In the middle
It's hard to describe this flash. You've obviously put a fair bit of work into it, but the plot-line seems very weird and confusing. It would of made a lot more sense to use it seriously, but the way you've done it seems like it's meant to be funny and, no offence, its not. Basically, i think your combination of cartoon and seriousness doesn't work. It was nicely made though, so ill give you a 6.
parents just don't understand.
Good but could have been great
[Warning, my review will contain spoilers]
Ok, this may be a bit of a harsh score but I honestly think this could have been a lot better (at least for me as a viewer).
First of all, you've created a beautifully animated piece. The characters all look perfect, as if you've ripped them straight out of a Charlie Brown cartoon. They also moved very fluidly and your backgrounds are also spot on in their imitation of the show/cartoon.
The music fit quite well into the flash itself. The hip hop beat fit well into this idea of Charlie Brown's growing madness and somehow it seems to go in hand in hand with the Brown household. The piano pieces also give off really calm feel and seem very much of the peanuts cartoon style. It's a cool juxtaposition to the theme of madness that we see growing through the piece. The thing that irked me was the cliché use of mad world. It's been done to death and didn't really fit in with the rest of the instrumental pieces.
The voice acting was good. You're obviously not going to get a perfect imitation of the characters but most of your voice actors got close enough to the original accents that I wasn't even thinking about this being a fan made video while I was watching it. The only one that was slightly off was Charlie Brown himself. A couple of times I heard a sort of lisp on Charlie Brown's voice and it threw me off a bit.
Now my real gripe with the animation was the plot. I think you went the slightly easier, but less rewarding route in setting up the whole "Beelzebub" story angle. For example, the best scene in the whole thing was with Schroeder and Lucy. This was because of the interaction between the two characters really fantastic and it really hit home the relationship those two characters had. It made me look back at the real peanuts comics/movies and have a real think about the relationship. It works so well because it follows the real peanuts so closely but just goes that one step further, saying the stuff that has never been said.
I think you could have done this Charlie Brown and Lucy's relationship. Instead you went with the crazy hallucinations and talking to the devil track. I was really disappointed when the animation took that turn. I just feel you could have done much better. Instead of making a big impact on me like the schroeder/lucy scene due to how closely it followed the source material, instead it broke my connection to the whole story a bit. It's just that bit far removed, bit far fetched, and at least in my eyes, that bit tacky.
With that said, I still enjoyed the animation but instead of leaving a huge impact the whole demon thing broke my connection. I came away thinking about how amazingly well animated it was instead of thinking how amazing it was as a whole.
I think you'll find that the Beelzebub storyline is bit deeper than you think, stay tuned for part 2.
LOL!
Dungeon fighter sprites in a charlie brown movie. I can't get past that.
Predictable
Voice and animation is nice and fluid but it all builds up to Charlie killing Lucy, which I knew would happen from about the start. And when he kills her. It's the finale. It's really unsatisfying and Lucy's death does not solve anything really. He has no trouble sleeping. He's a psycho. And I don't really need a "Charlie Brown The Murderer" picture in my head.
Because you copied the style so successfully, it's disturbing for me that seeing the characters' getting killed and becoming murderers. Though, I must admit I liked the Lucy-Schroeder scene.
I think this animation is more about personal revenge and filling the holes that the original comics and cartoons didn't. But overall, except that one little scene it is a failure for my taste.
Oh by the way, I'm not gonna even talk about "the eye" and "evil inside" parts, or I'm gonna start swearing.
Well, the ending was not meant to wrap up all the loose ends. It just provides a good place to pause before the story picks up again in the sequel. Not sure if you viewed the extras but that should fill some of the gaps in the story and explain why Charlie Brown is acting the way he is.
I'm a big Peanuts fan, I've read all the comics, and I've seen all episodes, movies and specials. So I can understand that if you're fond of the characters you might not want to see them portrayed this way. But hey I'm just some guy, this isn't canon or anything.
Lucy's the worst