Let me say first off that I am a huge Peanuts fan. I've followed them since early childhood and it is still deeply rooted into my character. But there was a lot of strange elements about this special that really irked me.
My biggest problem was Linus himself. He didn't seem like the intelligent, spiritually-savvy kid he had been throughout the comics and many of the specials. Instead he seemed very angry, rather short tempered and seemed different in a very non-refreshing way. But out of all of the things that made me cringe about him, the biggest was towards the end where he exclaimed: "DO YOU WANT ME TO END UP LIKE CHARLIE BROWN?!?"
Ouch.
Which brings up another point of mine: Charlie Brown himself. It seemed that the Peanuts Gang was being especially rude and cold-hearted to good old Chuck. I felt genuinely bad for him, which detracted a lot from the main premise of the feature.
Now, all that out of the way, I must add in some of the pros, because there were many. I think that the art in this special shone. There was one scene where Linus was standing in a field looking up at the sky for his blanket (which had been turned into a kite and flew away) while the sun set. It gave me the chills. Linus is my favorite character and it displayed him as the philosophical and wise character we all know. The art direction really suggested a back-to-basics sort of feel, very retro, and very different...and very cool.
I especially enjoyed the usage of Charles M. Schultz's comics. They were engraved into some of the writing, and the majority of the plot.
All in all, it turned out to be a very mediocre hour for me. Part of it screamed "THIS IS GREAT" but the other, "Yikes."
In the words of Linus: "It has its drawbacks."
