Peanuts

Features, Shorts, Live-Action and Direct-To-Video
User avatar
AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 25294
Joined: October 22nd, 2004
Location: London, UK

Re: Peanuts

Post by Ben » November 19th, 2014, 8:50 am

Actually, although you know I'm not a 3D fan anyhoo, and it may well look great in that format, but I was already thinking that Woodstock was already looking too 3D already. There are touches of the hand drawn panels on the characters (Snoopy's feet, the characters' eyes) and I think the "flat" presentation might kind of preserve just the right amount of original art and newfangled CG combination without pushing it too far, like a 3D version might do.

That said, I'd be interested in seeing this in that format and may well do since Peanuts is one of the better looking features coming out, but I've a feeling it could end up looking a little odd and, ironically, flat in its own way.

By the way, what with those little yellow birds hopping around, will it be any surprise when the spin-off prequel "The Woodstock Movie" is announced...!? ;)

User avatar
AV Team
AV Team
Posts: 1819
Joined: March 27th, 2008

Re: Peanuts

Post by Dan » November 28th, 2014, 4:52 pm

Fox released the voice cast listing for the film.

Source: http://collider.com/the-peanuts-movie-voice-cast/

Noah Schnapp - Charlie Brown
Schnapp will also have a big role in Steven Spielberg's upcoming Cold War film alongside Tom Hanks.

Hadley Belle Miller - Lucy van Pelt
Miller previously voiced a character in an episode of Sofia The First.

AJ Tecce - Pig-Pen

Noah Johnston - Schroeder
Johnston was the voice of Young Mike in Monsters University.

Venus Schulthens - Peppermint Patty

Alexander Garfin - Linus van Pelt
Garfin has appeared as different characters in a couple episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Francesca Capaldi - The Little Red Haired Girl
Capaldi plays Chloe James in the Disney Channel series Dog with a Blog.

Mar Mar - Franklin Armstrong

Mariel Sheets - Sally Brown

Rebecca Bloom - Marcie

William Alexander Wunsch - Shermy

Anastasia Bredikhina - Patty

Madisyn Shipman - Violet Gray
Shipman has appeared in sketches on Saturday Night Live such as being Will Forte's son and Zach Galifianakis' assistant.

The film will be using archival recordings of Bill Melendez as Snoopy and Woodstock.

User avatar
AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 25294
Joined: October 22nd, 2004
Location: London, UK

Re: Peanuts

Post by Ben » November 2nd, 2015, 12:34 pm

Great review from the Hollywood Reporter:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review ... iew-835849

:)

AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 7261
Joined: October 23rd, 2004
Location: SaskaTOON, Canada

Re: Peanuts

Post by Randall » November 2nd, 2015, 1:12 pm

Thank goodness. Sounds like it came out okay. :)

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 5192
Joined: September 27th, 2007

Re: Peanuts

Post by EricJ » November 2nd, 2015, 1:55 pm

Yes, Charlie Brown seemed a little too tailor-made for the "lovable loser" mentality of DWA and post-Ice Age BlueSky, but from the full-trailer last summer, seems like the Schulz estate had some oversee to keep it close to the feel of the original strips. (Would that Audrey Geisel had such a watchful, disciplined eye on what BlueSky does with her family's estate...)
Any movie that remembers to include the "War & Peace book report over Christmas vacation" arc has clearly done some reading of Schulz's own quirky style, or at least remembers "Happy New Year, Charlie Brown".

The idea of doing a Peanuts movie without Melendez or Schulz dates all the way back to when John Hughes threatened to make a live-action one (right after Dennis the Menace, hey, it's another comic strip with kids, a bratty girl, and a dog who causes trouble, how hard could it be?), so there are so many, many, MANY ways to do one wrong if you've never read the actual strips in your life and are just recycling pop-culture icons from TV holiday specials.

User avatar
AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 25294
Joined: October 22nd, 2004
Location: London, UK

Re: Peanuts

Post by Ben » November 2nd, 2015, 2:16 pm

Well, it *was* actually written by Schulz' descendants, so one would hope so!

AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 8201
Joined: October 16th, 2004
Location: Orlando
Contact:

Re: Peanuts

Post by James » November 9th, 2015, 10:39 pm


AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 1923
Joined: December 16th, 2004
Location: Burbank, Calif.

Re: Peanuts

Post by droosan » November 15th, 2015, 4:48 pm

Good review .. pretty much reflects my thoughts going into this movie, exactly; I was very skeptical that Blue Sky could get the tone of Peanuts right (especially given that Horton Hears A Who is one of those movies that I consider to be almost a treatise on THE wrong way to adapt a classic children's book) .. but they pulled it off, and brilliantly. :D

Inside Out will face some serious competition from this film next year, IMO. I'd certainly be hard-pressed to choose between them for BAF.

User avatar
AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 25294
Joined: October 22nd, 2004
Location: London, UK

Re: Peanuts

Post by Ben » November 16th, 2015, 4:33 am

Wow...may have to go see this when it comes out here. I had been okay to wait but might try and venture out if I can.

As usual, the US Blu-ray will hit not too long after the UK release, which is crazily set for December 21 - can you see this being a hit over here when coming out the week after Star Wars and the week before Christmas?

No-one here will go see this until the new year, plus it has a stupid title here, going for Snoopy and Charlie Brown: The Peanuts Movie for more brand recognition, as if Peanuts isn't known already!

I really do want to see this but will get the Blu anyway and with it likely to come around Feb or early March I still may just wait, especially as they've picked the most stupid release date. Had it come out for the school holiday we just had here (makes more sense, no?) then I'd have been there like a shot.

But to hear Droo compare to Inside Out...that's what' serially grabbed my interest, although the "episodic nature" that the reviews keep picking up on, while perfectly suited to Peanuts, may be what gives IO the edge (then again, I found that fairly episodic too). At least it all adds a bit of proper competition to the Animated Feature race (even if IO perhaps scores a Best Picture nom...?)

AV Founder
AV Founder
Posts: 8201
Joined: October 16th, 2004
Location: Orlando
Contact:

Re: Peanuts

Post by James » November 16th, 2015, 9:17 am

I was a fun film and considering how much we all groaned when it was first announced they really exceeded expectations. I don't think I was able to exactly articulate my issue with the movie very well in that review. I made it sound more complicated than it was because I couldn't find the right words. But basically, they did get the tone right, but through a 2015 filter.

That still isn't exactly it though! Short version: go see it!
madmeme.jpg
madmeme.jpg (55.87 KiB) Viewed 5855 times

AV Team
AV Team
Posts: 6634
Joined: February 8th, 2005
Location: The US of A

Re: Peanuts

Post by Dacey » November 16th, 2015, 10:38 am

While not severely off-putting, it’s definitely a change from the original and more in line with the politically-correct sensibilities of today that don’t allow someone to just be a blockhead because they’re a blockhead!
I don't think it was about being "politically correct" so much as it was just about letting Charlie Brown "evolve."

When I was a kid, I used to laugh when Charlie Brown failed, but now that I'm older, I actually find a lot of the older specials almost depressing. Charlie Brown's a genuinely decent guy who often comes so close to victory, only for everything to fall apart because, well, he's Charlie Brown. And while that's funny to a point, after fifty years, it eventually becomes old and, in a way, almost cruel. Maybe, after a while, Schulz should've let Charlie Brown kick the football. Perhaps he could've been allowed to keep that baseball game win. I get the point of a character being enduring because he keeps trying even when he doesn't win, but after a while, Charlie Brown being a "loser" just because he's Charlie Brown simply becomes lazy storytelling. I was once talking with someone about Family Guy, and he wondered what the show would be like if Meg were the main character. "It would be like Peanuts," I answered.

Then again, Schulz was always playing devil's advocate to himself. In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Linus was wise beyond his years because of his faith. In It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Linus is portrayed a fool because of his beliefs, blindly waiting for an unseen being who is never going to show up. And even Linus, often seen as Charlie Brown's only "true" friend, usually went along with the cruelty towards him simply because, well, he's Charlie Brown. Heck, even the people who liked Charlie Brown were rarely actually good to him, with Pepperment Patty, who was in love with him, always acting like he was hitting on him, rather than it being the other way around.

So, yeah, the movie was faithful on a nostalgic level (arguably sometimes a bit too faithful, as part of me would've liked to see the characters in more new situations), but I had no problem with the "updates," if we can even call them that. It's been 65 years, so I'm okay that Linus can now give his blanket a firm "push" in his school locker and then be fine for the rest of the day without literally going out of his mind. Nor do I have any issue as some have at least claimed to (although I think most "complainers" are just trying to be trendy) with modern pop music being used on the soundtrack (which the Peanuts frequently used anyway, including an entire special of 80's music in Flashbeagle). And, at this point, after all he's been through, I think Charlie Brown has ultimately earned the happy ending--and respect--that the movie ultimately allows him to have.

And by the way, if you haven't seen it yet, I do reccomend seeing this one in 3D if you can. I'm usually not always crazy about "depth only" 3D, but in this case, the "depth" is very interesting because the animation is very "flat." It's very hard to explain, but the characters often almost look like stop motion figures, and it feels like if you touched them, they would feel like felt or plastic or clay. It gave everything a very "hand-crafted" look that ultimately will not fully come through in 2D (in 2D, it doesn't look "dimensional" so much as it looks like a much more colorful Peanuts special).
"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift--that is why it's called the present."

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 5192
Joined: September 27th, 2007

Re: Peanuts

Post by EricJ » November 16th, 2015, 12:25 pm

droosan wrote:(especially given that Horton Hears A Who is one of those movies that I consider to be almost a treatise on THE wrong way to adapt a classic children's book)
Oh, there are plenty of wrong ways to adapt a classic children's book (Fox specializes in them), and Horton certainly wasn't the only time BlueSky writers Cinco Paul and Ken Daurio screwed the Seuss pooch (Lorax, anyone?)--
But Horton's a good example in why smarmy grownup CGI non-Pixar filmmakers are their own worst enemy in interpreting the more simple intuitive messages of children's books--Paul & Daurio were more interested in the cute little psycho-tot critter being a metaphor for Believing in Impossible Things, so they could write the cute unicorn-loving psycho-tot into the Despicable Me movies.
Thus completely missing Seuss's own Amnesty International message in the book that Chuck Jones was at least able to pick up on...But we digress:
Dacey wrote:I don't think it was about being "politically correct" so much as it was just about letting Charlie Brown "evolve."
When I was a kid, I used to laugh when Charlie Brown failed, but now that I'm older, I actually find a lot of the older specials almost depressing. Charlie Brown's a genuinely decent guy who often comes so close to victory, only for everything to fall apart because, well, he's Charlie Brown. And while that's funny to a point, after fifty years, it eventually becomes old and, in a way, almost cruel. Maybe, after a while, Schulz should've let Charlie Brown kick the football.
After his death, there was a special on Schulz's depression and facing disease, and they quoted the strip where Charlie's in bed late at night, thinking, "Sometimes at night, I ask, 'Why me'?...And then I seem to hear a voice saying, 'Nothing personal, your name just came up.'"

Again, it's a question of making Charlie sympathetic by making his troubles our troubles (only just more often)--Which, coming from BlueSky, or even in the thread next to the sniggering "Our character's too normal!" Lego Movie, is a very thin tightrope to walk in a non-Pixar CGI movie, and most makers fall off trying to show off their cleverness.

(And besides, Charlie did kick the football in "It's Magic, Charlie Brown", but he could never prove it to anyone, especially Lucy.)
So, yeah, the movie was faithful on a nostalgic level (arguably sometimes a bit too faithful, as part of me would've liked to see the characters in more new situations), but I had no problem with the "updates," if we can even call them that. It's been 65 years, so I'm okay that Linus can now give his blanket a firm "push" in his school locker and then be fine for the rest of the day without literally going out of his mind.
Well, true, wait a second, in the strips, Linus doesn't have his blanket with him in class... :shock:
http://peanuts.wikia.com/wiki/File:Classroom.jpg
Last edited by EricJ on November 16th, 2015, 1:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

AV Team
AV Team
Posts: 6634
Joined: February 8th, 2005
Location: The US of A

Re: Peanuts

Post by Dacey » November 16th, 2015, 1:10 pm

I'm really going by the history of the animated specials and films (which, let's face it, are really how Charlie Brown has lived on over the years). But this was also very knowingly done in the film, addressing that, in past appearances, Linus would literally have a nervous breakdown any time he and his blanket were separated.

(Also, for what it's worth, I think Blue Sky's Horton totally understood Seuss)
"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift--that is why it's called the present."

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 5192
Joined: September 27th, 2007

Re: Peanuts

Post by EricJ » November 16th, 2015, 2:35 pm

Dacey wrote:(Also, for what it's worth, I think Blue Sky's Horton totally understood Seuss)
(Uh, technically, Seuss said he wrote Horton about the postwar US turning a deaf ear to Russians suffering under Stalinist repression--which is why, in case you've ever wondered, the Kangaroo thinks Horton speaking up for people who everyone knows aren't there is "dangerous" and "socially subversive"--and that all it takes for the world to become aware is just one kid in a corner to speak up, because A Person Is A Person No Matter How Small...
But, that's a BlueSky discussion for another time.)

AV Forum Member
AV Forum Member
Posts: 1923
Joined: December 16th, 2004
Location: Burbank, Calif.

Re: Peanuts

Post by droosan » November 16th, 2015, 3:48 pm

I should've known I'd need to clarify. :roll:

These were my thoughts immediately after seeing Horton Hears A Who. I do think -- then, and now --that the artists at Blue Sky totally 'understood' Seuss.

But the storytelling struck the wrong tone, pretty much throughout that movie, IMO. All the stuff people love to 'rag' on DreamWorks movies over was on full display here: celebrity stunt-casting, entirely-modern 'attiTUDE', pop-song dance party at the end .. and some completely-random stuff to make you say, "What th' HECK..?!"

Image
(seriously. What th' HECK.) :|

------------------------------------------------

The Peanuts Movie, happily, suffers from none of that .. which was a pleasant surprise, especially given these movies share the same director.

I don't think there's nearly as much of a '2015 filter' as James implies. This movie could take place just about any year .. but seems especially weighted toward some point during Schulz' lifetime.

It does take some liberties:
Peppermint Patty, Marcie and Franklin now attend the same school as the rest of the gang (they lived in a different neighborhood with its own school, in the strips and specials).

Lucy and Linus are in the same class .. meaning either Linus skipped ahead a couple of grades, or Lucy was held back.

And 'original' Patty apparently has a thing for Pig-Pen, all of a sudden.
But it all 'feels' like Schulz -- every bit as much as it looks like his work (and I'm hoping for super-extensive 'making-of' bonus features on the Blu-ray).

Post Reply