Peanuts

[Urinal Cake]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1FNL_iIp5c

Yes! No! Maybe!

[holyzombiejesus]

NO!

[Old Nehamkin]

The animation looks surprisingly nice and I'm sure it'll be inoffensive enough, but I really wish they'd move away from all the kitschy "happiness is a warm puppy" type stuff and do an adaptation more in line with the melancholy, paranoid, often wildly surreal tone of the strip at its peak. Obviously Schulz's characters and art style always carried a lot of natural warmth and playfulness, but it annoys me that the default mainstream perception of Peanuts seems to be typified by the image of Charlie Brown hugging Snoopy at the end of that trailer.

That sort of cutesy, "everything's fine" sentimentality just doesn't represent what the strip is at all. Peanuts is, to a large extent, about the fact that life can be fucking horrible and terrifying. It's about feeling completely alone and isolated in a universe that doesn't care about you. It's not about hugging your dog, it's about your dog being a selfish, whimsical dick who's barely aware of your existence. Basically, it's about Schulz taking all of his pain and anxiety and feelings of inadequacy and turning it into something beautiful and funny that vacillates between bleak realism and extremely silly, off-the-wall insanity. I'm giving the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt, but on the basis of that trailer I'm not convinced that they understand this.

If I was in charge of the film it'd just be a 90-minute version of this strip, and it'd be a smash hit, I tell ya:

[Replies From View]

Hopefully it will be a melancholy film.  It's hard to make a judgement from that trailer alone, except I like the piano piece used for the music (is that taken from another Snoopy film where everyone is on stage dancing?), I hope those sounds of cackling are all we get of Snoopy's "voice" (I'd prefer him to be entirely silent though), and the animation style will undoubtedly grow on me if the film is appropriately melancholy.

Also in the original Snoopy cartoons there was a fair amount of shapeshifting for things like Snoopy's ears, where they'd be their normal shape one second and long and trailing the next.  It might sound petty but I hope the makers of this film are not as obsessed with characters staying "on model" as, for example, the makers of current-day Simpsons.

[Phil_A]

It looks like they're going with the Bill Melendez TV cartoons as the source material, even to the extent of using archive recordings of Melendez's vocalisations for Snoopy and Woodstock. That and the fact they've used Vince Guaraldi's "Linus & Lucy" theme suggests that's the particular vibe they want to aim for.

Getting the music right is crucial. Sadly, Guaraldi's no longer around, and I'm not sure who could fill those shoes these days. Ben Folds, maybe? Jon Bryon?

[Replies From View]

It looks like they're going with the Bill Melendez TV cartoons as the source material, even to the extent of using archive recordings of Melendez's vocalisations for Snoopy and Woodstock. That and the fact they've used Vince Guaraldi's "Linus & Lucy" theme suggests that's the particular vibe they want to aim for.

Interesting that they've used vintage vocalisations, as I wouldn't have known that, and I approve; always difficult to tell though how representative of a final film its trailer will end up being, especially when it comes to music and sound.  Straightaway I'm thinking of the Robocop trailer using Terminator music, and countless trailers using music from Aliens, but there are probably more appropriate examples you can think of.

[Replies From View]

What are the chances that Karl Pilkington's next project will parody this teaser, with his round bald head and that same 2001 / Also sprach Zarathustra music, but him looking all dim instead of smiling.  Place your bets.

[Phil_A]

Interesting that they've used vintage vocalisations, as I wouldn't have known that, and I approve; always difficult to tell though how representative of a final film its trailer will end up being, especially when it comes to music and sound.  Straightaway I'm thinking of the Robocop trailer using Terminator music, and countless trailers using music from Aliens, but there are probably more appropriate examples you can think of.

One of my favourites was the theme from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" on the teasers for The Incredibles. Works brilliantly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU6Djgf0gNo

Ohh, another thing this film definitely has to have is the trumpet-voiced adults. This is essential.

[KLG-7DD]

You know, apart from "oh no it's a movie version of a treasured thing" I can't think of much bad to say about that (okay, the 'joke' being "Snoopy is running around a lot" isn't great, but it's just a teaser). They seem to have done that rare thing of making CGI look good and move expressively and interestingly (I can only think of Tin Tin doing that, and Tin Tin was also surprisingly good).

[popcorn]

They've given Charlie Brown TROUSERS.

Other than that, looks ace. I don't mind the project going with the "happiness is a warm puppy" thing if it captures the melancholy too; I'm not as much of a Peanuts scholar as some people but I always read it as a fundamentally comforting strip that showed you the terror of life while simultaneously going "it's OK, it's OK".

[Queneau]

It's hard to make a judgement from that trailer alone, except I like the piano piece used for the music (is that taken from another Snoopy film where everyone is on stage dancing?), I hope those sounds of cackling are all we get of Snoopy's "voice" (I'd prefer him to be entirely silent though), and the animation style will undoubtedly grow on me if the film is appropriately melancholy.

I agree. In fact, I've never been a fan of Snoopy so could easily just lose him altogether. Having said that, Charlie has said many funny things in relation to the dog.

As mentioned, that music is Linus and Lucy. It's the first track on 'Oh, Good Grief!.'

Spoiler alert

http://theunfortunates.net/vinceguaraldi/

[close]

[Alternative Carpark]

They've given Charlie Brown TROUSERS.

To be fair, even the original Schulz comic strips had him and the other boys wearing long trousers from about the 80s onwards.

[tookish]

Imagine if they ended the film with an animated version of this. The credits roll as the rain continues to fall. Finally fade to black. God, that would be bleak. But so fucking fitting.

[madhair60]

Interesting fact everyone probably knows - the reason the two strips in this thread have fairly unnecessary panels after the title card is because some newspapers would omit that top row entirely for space reasons - therefore, the first panel and title card are often disposable.

[Replies From View]

Watching some vintage Peanuts / Snoopy cartoons again for the first time in about twenty years I've realised that they must surely have been an influence on early Simpsons.  Yet I've somehow only read about the Simpsons emerging into a context of various family sitcoms of that time and the Flintstones.

I think an important part of the old Peanuts animations is the pacing.  Which I'm sure won't survive in a 2014 feature film.

[madhair60]

[popcorn]

It really is an unimpeachably beautiful illustration style.

[KLG-7DD]

Watching some vintage Peanuts / Snoopy cartoons again for the first time in about twenty years I've realised that they must surely have been an influence on early Simpsons.  Yet I've somehow only read about the Simpsons emerging into a context of various family sitcoms of that time and the Flintstones.

I remember watching some "Simpsons Night" thing on TV about 14 years ago[nb]christ[/nb], and I think Groening said that he was very inspired by Peanuts. It showed some drawings of his early characters which featured Charlie Brown's shirt stripe.

Ah, yep, these ones:

[tookish]

I'm not totally sure how a film of Peanuts will play out. What will the plot be? Part of Peanuts' charm for me is the slow, generally plotless movement of it.

[SavageHedgehog]

I'm not totally sure how a film of Peanuts will play out. What will the plot be? Part of Peanuts' charm for me is the slow, generally plotless movement of it.

The first Peanuts film from 1969, A Boy Named Charlie Brown had a very minimal plot about a spelling bee, and while it was padded out with a few so-so musical numbers and a trippy Beethoven homage, captured the feel of the strip very well, and has the same kind of vibe which got Fantastic Mr Fox such good reviews a few years ago. The second Snoopy Come Home was probably about as good, but felt less like the comics. The last two, Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown and Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown feel like much more typical kiddie adventure films livened up with some Schulzian wit, although I loved them as a wee one.

I like the teaser, but I have my doubts about them keeping the gentle, slow paced vibe of the originals for something typically frantic to compete with Lego 2 and whatever else is out then, but I hope they will.

It looks like they're going with the Bill Melendez TV cartoons as the source material, even to the extent of using archive recordings of Melendez's vocalisations for Snoopy and Woodstock. That and the fact they've used Vince Guaraldi's "Linus & Lucy" theme suggests that's the particular vibe they want to aim for.

Getting the music right is crucial. Sadly, Guaraldi's no longer around, and I'm not sure who could fill those shoes these days. Ben Folds, maybe? Jon Bryon?

There was a special a few years ago which tried to recreate the feel of the 60s specials, including the music which was by Mark Mothersbaugh off Devo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f7qzAR8nMc