The Promising Peanuts Film

Eric Longnecker

Podcast Editor

Newspaper B

The upcoming “The Peanuts Movie” will charm old audiences, along with newer viewers.

The Peanuts, a comic strip by Charles Schultz, Is receiving another movie adaption, but with this installment, a new animation style but still retaining the same tone and characters. The plot places the football kicking boy in a new conflict, as he attempts to win over the new girl who moves into his town, but he must face his greatest challenge; himself.

A fresh “2.5D” visual to this movie is a ingenious technique to seamlessly combine the nostalgic 2d of the older films, with a new 3D animation in the mix, creating a new look that does not drastically change the beloved Peanuts to a unrecognizable point. This new animation style is the ideal approach when tackling such a classic series, taking new strides to keep up with changing times, yet keeping a beloved classic design, which happened to captivate my enjoyment of the series once more. Appealing to the eye, the new animation is a pleasing sight among other superficial animated features.

Another valuable point of the film’s promising presentation is the continuity of the characters. The writers clearly understand how cherished the characters are to the audience, and seen as how the characters are presented in the trailers, the cast is untouched, yet they all have a fresh touch to them. This could be due to the fresh art style or the new voice actors for these characters, but the most promising part is the character interaction with the new plot point, with a new character being introduced. This new character is responded to by the cast in particular fashion which seems likely based on what past viewers have been given on character’s development.

Lastly, this story fits right in along the rest of the Peanuts’ story. Despite the new animation/voice acting/writing, this movie will fit right in alongside the rest of the films and comics, due to it’s sheer dedication to it’s predecessors. The team behind this movie have displayed clear dedication to Schultz’s work, and this film will prove to be apart of the Peanuts legacy. The story of Charlie Brown attempting to conquer himself to impress the new kid sounds like a concept that could easily fit it’s way into a black and white comic strip.

While this movie is a shining beacon for animation, no media is without flaw. The Peanuts Movie may suffer a similar fate of late children’s movies; Merchandising, and a pursuit of being “hip”. Recent movies such as “Frozen”, “Cars”, and “Despicable Me” have all turned into franchises which arguably exist in some minds as a cheap way for companies to receive money from parents, who unwillingly buying their child the new set of merchandise hitting store shelves. The Peanuts Movie may follow this cycle and forcefully push it’s marketing to a level of infamy, as the ‘minion‘ merchandise has already reached in many minds.

The new Peanuts Movie looks appealing and wonderful to audiences old and new because of it’s ingenious design and writing. Not many movies which push to revive older franchises can have such a promising appeal that is not only in just it’s appearance, but in it’s writing and directing. This upcoming film is one of the most promising animated films in years, which can claim to appeal to young and old without needing to change the core idea drastically or the need to push a film into theaters for the sake of money. This movie is a clear picture of what the filmmakers have planned for audiences looking for a classic revival of a beloved franchise. Given these points, nearly any Peanuts fan will enjoy this film, as this movie captures the heart  with only sheer bits of the film given.