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| “ | Wendolene: He's malfunctioning. Wallace: Mal-what? Wendolene: Malfunctioning! Preston... is a cyberdog! Wallace: Cyber-what? Wendolene: A robot! [Preston punches through a hatch of the Knit-o-Matic] Wendolene: Daddy created him for good, but... he's turned out evil! |
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| ~ Wendolene revealing Preston's true form to Wallace. |
Preston is the main antagonist of the 1995 stop-motion animated short film A Close Shave, the third installment of the Wallace and Gromit franchise.
Biography[]
Preston was a robot dog created by a scientist named Fred Ramsbottom to help with his wool factory. After Fred died, Preston took care of his daughter, Wendolene, who now owns the wool factory and shop. Somehow, Preston eventually went rogue and would rustle sheep alongside a reluctant Wendolene in order to get wool for the shop due to a wool shortage.
Preston later made a scheme to steal sheep and turn them into his own brand of dog food. He had a huge, diabolical machine that would grind the live sheep to meat and dispense them into cans. The newspaper mentions that some of the sheep were killed on the spot instead of stolen, most likely due to Preston's violent temper and uncontrollable robotic strength. After discovering Wallace's knitting machine, he stole the blueprints so that he could build his own upsized version for shearing sheep. When Gromit tried to unveil his plot, Preston framed the other dog for his own thefts and killings.
With Gromit in prison, Preston had free reign over the clueless Wallace and the nonthreatening Wendolene. Preston's plan was eventually foiled by Shaun, who broke Gromit out of prison. Preston was knocked into his own grinding machine while trying to use it on Wallace and Wendolene, and was crushed into pieces. He was eventually reassembled by Wallace and seemingly restored to his original, kinder nature; Wallace assured Wendolene that she could always return to him if Preston ever went wrong again.
Personality[]
Preston was built to be a friendly, loyal, and helpful aid, but unfortunately, due to a malfunction, his personality took a drastic turn. He became a pitiless thug and criminal, obsessed with enriching himself at all costs. He was willing to sink to the lowest depths to complete his agenda, willing to dispose of anyone or anything that interfered. He'd also be willing to brutally mince up sheep or humans for him to use in his dog food.
He held no loyalty towards Wendolene, whom he had forced into becoming his accomplice in his sheep rustling scheme, but she eventually drew the line at his dog food plans. When she tried to stop him from attacking Shaun, he locked her up with the rest of them and did not hesitate to add her to the herd that was to become the first batch of his dog meat.
After being destroyed by Shaun and rebuilt, Preston became a harmless and friendly dog again.
Trivia[]
- Though most fans thought his redemption was genuine, it wasn't an act he performed willingly as he was mostly reprogrammed, and his newly sweet demeanor was purely the result of Wendolene more or less brainwashing him into being good, so it's not a genuine act of redemption.
- Preston resembles several different breeds of dog, but he mostly looks like an anthropomorphic presa Canario.
- Preston is the second Aardman antagonist to be silent. The other is Feathers McGraw.
- Preston is the first Wallace and Gromit villain to get his name mentioned in the film.
- Preston is the second Aardman antagonist to be a robot, the first being the Cooker, and the third being Mugg-1N5.
- In the film, when Preston turns on Wendolene, she tells him "Daddy didn't create you for this!", foreshadowing his eventual reveation as a robot.
- Preston is named after the Lancashire town of the same name, which Nick Park (the creator of Wallace and Gromit) was born.
- Melisha Tweedy (also known as Mrs. Tweedy), the main antagonist of the Aardman's Chicken Run film series was one of the main inspirations for her role. Both villains are animal killers who seek to slaughter a group of farm animals (sheep/chickens) to make food products (dog food/chicken pie and chicken nuggets) to achieve their ends and they were defeated by a heroic farm animal (Shaun/Ginger) in the end.
- When Gromit reads a newspaper, it was revealed that Preston killed a sheep before, foreshadowing that he is a villain.
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 Villains
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Wallace and Gromit Shaun the Sheep | ||