My thoughts on the new Peanuts movie

SPOILER: It has a lot of potential to be great.
On
March 28, 2014


I have to admit, when I heard in 2012 that there would be a new CG animated movie based on the popular Peanuts comic strip by the late Charles M. Schulz, I was a bit nervous. Why was I nervous you may ask? Well, the Peanuts specials were a HUGE part of my life when I was a kid growing up in the 1990s, and I also used to occasionally read the original comic strip every Sunday. Plus, judging from previous movies (live-action/CG hybrids at that) that are based on familiar cartoon properties such as Alvin and the Chipmunks, The Smurfs, Yogi Bear, and even Garfield and Marmaduke, I wasn't so sure how this movie would be pulled off. Want to see what I mean? Well, take a look at these creepy renditions of those properties I mentioned.






Yeah, the CG versions of the characters in those movies looked pretty creepy, and the stories were even worse (if you call them stories). They make those characters "hip", and insert fart jokes and toilet humor into the film when the original material - case in point Yogi Bear, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and The Smurfs - had absolutely NONE of that. Alvin was worse, since they now sing renditions of awful hip hop and pop songs. These four films are thanks in large part to talentless hacks who are only doing the film to make a quick buck.

When I first read on Rotten Tomatoes about a new Peanuts movie in 3D CGI, I thought it would be just like those four films, only fully animated. I also thought they were going from Schulz's look pictured below here...

...to a more generic look seen in most recent CG movies (i.e. Mr. Peabody & Sherman).



It wasn't really a pretty picture. However, the first few pictures and a teaser popped up on the net this month, and all I gotta say is that I'm extremely excited about this now. Blue Sky captured the essence of Sparky's original drawings!



I can't tell you how beautiful this picture looks. How I look at it is this, it looks to me like an animated version of a painting Mr. Schulz would have done of he were still alive. However, that's not all. The teaser showed us how the film was going to be animated. They also captured the essence of how the late Bill Melendez used to animate Schulz's characters in their various animated specials, more specifically 1965's A Charlie Brown Christmas. Here it is down below.



See Hollywood? THAT'S how you adapt a property that was originally a cartoon into a feature film. Hopefully, the story is as good as the way the characters were rendered and animated. This movie has a lot of potential, especially since Schulz's son and grandson are involved with writing the script. I wish them, and everyone at Blue Sky the best of luck on this project, and I'm sure they'll have an animated classic on their hands. Peanuts will be in theatres next November, so mark your calendars!
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