Posted on 11/07/2015 3:24:26 PM PST by NYer
It’s okay to feel a little trepidation before going to see The Peanuts Movie. After all, it was only a couple of months ago that the powers that be decided what the world really needed was a Muppets television show full of penis jokes and pessimistic cruelty. If the folks entrusted with Jim Henson’s creations were willing to submit Kermit and Fozzy to that kind of butchery, why should Charlie Brown and Snoopy be any safer? Well, let those trepidations slide away, because, to paraphrase Charles M. Schulz, happiness is a film about a warm puppy. The best way to describe The Peanuts Movie is that it is refreshingly … Peanuts.
The story is as simple as it gets. When Charlie Brown becomes smitten with the little redheaded girl who just moved in across the street, everybody’s favorite perennial loser embarks on a campaign to prove he’s worthy of the girl’s attention by finally winning something, anything, just once in his life. To this end he attempts to secure a victory in a number of ways, from participating in the school talent competition to seeking the gold star for best book report to learning how to dance. There’s just one problem. As a good friend once explained to him, out of all the Charlie Browns in the world, Charlie Brown is the Charlie Browniest.
Incredibly, The Peanuts Movie never loses sight of this. In fact, all the characterizations are spot on. Lucy is still the fussbudget with a 5-cent psychiatry stand, Linus is still the soulful thinker dragging around his ever-present security blanket, Schroeder is still obsessed with Beethoven, Sally is still obsessed with Linus, and Snoopy … well, he’s Snoopy. When he’s not trying to help Charlie Brown, Snoopy’s time onscreen is spent lost in his own World War I fantasy world in which he attempts to save his dream girl from the clutches of the dreaded Red Baron.
If this all sounds familiar, it most definitely is. Everything in The Peanuts Movie is just how we remember it, with no silly reimaginings to try to “make the story relevant†to any of today’s cause célèbres. Even the world the characters inhabit remains mostly timeless, without so much as a computer or cell phone in sight. Sure, a few light pop songs do creep into the soundtrack, but they’re mostly innocuous and blend in fairly well with Vince Guaraldi’s classic themes. It’s all topped off with a unique animation style that flattens the computerized images to both simulate Peanuts’ comic strip origins and call back to the classic hand drawn television specials.
There is hardly anything new in The Peanuts Movie and, for perhaps the only time ever in a movie review, that is meant as a compliment of the highest order. Unlike the aforementioned Muppets, the people behind The Peanuts Movie (which includes Charles Schulz’s son and grandson) trust their brand to display the same appeal it has for more than 50 years, and that trust pays off in the end results.
And why not? After all, there’s good reason Schulz’s creation has been published in 75 countries and been adapted to stage and screen, and that reason is best exemplified in a single moment near the end of The Peanuts Movie. (This is a slight spoiler, but if you’re at all familiar with the world of Peanuts, you already knew this was coming.) After all of Charlie Brown’s efforts have come to no avail and he’s reached the breaking point, he stands alone at the top of a hill staring heavenward and says a small but heartfelt prayer to God to please, just once, let something go right for him.
It’s not just that it’s an unabashed religious moment in a children’s movie (which I wholeheartedly approve of, of course) but that it’s a profoundly human moment, one that only the hardest of atheist hearts could find fault with. It’s been said a million times, but it still holds true, in his insecurities and his weaknesses and his despair, Charlie Brown is all of us. He does his best to do what is right and decent, not just for himself, but for those he loves, yet he never sees any reward for it. Or does he? Yes, there’s a lesson at the end of The Peanuts Movie, and yes, it’s a lesson we’ve all heard before. There is nothing new in The Peanuts Movie, and it’s a better thing because of it.
Charles Schultz was a secular humanist lib. I refuse to take my kids to this subversive filth, and I feel bad for people who keep falling for ‘cute’ Hollywood.
Bttt
You are out of you mind n00b.
Secular humanist??
This is a short documentary about the making of the Peanuts Christmas special. The part where they talk about reading from the bible on TV was shocking to me. They thought that it might be disrespectful to read from the bible in a cartoon on tv! How far we have fallen....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAE5KHOQMVQ
The last one that had been mainstream and copies of which survive in syndication, or something like that.
Schulz worshiped as a Catholic, yet his Christian messages were nonsectarian.
Maybe it is to bend a metaphor, but may the good Lord grant that from small peanuts may large plants grow again.
Peanuts did portray sins of arrogant pride, almost always it was Lucy. And the victim of those was Charlie Brown.
From You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Kristin Chenoweth as Sally Brown sings “ My New Philosophy “
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRa7WNmRakY
Schulz’s cartoon did pretty good given the pressures of the mainstream where he was trying to publish. Sometimes there really IS a “blame the victim” mentality, pace liberal haters.
Even in my life, the idea of seeing a scripture reading (he used the KJV, not a Catholic version, in his cartoons) in a non-churchy setting was one of a “cloud of witnesses” with which the Lord approached my proudly unbelieving heart, the idea that it might be more than a pretentious put-on after all. We could wish every “secular humanist” did this well in the world.
Schulz may have become disheartened with today’s state of organized religion, and did not attend church services regularly. He called himself a “secular humanist” — and yet the quote is highly bereft of context. It could have easily been irony, as a statement about something he believed in (the commandment to love neighbor as self) that wasn’t typically “churchy.”
Some people will knee jerk at certain buzz words of terminology and say “aha.” But if they don’t look at the largest picture possible, they may miss the character of what they refer to. Perhaps Schulz was a weak believer. But that would lend more significance to the approval of his cartoon bible verses. That would have been a God move, not a move of personal force of will. If God accompanies what someone does, there is some reason for it.
Before he died, Schultz gave thumbs up to his family for any future Peanuts movies and advertising, but nixed another artist continuing the strip. This was because he never actually did the animation drawing, so he never felt that attached to it.
That’s not just a n00b, but a troll.
I figured as much....not a very bright one to boot!
We just took our 2+ yo granddaughter to this entertaining movie. Charles Schulz would have very much approved. Our granddaughter was delighted and watched in spellbound silence occasionally giggling. My fun was in watching her enjoy the movie.
They won’t rest until they have corrupted everything that was ever right and good in America.
He was great at “compromise” and then ended up a humanist.
Sounds wishy-washy to the core to me and watching the cartoons I remember the message being that of surrender and being a pushover.
http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2015/October/A-Charlie-Brown-Religion-Explores-Charles-Schulzs-Faith/
Please Slit your wrists - it will lower your blood pressure.
Lol
Always wanted CB to grow a pair, punch a few kids in the face and kick Lucy through the goalposts!
* * *
I’ve always felt the same way! And I live in Charles Schulz’s home town. It’s sacrilege or something to feel that way here! LOL! Now my kids want me to take them to this movie. I’d rather pull out my eyeteeth with pliers. I tried to talk my husband into taking them but he just laughed at me. I usually enjoy kids’ movies but I’m dreading this. Maybe I can bring a book with me.
Caustic line, that.
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