Guest at Lucca Comics & Games 2026, director Matthew Walker, co-author of Shaun the Sheep: Operation Z.U.C.C.A., already in our cinemas, chatted with Variety about a range of topics, but above all about Generative Artificial Intelligence, seen as a threat by a large swath of creatives active in the film industry… and in animation? Walker isn’t convinced, and seems calmer than his Laika colleague Travis Knight, a specialist like Aardman Animations in stop-motion.
Shaun, Aardman and the Awareness of Handcrafted Craft Against AI
Shaun Vita da Pecora: Operazione Z.U.C.C.A. is in theaters, bringing us once again that one-step Aardman artistry halfway between international professional polish and craftsmanship. This very element is, for co-director Matthew Walker, a kind of litmus test, something audiences pick up on: “I believe that stop-motion itself has a certain fascination, precisely because those are real models, built in incredible detail by artists. When we publish behind the scenes material, they’re always very popular because people love to see how stop-motion is made. […] I also sense a desire for imperfection. We’ve reached a point where digital technology can do anything, refining things to wonderful perfection. […] But you can spot it in projects like the Spider-Verse films, where they’ve integrated hand-made 2D elements, with pencil marks. Because there’s a longing to enjoy the technique behind the finished product: the stop-motion equivalent is to see the digital fingerprints.”
The conversation shifts to the vaguely disturbing aseptic aftertaste of many videos currently produced with AI, a problem that has indeed decreased and is decreasing, so Walker reframes more philosophically: “AI can replicate art, but I don’t think it can replicate the emotion and the reasoning behind art.” Animation has for him an advantage over live-action, from this point of view: his emotional and artistic process is far harder for Generative AI to reproduce. “Take the Pixar lamp. It’s only a lamp. It has no face. It has no features. It has no limbs. But in the way the animators brought it to life, you feel an emotional connection. It becomes a character, a sentient being. It doesn’t replicate anything. With live-action, AI finds it easier to imitate human activity, because there is a lot of material to feed it. But this doesn’t apply to animation, which starts from scratch. If you give life to a ball or a lamp, there is no preexisting base—the base is the understanding of the connection between human beings.”
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