Arthur Christmas

Arthur Christmas is a 2011 CGI animated film produced by Aardman Animations. It is their second attempt at CGI and their first film produced in their new partnership with Sony Pictures Animation.

The film is set on Christmas Eve, and at last reveals the answer to every child's question: "So how does Santa Claus deliver all those presents in one night?" It is thanks to Santa's ultra-high-tech operation hidden beneath the North Pole. It also turns out that being Santa Claus is an inheritable position, passed from father to son. Except this time, there are two sons who are prospective Santas: the titular Arthur, whose heart is in the right place but is a bumbler, and his brother Steve, who is extremely efficient but more serious. When one out of the 2 billion presents is missed, it's up to Arthur to complete the mission - with a little help from the his grandfather (the previous Santa Claus) and a plucky female elf named Bryony - before Christmas morning dawns and a child's heart breaks. This must be done, of course, without being discovered by the rest of the world. Naturally, this turns out to be much harder than it sounds.

The film's voice cast includes James McAvoy as Arthur, Hugh Laurie as Steve, Ashley Jensen as Bryony and Bill Nighy as Grandsanta. The film was set for release on November 11, 2011, in the United Kingdom, and November 23, 2011, in the United States.

The official trailer can be viewed here.

This film provides examples of:
"Grandsanta: "They used to say it was impossible to teach a woman to read!""
 * Three D Movie
 * Abstract Scale: The weight of the load in Santa's sleigh, as seen in the opening, is measured in Playstations, of course.
 * Adorkable: Arthur, the title character.
 * All CGI Cartoon
 * All of the Other Reindeer: The elves are shown to be this for Arthur. He's a bit clumsy and slightly buffoonish (especially as compared to Steve, whom they all admire), so they say things behind his back like "Send him to the South Pole." Even his father isn't quite sure what to do with him. As shown during his Heroic BSOD, he's fully aware of it.
 * All Reindeer Are Dogs
 * Aloof Big Brother: Steve.
 * Ambiguously Human: The Clauses.
 * Badass Santa: While Steve isn't actually Santa, he more or less fills this role. Doubles as Badass in A Nice Suit, since his version of the costume is a.
 * Bland Name Product: The HOHO 3000 trackers are apparently manufactured by Snowy. Played for Laughs, given the fact that we see many more Sony products throughout the film.
 * Berserk Button: Never mess with the wrapping if Bryony is on duty!
 * Brick Joke: Grandsanta impresses Arthur by making a cloud snowman. Quite a while later  we see it has morphed into a more terrifying shape on one of the North Pole news screens.
 * The Board Game: Apparently there's one of Christmas. The whole holiday.
 * Character Blog: There is a twitter acount for someone called 'notanelf'
 * Chekhov's Gun: Tons. In approximately the order they're fired, Eve's 'camouflage' function, Arthur's electric slippers  , Gwen's bicycle , and the S-1's underside night sky display
 * Chekhov's Gunman: Grandsanta's pet reindeer sits in the back of the sleigh like a lump doing nothing the whole movie, right? Well, until
 * Chekhov's Skill: Bryony's present wrapping skills come in handy for a few scenes.
 * As does
 * Christmas Elves: Of course. Rather more militaristic than standard-issue, though, and with an extremely complex rank system. They specialize in covert ops. Each and every one is devoted to the notion that all children deserve and must have a Happy Christmas. It borders on fanatical.
 * Cone of Shame: Worn by Grandsanta's reindeer.
 * Cool Sleigh: The S-1. A couple miles long, with flawless camouflage, capable of travelling seven million miles in a single night. And it runs on milk and cookies!
 * Eve is too, in her own dilapidated, steampunky way. Even at a hundred and seventy years old, she's more powerful than any other aircraft aside from the S-1. She's even space-capable.
 * Determinator: Gwen will get that bike if Arthur has anything to say about it, dammit.
 * Disney Death:  In an extremely touching moment, he sacrifices himself to protect Arthur - but it turns out he
 * Does This Remind You of Anything: The high-tech actions of the elves at each landing site are a bit like Prep and Landing turned Up to Eleven.
 * Doing in The Wizard: There is very little actual magic in the movie, besides the pixie dust that enables flight. Even the original sleigh had mechanisms in it. (Elfin "magic" in general seems to be a case of Clarke's Third Law in this setting.)
 * Dysfunctional Family: The Clauses; they're even described that way in one of the official synopses of the film. Steve and Grandsanta are constantly battling over the way to handle the operation, Malcolm is relatively out of touch with everything, Margaret is the Only Sane Man who tries to maintain order, and Arthur...just wants everyone to be happy.
 * Everyone Is Christian At Christmas: According to the statistics, averted. They deliver two billion presents, but only to six hundred million children out of the world's 1.9 billion.
 * Everythings Worse With Bears: The polar bear in the teaser trailer.
 * Genki Girl: Bryony.
 * Grumpy Old Man: Grandsanta. He's 136 years old, and doesn't hesitate to act like it.


 * Happily Ever After: Everyone, in the epilogue. Even Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, B-Bambi, John, You With The White Ear, You, and You.
 * Happily Married: Malcolm and Margaret - Santa and Mrs. Claus, that is.
 * Heroic BSOD: Arthur suffers an intense one
 * How Can Santa Deliver All Those Toys: Lampshaded and Played Straight: The answer, as well as having an army of extremely well-organized and co-ordinated elves visit every single house, with Santa placing the last present of the operation himself.
 * Homemade Sweater From Hell: Arthur wears one. Willingly. (Granted, tacky Christmas sweaters are part of the season's magic for some.)
 * According to the production notes, he has a Christmas sweater for every day of the year.
 * Legacy Character: The title of Santa Claus. The opening shot demonstrates this trope beautifully as it pans across the wall full of portraits, showing us how the costume and the man have changed over the centuries.
 * Masquerade: For various reasons, the sacred rule any acting Santa must follow is to not be seen. (Secret treaties and the extremely high technology level the Elves enjoy are the closest explanation we get to the reasons behind this rule.)
 * Matrix Raining Code: Christmas themed symbols over the closing credits.
 * Meaningful Echo: "There's always time for a bow."
 * Mrs. Claus: Played by Imelda Staunton, she's definitely the side of the family that Steve got his uber-competence from, and apparently handles the political side of the Claus operation (if that Treaty with Greenland she has to negotiate is any indication). She apparently spends her downtime taking lessons online, to the point where she can do most anything without trouble.
 * Must Have Caffeine: Steve drinks a lot of espresso, to judge by the repeated mentions.
 * Noodle Incident: Exactly what happened on Grandsanta's last trip.
 * Older Is Better: What Grandsanta believes. Steve, however, is all about newer is better and (he even says during the movie) Bigger Is Better. This pretty much constitutes one of the major conflicts of the film. Arthur, in contrast, has no problem with the new technologies, but is very much attached to the traditional ideals of the Santa mystique: That somewhere in the world, there's a wonderful man who knows and dearly loves each and every child, wanting nothing more than for them to be happy..
 * Old Master: despite his crotchety-ness and apparent senility, Grandsanta reveals himself to be this to an extent, calming eight reindeer who've never flown before with naught but a whistle and maneuvering the sleigh with great skill and dexterity. Makes sense, given that he had to fly it during some of the most turbulent times in human history.
 * Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Arthur, Grandsanta, Bryony and the old reindeer.
 * Red Herring: With so many animated films these days having a twist villain, you'd expect there to be a real villain in the film.
 * In one scene, . Neither one is really a villain either (though is admittedly off his rocker and  winds up having to go through a lesson in humility throughout the film).
 * Running Gag: Arthur's slippers.
 * Saving Christmas: On a small scale for most of the movie.
 * The whole point of the film is that even one child's happy Christmas is worth fighting for.
 * Shout Out: There are a few shout outs to other Aardman films in the movie. For example:
 * When Steve, he steps on a Shaun the Sheep toy.
 * Gwen has a Chop Socky Chooks poster in her room.
 * One of the elves in the opening montage puts model train tracks down in the same fashion as Gromit in The Wrong Trousers.
 * In a Sony-related example, the first "waker" kid has an Open Season poster in his room.
 * "Christmas: The Board Game" is obviously based on Monopoly, even having similar pieces.
 * During the opening montage, two parents can be seen watching The Snowman.
 * Suspiciously Specific Denial: That elf in the trailers really wasn't helping his cause.
 * Subbing for Santa: What Arthur thinks he's doing.
 * Tempting Fate: Steve saying Grand-Santa is "too old to be getting into trouble."
 * We All Live in America: In Denmark, we see that people have a turkey in the oven come Christmastime, and Christmas stockings hanging by the fireplace. There's no reason why they should. That's not how a Danish Christmas works. To be fair, there are a lot of things the film did get right, such as the German custom of leaving shoes out instead of stockings, and even a quick reference to the Finnish myth that Santa lives in Laapland.
 * Also, the movie shows the Centre in Toronto as being spelled as "Center," the American spelling of centre.
 * Screenwriter/Co-Director Sarah Smith explains their awareness of differences in Christmas celebrations internationally, and why certain things were ignored in this interview.
 * Well Done Son Guy: Arthur, at first.
 * What Could Have Been: Michael Giacchino wrote a score that ended up being rejected. Harry Gregson-Williams replaced him.
 * Where Are They Now Epilogue
 * You Are Not Ready:
 * You Are Number Six: To Steve, the little girl who was overlooked is a multiple-digit number, illustrating that he views children as statistics rather than people. To Arthur, however, she's Gwen. It's indicative of their jobs; Steve is the one who utilizes technology to make the entire operation run efficiently, while Arthur actually answers the letters children write to Santa and thus engages with them on a personal level.