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Autism-inspired
reviews
A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019)



Summary
This film is by far one of the best and most fun films of the year, as well as one of the best sequels I have seen recently at the cinema. It was funny, charming, witty and a lot of fun to watch.





What's it about?
Shaun the Sheep and his flock discover a little alien who has landed on earth by mistake. Shaun makes friends with the alien and helps her get home to her parents. However an alien organisation wants to kidnap the alien and experiment on her. Can Shaun the Sheep and his friends help the little alien make it home back to her parents in time, or will the alien organisation eventually kidnap her and then experiment on her?





The good bits
The film had very clever silent dialogue, funny moments and fun pop culture references. There was also a very heartwarming story about friendship and helping lost people, as well as witty animation from Aardman and character development. Even the characters were a lot of fun.





The bad bits
To be fair, what I personally didn't like about this film was that the story was pretty much a copy and paste of Stephen Spielberg's E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial. I also felt that the film had some recognisable clichés, such as the pop-culture references.





What is it similar to?
This film was very similar to many other family friendly alien-themed films. The story made it similar to E.T. and it was also very similar to many other films by Aardman, mostly "Shaun the Sheep: The Movie", as well as Disney and Pixar's "Wall-E", as both films don't contain much english dialogue. The film also reminded me of many other stop motion animated films, because of the animation style and it was superior to many other sequels I have seen recently such as "Mary Poppins Returns", "Ralph Breaks The Internet" and "Cars 3".





Oscar's recommendation
I can very well recommend this film to children and anyone who's autistic who are not very good at following English dialogue in films or TV shows, since the film uses just noises, gestures, and music to describe the characters' communication with one another. That way most viewers can just imagine whatever everyone in the film is saying to one another. However some people and children might not like this film since they can't appreciate the unique dialogue of the film, since they would prefer it if a film or show contains a lot of spoken dialogue and not if there's not much talking. Some people might not be interested in stop motion as much as they are interested in either live-action or CGI. But I can still reccomend this film to anyone who enjoyed "Shaun the sheep: The movie", as well as anyone who likes animation and stop-motion films. I can also reccomend it to anyone who has interests in farm animals, sheep, and aliens, since this is what this film is mostly centred on. If you want to have a lot of fun at the cinema or at home, as well as in the mood for something heartfelt, then I can very well reccomend this film to you.





Parent/carer alerts
Swearing
Although there is barely any dialogue in this film, there is one song that gets played in the background which uses the word "damn" once.




Violence
There is some mild slapstick throughout this film.




Fear
Although the young alien named Lu-la was cute, in the first scene she was introduced, she might be quite intimidating and some autistic people and children might get quite scared of her as a result. There was also some mild threat throughout this film such as when the alien organisation follows Shaun the sheep and his friends and tries to kidnap Lu-la. I must warn my readers that the first appearance of Lu-la the baby alien can be quite intimidating, and some people might get overwhelmed with anxiety to know as to whether or not Shaun can finally get Lu-la home or if the Baddies will be able to capture her in the end.




Details of adult themes are currently hidden.

Show details
OK



Autism alerts
Sensory details
There were a lot of brightly colored scenes in the background, and Lu-la might look too colorful for some people with autism to look at.




Spoilers




Skills
Some people might like the fact that the film barely contains any dialoge so that they can figure out the character's communication for themselves, others might need some help from either their parents or guardians to help understand what do the characters mean through their communications and others might have to prepare themselves for barely any spoken dialoge in the film so that they can enjoy the film more and not be too disapointed. It will also be up to the guardians to decide as to wether or not that the child will be old enough to know that there are some words in life that should not be said and as to whether or not they should know whenever the characters or swearing, as there was one scene during the first fifteen minutes when Bitzer swears at Shaun and his flock for unintentionally humiliating him in front of their farmer. Blitzer swears by barking a lot, and Timmy the Sheep's mother covers his ears so he won't hear what Blitzer is “saying”.




Oscar's rating