Poor Peyo

[fpb]

At least he is dead. I have never in my life seen anything that shows so certain a prospect of utter catastrophe as the posters of the Smurfs movie. It is going to be a horror as surely as people breathe air. From the horrendously unsuited Pixar-like three-dimensional animation, that morphs Peyo's charming linework into soapy, rubbery dolls, to the urban setting - all the Smurf stories are set in their little mushroom village, which supplies all the comic and dramatic opportunities they need - to the Smurfette's ghastly sunglasses, everything breathes the spirit of utter misunderstanding, vulgarization, stupidity, and waste. What's the betting that there are vulgar jokes?

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I can introduce you to at least half a billion kids who disagree with you. The Smurfs started as an excellent comic book, and it is as a comic book that they went around the world. Everything else is secondary. And The Smurfs In New York is an abomination.

[eliskimo.livejournal.com]

Probably. I'm not saying anything about the comic books (which I never read, btw). All I'm saying is that *to me* (and probably my childhood peers) the look of the Pixar animation is close to the Smurfs I knew: the Schleich figurines. I learned about the toys first. I can even remember when Jackie Robb brought the first one I'd ever seen to school with her when we were in Grade Five. I remember how I absolutely HAD to have one (or more) and that I got one (Artist Smurf) in my stocking that Christmas. I believe it's still packed away in my box of childhood treasures. I remember the animated Saturday morning cartoon that came after that (this would have been the early 80s), but in my experience, the figurines were first.

The movie may well be an abomination. I'm not saying it isn't. I don't really know anything about it (haven't been paying attention).