Charlie Brown Hasn't Changed, and That's a Good Thing
Just about everyone knows Charles Shulz's Charlie Brown and the whole Peanuts gang from one form or another. Maybe it's the comic strip, the holiday TV specials, or even the Snoopy Thanksgiving Day parade balloon, but everyone is familiar with at least a bit of the Peanuts iconography. That's why it was such a savvy choice by the filmmakers (which include Schulz offspring) at Blue Sky Studios to retain everything about Charlie Brown that already works.
The Peanuts Movie is leagues away from being a beloved property wrung for its commercial viability. The story is a simple and episodic one, as Charlie Brown tries to work up the courage to engage with the Little Red-Haired Girl, and that's exactly as it should be. The Peanuts brand and tone are not built for a globetrotting Charlie Brown adventure, as that would miss the melancholy and adolescent anxiety that make Charlie Brown who he is (though Snoopy's adventures as the Flying Ace get an often entertaining treatment here).
A huge piece of retaining the original feel of Schulz's work and the TV specials is the stylistic choices made by the creative team. Though the film utilizes modern 3D animation, much of the film is presented as if it was in the panel of a comic strip, but with a little extra depth of field behind the characters. To top it off, pencil lines are included as accents, grounding this new visual approach in the form from which the characters originated. Though the modern tools allow for a great deal of detail and optical panache, the filmmakers never once abandon the integrity of the old designs, and the film is better for it.
The Peanuts Movie also mercifully avoids stunt casting, leaving the adults to the "wa-wa" of a trombonist, and the children's voices to unknowns perfect for their roles. Every last character, from Charlie Brown to Lucy sounds as they did in the old TV specials, both in actual sound and personality. Bill Melendez, the original voice behind Snoopy and Woodstock, is resurrected here via digital manipulation of his old recordings, and his characters are as vibrant and funny as ever. Though Charlie Brown is still the beating heart of the Peanuts, Snoopy is the entertaining scene stealer. His subplot, in which he slips into his own Flying Ace World War I adventure, goes on a bit long toward the end, but like the film itself, it never once bores or wears out its welcome.
There are fictional worlds like that of Charlie Brown that never really move forward with time. They're not antiquated, but rather created with just the right emphasis on character and humanity that they remain the same each time we revisit them in new forms. The world of Charles Shulz' Peanuts characters remains the same charming and slightly melancholy creation in 2015 that it was in 1950. The Peanuts Movie successfully returns viewers to that timeless place, and it feels just right.