The New Peanuts Movie Trailer

This week the new trailer for November’s Peanuts trailer was released:

In November, I wrote about the first trailer, and in the days since the new trailer was released I’ve left a few comments here and there. Why don’t I share my thoughts on the new trailer here?

My read on the trailer is that this is an origin story of sorts — the origin of Charlie Brown’s unrequited crush on the Little Red-Haired Girl. A new girl moves into Charlie Brown’s neighborhood, she’s seen a few times in shadows or at a distance in the trailer, no matter what he does Charlie Brown can’t work up the nerve to talk to her, she has red hair. Seems straightforward to me.

Eagle-eyed viewers will note that the new neighbor, what little of her we see, does not resemble Heather from the animated specials. The one time that the Little Red-Haired Girl appears on panel (a storyline in late May 1998 when Snoopy was the “F. Scott Fitzgerald Hero”), she resembles Lucy rather than Heather. There is a vague Lucy resemblance to the new neighbor in this. (Of course, I could be imagining that because that’s what I want to see…)

There are also elements that are reminiscent of A Boy Named Charlie Brown — Charlie Brown, who’s not good at anything, does something to suddenly become popular. (Inevitably, this will blow up in his face and his friends will treat him like a loser, even though he got further in whatever it was than any of his friends did. His friends are fickle assholes.)

There are a couple of moments in the trailer that I think are there to reassure older fans, like myself, that this is the Peanuts we remember. There’s a cute sequence that recreates some moments from the animated specials, and then there’s a CGI recreation of the ice skating from A Charlie Brown Christmas. No sign of 3 and 4 doing their head-bopping dance, though we do see Shermy (also known as “Taller Linus among fans) several times.

There are a few moments that irritate the purist in me. Shermy’s presence alongside Peppermint Patty and Franklin is ahistorical (Shermy disappeared from Charles Schulz’s strip about the same time they were introduced). We also see that Peppermint Patty, Marcie, and Franklin apparently attend Charlie Brown’s school (they didn’t — they were from the other side of town and attended a different school), and Linus appears to be in the same class as Charlie Brown (he wasn’t — he was a year or two behind Charlie Brown).

However, the general feeling of the trailer is so right — even with The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” as the trailer’s soundtrack — that I can overlook those irritants. And they wouldn’t have kept me from seeing the film anyway. 🙂

The Washington Post had an article on the trailer that pointed out ten Easter Eggs that, honestly, I didn’t catch.

The Peanuts Movie will be out on November 6th.

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

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