Case Study One: The Modernization of 2D Franchises
In recent years, the animation industry has seen a noticeable shift toward reviving classic 2D properties with a modern 3D style for the big screen. This transition, likely driven by technological advancements, audience appeal, and the allure of more efficient production pipelines, has presented a unique set of challenges for the animators involved. Translating an iconic 2D style into 3D animation is not as simple as a technical upgrade — it involves reimagining that style with new dimensions while striving to maintain the essence of the original.
Many of these recent reboots, even if financially successful, exhibit the same struggles to achieve a cohesive and appealing style when translating 2D designs to 3D models. Notable examples include franchises like The Smurfs, Peanuts, The Addams Family, Scooby Doo, and Garfield. Though each stems from a distinctly successful visual style, they each fail to capture something essential in the tone and atmosphere.
This examination will consider how these modernizations balance nostalgia with innovation, the extent to which they do or do not capture the charm of their source materials, and how the financial incentives of a modern production timeline influenced their creation for better or worse.
The Peanuts Movie (2015)
The Peanuts Movie (2015) was a pioneering effort in translating the iconic 2D world of Charles Schulz's comic strip into a 3D animated feature. This adaptation faced the monumental task of preserving the charming simplicity of the original Peanuts characters while leveraging modern animation techniques.
A notable success of the film is its strict adherence to original character designs. The 3D models of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts gang remain remarkably faithful to Schulz's original designs. The animators translated the characters' distinctive shapes and proportions into three dimensions without losing their essential qualities. The same can be said for the character movements as well, which retain the stiff quality of the original 2D animated specials. By animating on twos and threes, the film captures the cadence of traditional animation, creating a sense of continuity with the franchise's 2D roots.
The Peanuts Movie maintains a hand-crafted feel despite its 3D nature through clever, yet sparing use of hand-drawn lines, particularly for facial features and movements. This technique proves especially effective in close-ups, where the character models capture the same iconic expressions as Schulz’s original pen strokes (see Figure 2_14). Likewise, the action lines we see when Charlie Brown throws a ball feel especially grounded in the style of the source material (see Figure 2_16).
Environmental design proves to be an especially challenging part of transitioning to 3D. While the Peanuts characters successfully straddle the line between 2D and 3D, backgrounds seem to struggle to find the same balance, often coming across as overly detailed compared with the minimalist character designs (see Figure 2_18). The film’s lighting often presents a similar issue, occasionally undermining the cartoonish nature of the style. These challenges create several moments of aesthetic dissonance where the characters don’t quite feel like they belong.
One of the most successful aspects of The Peanuts Movie is its color palette, which remains true to the original comics and animated specials' vibrant, primary color-dominated scheme (see Figure 2_20). This faithful color approach helps to maintain a visual link to the franchise's roots, even as other elements embrace the possibilities of 3D animation.
Conclusions
The Peanuts Movie represents a fairly successful early attempt to modernize a classic 2D franchise. Its strengths lie in its faithful character designs, innovative use of traditional animation principles in a new framework. While not entirely free from the pitfalls of aesthetic dissonance, particularly in its environmental design and occasionally in its lighting, this film demonstrates how thoughtful application of Tradigital Animation techniques can effectively bridge the gap between 2D and 3D worlds.
The film's approach offers valuable lessons for future adaptations, highlighting the importance of maintaining a consistent artistic vision across all production elements. It shows that success in modernizing 2D franchises lies not just in technical ability but in a deeper understanding of what makes audiences love the style in the first place.
Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017)
Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017) represents a significant shift for the Smurfs franchise, moving away from its predecessors' live-action/CGI hybrid approach to a fully animated 3D feature. This transition offered an opportunity to reimagine the iconic characters and the world they inhabit for a modern audience.
One of the film's most notable strengths lies in its character designs, which retain the abstracted style of the original cartoons, albeit with more realistic lighting and texture (see Figure 2_28). The designers' commitment to preserving the Smurfs' essential "Smurfiness" in 3D form shows a healthy understanding of what makes these characters visually appealing and recognizable.
The film's use of color is another highlight, particularly in its portrayal of the characters. The vibrant blue of each Smurf pops against the diverse backgrounds, maintaining the visual impact that has long been a hallmark of the franchise. The broader color palette of the film often achieves a cartoonish, illustrative quality that evokes a sense of whimsy and fantasy, appropriately setting the tone for the Smurfs' world (see Figure 2_21).
In spite of these successes, Smurfs: The Lost Village occasionally struggles with aesthetic dissonance as well. While the Smurfs remain highly stylized, the environments often lean into more realistic rendering. The film's lighting further complicates this issue (see Figure 2_28). While character lighting is softened to maintain a more cartoonish feel, background elements often receive more realistic lighting treatment, creating a discrepancy that leads to characters feeling superimposed onto the world rather than existing in it.
Texture is the most problematic aspect of the film's visual style, with the highest risk of aesthetic dissonance. (see Figure 2_30) The inconsistent approach to texturing across different film elements creates a jarring contrast. While some elements maintain a stylized, almost painterly quality, others (like fur on certain characters) veer into hyper-realism (see Figure 2_30), leading to a disjointed, often puppet-like appearance.
Despite these challenges, Smurfs: The Lost Village shows strengths in its space and depth approach. Using volumetrics and thoughtful color grading to indicate depth shows a good understanding of translating 2D spatial techniques into a 3D environment (see Figure 2_27). This approach helps maintain a connection to traditional animation aesthetics while taking advantage of 3D capabilities and creating layered and visually exciting compositions.
Conclusions
The film’s animation struggles with consistency. While there are moments of fluidity and expressiveness that capture the spirit of traditional animation, there are also instances where the movement feels constrained by the 3D models, lacking the exaggeration and flexibility often associated with the Smurfs' cartoonish nature (see Figure 2_22).
Smurfs: The Lost Village illustrates both the immense potential and the numerous pitfalls of modernizing a 2D franchise into 3D. While its character design and color use demonstrate the possibilities, its struggle with maintaining a consistent style speaks to a larger issue in modern adaptations like these.
The Addams Family (2019)
The 2019 animated revival of The Addams Family faced a unique challenge: translating Charles Addams' delightfully macabre characters from their 2D roots into the realm of contemporary 3D animation. This transition offered an opportunity to introduce the iconic family to a new generation while evaluating the limits of how well their distinct gothic aesthetic could be preserved in a modern format.
To the film’s credit, the 3D renditions of Gomez, Morticia, and the rest of the main cast capture the essence of Addams' original cartoons. The exaggerated features and distinctive silhouettes remain a visual anchor connecting this new iteration to its rich history (see Figure 2_36). However, this direction was not perfectly executed. The Addams Family has always thrived on contrast — their gleeful embrace of the macabre set against the backdrop of normality. While this contrast was illustrated through stark, expressive linework and dramatic shadow play in 2D, the 3D adaptation struggles to find a visual equivalent to achieve the same tone.
The film's environment design exemplifies this obstacle: While the Addams' mansion retains some of the twisted, impossible geometry that defined it in earlier iterations, it often feels more grounded and less otherworldly than its 2D counterparts. This subtle shift towards realism in the environment creates a disconnect with the more stylized character designs, leading to moments where the family seems oddly out of place in their own home (see Figure 2_33)
The film's approach to lighting and atmosphere is the most noticeable departure from the franchise's visual roots. Traditional Addams Family media reveled in deep shadows and dramatic backlighting. The 2019 film, however, opts for a brighter environment more typical of modern animated films (see Figure 2_31). Though this choice may have been an intentional bid for younger audience appeal, it inadvertently strips away some of the allure that made the franchise popular.
The animation itself presents a mixed bag. In moments of broad physical comedy, the characters exhibit some squash-and-stretch dynamism reminiscent of classic cartoons. In other scenes, however, movements feel rigid and constrained. This inconsistency in animation style is a primary source of aesthetic dissonance in The Addams Family, where the characters seem to oscillate between cartoonish and uncanny.
Conclusions
Color usage represents another missed opportunity for this adaptation. While the main characters retain their bold black and white palettes, the world around them often falls into a safe, muted color scheme that neither complements Addams' look nor provides a stark contrast. This middle-ground approach to color further blurs the line between the Addams' world and the "normal" world, diluting the visual juxtaposition the franchise was founded on.
Despite these challenges, The Addams Family (2019) makes several strides in its interpretation of classic gags and the introduction of new, visually driven jokes. Likewise, the facial animations capture some of the wry expressions and raised eyebrows that fans have come to expect from these beloved characters (see Figure 2_31, 34). In both its successes and shortcomings, this film serves as a reminder that adaptation requires more than technical prowess.
Scoob! (2020)
The 2020 animated feature Scoob! represents a bold reimagining of the Scooby-Doo franchise, attempting to catapult the beloved mystery-solving gang into the modern era of 3D animation. This adaptation faced the monumental task of translating characters etched into pop culture consciousness through decades of 2D iterations. While technically impressive, the result is a film that grapples with the essence of what makes Scooby-Doo resonate with audiences.
Like many 3D animated adaptations, Scoob! contends with a paradox: its technical prowess is both its greatest strength and its largest obstacle. Though the character models are undeniably polished, their realistic textures often clash with the cartoonish charm of the original series. Scooby himself retains much of his iconic look, with only minimal changes apart from realistic texturing (see Figure 2_40).
The human characters, however, lose many of their distinct features in translation (see Figure 2_44, 45). Fred, Daphne, and Velma especially exemplify this issue — their designs abandon the expressiveness and overall shape language of previous iterations in favor of a more generic look. This leads to a disconnection not only from predecessors, but from the more expressive character designs in the film, including both Shaggy and Scooby (see Figure 2_46).
The most jarring departure from the Scooby-Doo tradition lies in the film’s overuse of color and light. Instead of the moody, atmospheric hues that contrasted the colorful characters of the original series, Scoob! opts for a vibrant, high-contrast palette that feels more akin to superhero blockbusters than ominous mystery (see Figure 2_42, 47, 48). This choice leads the visual direction to feel less distinctly Scooby-Doo and more like a generic adventure film.
Despite this loss of visual tone, the film succeeds in several action sequences, where fluid movements and dynamic camera work achieve an energy 2D tools could never capture. In the more subdued moments, however, characters seem ungrounded and weightless in their environments. This is due largely to the loss of the comedic, rubbery movements that once characterized the series.
Finally, the texture work in Scoob! exemplifies the double-edged sword of technological advancement. While the detail is impressive, from the varied textures of clothing to the individual strands of Scooby's fur (see Figure 2_46), it often crosses into a realism that clashes with the characters' inherent cartoonishness. This approach to texturing, particularly noticeable in close-ups, can create an uncanny effect that distances the viewer from the familiar comfort of the franchise.
Conclusions
Though successful in some regards, Scoob! offers a compelling example of how overuse of realism can create aesthetic dissonance even between characters of the same franchise. Committing to the preservation of certain character designs while allowing others to deviate can be just as damaging to the aesthetic whole as over-detailing the backgrounds for minimalist characters. A more apt use of Tradigital techniques may allow animators to find an aesthetic middle ground that circumvents the disconnect so many adaptations struggle with.
Garfield (2024)
The 2024 animated feature Garfield marks a significant milestone in the evolution of Jim Davis's iconic comic strip character. Unlike previous films, which combined animation with live action, this adaptation faced the formidable challenge of translating every aspect of Garfield's distinct 2D world into modern 3D animation. The result is a film that pushes the boundaries of what a Garfield adaptation can be, albeit with mixed results.
Like many other 3D adaptations, this film embraces much of the original character design style. Animators managed to preserve Garfield's rotund shape, half-lidded eyes, and sardonic expressions, translating him into 3D space without losing his essence (see Figure 2_49). This achievement extends to other familiar characters like Jon Arbuckle, whose designs are largely loyal to the shape language of their 2D origins.
The film embraces the exaggerated, almost abstract forms that characterized Davis's art style, equally evident in the environmental design. Household objects, from Jon's couch to Garfield's lasagna pan, maintain the stylized, slightly warped appearance of the comic strip (see Figure 2_51). This consistent application of shape language helps create a cohesive world that feels distinctly "Garfield."
Still, the film grapples with several challenges as well, especially in the realm of movement and performance. Translating Garfield's lethargic movements from static comic panels to the fluid medium of animation is not a clean transition. Action-oriented scenes in particular struggle to find a balance between fluid movement and the titular character’s famously lazy persona (see Figure 2_52).
Perhaps the film's most striking aspect is its use of color. The animators have expanded upon the limited color palette of the comic strip, creating a vibrant world that still feels rooted in the fictional universe. The use of warm, saturated colors for Garfield himself ensures he remains the visual focus of every scene, only occasionally bordering on overwhelming the scene with color (see Figure 2_54).
The film's texture work presents an interesting dichotomy. Garfield himself sports stylized fur that suggests volume without striving for realism, but environment textures tend to lean towards realism, creating occasional visual tension .
Conclusions
Garfield (2024) tackles the challenge of adaptation boldly and respectfully, expanding on the limitations of a minimalist cartoon world without misstepping into realism. Despite several challenges, especially in the realm of movement, the film’s overall look is still distinctly in line with the franchise’s roots.
The shape language of characters and props draws clear inspiration from Davis’s sketchy style without overreliance on minimalism. Textures, though more detailed, err more toward painterly than photorealistic, which works to the film’s advantage substantially (see Figure 2_53, 55). Though not perfect, Garfield presents an optimistic glimpse into what the animation industry can achieve through clever use of Tradigital animation techniques.
Conclusion
The modernization of 2D franchises with 3D animation styles suggests a definitive direction for the future of animated films, as well as a glimpse into the distinct challenges animators will need to overcome. Films like Scoob!, The Addams Family, and Garfield showcase the diverse range of approaches that can be taken, each with its own successes and failures in maintaining aesthetic harmony.
These case studies are prime examples of how the commercial viability of these adaptations demands more than technological updates or capitalizing on the efficiency of 3D production. Instead, animators must start with an understanding of what made the original 2D versions resonate with audiences and find innovative ways to capture that same spark. The most effective adaptations, such as Garfield (2024), find ways to translate the essence of 2D aesthetics into 3D space, using techniques that honor the original style while embracing the possibilities of modern technology.
Though imperfect, these five examples of modernization efforts may serve as valuable lessons for animators tasked with the same seemingly impossible mission. They highlight the value of thoughtful adaptation, where technological capabilities and production efficiencies are harnessed in service of storytelling and character rather than for their own sake or merely for financial gain. As the industry continues to evolve, we can expect to see more 3D adaptations of 2D properties — and hopefully, more success as we learn from our missteps.
