Maybe it’s because I never watched the originals but I love the Peanuts movie and hope they make another one.
The only acceptable “modernization” is when people who love the original say “what would they have done with the technology from 4 years after they were finished” or “what would they have done with a slightly bigger budget or 4 months more time or if their warehouse didn’t burn down”
some of the boomer shooters do it right
the only acceptable “forced diversity” is foreign films and intentionally accurate-ish / logical stuff like Moana, lilo and stitch, the emperor’s new groove, bravestar, blood diamond, the last king of scotland, black dynomite, Polly: Comin’ Home, Fat Albert, slumdog, ghost dog, ghost dad, coco, turning red, mulan
There was actually a lot of R&D that was done to make the CGI Peanuts at least somewhat similar to the original 2D animation in terms of feel and in looks. It was not just a faithless recreation in the standard Pixar style.
Now you have Apple owning the rights to the IP and making new episodes, but fortunately it looks to be in the original style as opposed to cheapo Cal Arts styling done in Adobe Flash.
I have always had a soft spot for Peanuts because my dog has always been a beagle, just like Snoopy.
Fun Fact; Snoopy’s popularity once he hit the big screen is the reason why beagles got popular in the first place (a major bounce for a breed that twice in the century prior faced the possibility of extinction).
Fun Fact 2; the name ‘Snoopy’ itself is rare, but when chosen for a dog is far more likely to go to a beagle than any other breed.
I wonder how many CG artists have this sort of existential dilemma–learning CG is by no means easy, especially if you’re not technically-savvy or mathematically-inclined, but even as someone who wants to get better at Blender, I’ve struggled to find CG-animated movies that impress me half as much as what Disney’s Nine Old Men achieved in the 1930’s/1940’s WITHOUT all of our modern technology–I’ve heard some of them, like Art Babbitt, were fast like machines, producing something like 13 seconds of animation A DAY. Some of the best animated movie CGi I’ve seen was during the late-90’s/early 2000’s, almost flawlessly integrated in what were otherwise hand-drawn 2D movies. I recently watched End of Evangelion and feel like Asuka and Unit 02’s legendary fight against the Production Evas was either using rotoscoping, CGi mechs, or some combination of both. Of course, when I was little I had fond memories of the 2D/CG used in Disney’s Tarzan, the woefully-under-advertised Treasure Planet and Warner Bros’ Iron Giant. More recently, I like the putty-like cartoon animation of the Hotel Transylvania series and of course the Spider-verse movies.
In particular, sometimes I wonder if the only reason I studied 3D at all instead of 2D is because, when I was in art college at least, it seemed like the safer option while 2D had long proven to be Hollywood career suicide for the most part by the mid-2010’s. The irony is that the Animation Guild did a study recently that suggested that it’s actually 3D modeling and animation jobs that are already suffering the most job losses due to companies relying solely on AI instead, with that career path possibly being changed, consolidated or eliminated entirely by AI in the next 3 years, barring the current AI hype train crashing in the same spectacular fashion as the crypto hype train (might be possible…). 2D Concept art (which I’ve been told is an extremely competitive field to get into even in the best of times) actually seems (slightly) safer at the moment compared to anything 3D/CG/VFX, though I’m sure someone’s working on something to change that.
I miss when I was young enough and had enough free time/energy to dabble in both 3D and frame-by-frame 2D animation at the same time. Maybe I should try to do a little bit of both by finally taking the time to master Blender’s Grease Pencil tool…
Well, looking at the recent Google Gemini debacle let’s hope at least that there are sane and responsible adults guiding these algorithms, rather than radical, ideological lunatics.
I would, too, but it is surprising by the Animation Guild poll results how many industry executives seem to have made more progress on eliminating 3D jobs already, considering, outside of the recently-announced Sora AI, there doesn’t seem to be any real threats to 3D artists in the present time. At least not any the public is aware of and has access to as of this typing.
Again, though, even in the best of times it seems like it’s impossible for anyone outside of the most gifted and well-connected individuals to get a 2D art/animation job in an industry that has long favored 3D artists, so as cynical as it sounds, I don’t know what difference it would make for AI to eliminate 2D jobs that 3D has already mostly eliminated.