Wallace’s basement, where they melt stolen garden tools and construct a submarine.

One part of the film mimics a scene from The Lord of the Rings, where Gromit discovers Norbot’s lair. The scene is meant to feel dramatic and industrial, with Norbot’s basement lair looking vast.

They even doubled the height of the basement for the scene to make it more intense. The scaffolding and construction drive home the idea that something bad is about to happen.

The designers wanted the lair to feel like a place where something dangerous was being built, and the submarine plays into that. Inside the submarine, they used old-fashioned gardening tools to create a gothic atmosphere.

In another nod to classic stories, the designers named Feathers’ chair ‘The Nautilus’, a reference to the submarine from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. When Feathers sits in the chair, it has a halo effect and fairy wings around him, making the villain seem almost angelic despite his evil nature.

It’s interesting to note that Wallace and Gromit features a level of artistry that isn’t always recognized in the Oscars. For example, production designer Matt Perry put a lot of thought into the set design and worked closely with other departments to bring the story to life.

While animated films rarely get recognition for production design, Perry’s work is an example of why it should be considered in the future.

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