the missing link

A review on The Missing Link. 

For my art award I was supposed to visit an exhibition on origami but because of coronovirus I couldn't, so I decided to watch a film that used stop animation as I like how it's made.

The missing link 

Missing Link is a globe-trotting Victorian adventure 

The famous Sir Lionel Frost thinks of himself as the world's best  investigator of myths and monsters. The trouble is that none of the other guild members thinks he is. 

Its Sir Lionel's last chance to be accepted  by the adventuring elite, a monster hunting guild, he does an amazing thing by discovering big foot

On finding the rare treasure, Instead of  bringing the creature home to show off like some kind of trophy, he stops to ask it what he wants, and changes his plans.

Bigfoot turns out to be a very happy beast. He’s a gentle giant just looking for a family and a home.

Together they journey around the world, to help big foot, who is called Mr Link find his Yeti cousins in the mountains. But the head of the adventuring elite guild doesn't want Sir Lionel to find them, so he sends someone to stop Sir Lionel from finding big foot. 

Lots of fun and adventure in the film. 

I enjoyed watching this film for my art award review, it's a great example of how good stop animation can be, it took 5 years from thinking of the story to the end product to make, and took 2 years just to film because it would take a week to produce only 1 second of film. A very long process. 

The film had some famous actors voice the characters like Hugh Jackman who stars in films like the greatest showman and wolverine in x-men. 

Zoe Salanda who stars as gamora in guardians of the galaxy and star trek. 

Zac Galifankis as Mr link has also voiced puss in boots and the muppets. 

It also has other famous people  like  Emma Thompson, Matt Lucas and Stephen Fry. 

The film was made by the company LAIKA, for the film they made the largest and smallest clay figures ever used in stop animation, they are known for films like the "isle of dogs", "coraline" and "box trolls" 

The film uses stop animation which is made by creating models from clay or plastic which can be moved into different positions, you place the character into a position you want it to be in take a photo from several different angles from lots of cameras, then you make a tiny movement with the model and take more photographs then you have to repeat the process, it can take hours or weeks just to get 1 second of actual film, then you need to create the backdrops and scene sets everything is done by hand. This film hardly uses and computer generated film so it took a very long time. 

I like stop animation I used it to create my art award video on origami. 

I tried making a lego stop animation film it was only a minute or so long but it took 3 of us over a week to do with basic movements like waving an arm or walking a few steps. 

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Zephyr Anderson

Zephyr Anderson

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1 Comments

  • Charlotte Ralph

    On 16 January 2021, 16:44 Charlotte Ralph commented:

    Thanks for this review Zeph! You certainly found out a lot about how the film was made using stop motion animation and you clearly enjoy the film more because of all the hard work that was put into making it! I'd really like to watch this film now, and see all the amazing animation.

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