You won't be disappointed!

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

This a priority one - POE - request: Encode:POE:1939:Earth:(ConUnit):Infection:Rate:(Alpha/Omega):(*)End:con:(Breath):30sec - Pause .........Love is Love is Love is Love (12th Dim - Love) Astral Projection - As-Tron-ah-Log-Y (Logging): Authorization: Charlie R. Muller - 567-49-5478: Space Hitchhiker: Alpha Class Security Code:(*):Stellar:(D)/666/333/111 (Armagendon)Live:Long:&:Prosper:Human Species:(Value:a:able) Recovery Point: 2018 - Saved Please continue...

This is an excellent Christmas cartoon (another favorite holiday), and also a great way of showing what nuclear war can do mankind. I absolutely hated war, and I hope nuclear war never happens. There is a 1955 remake cartoon called "Good Will to Men." But I love this short better. I think I had remember watching "Peace on Earth" a long time ago. But it had kind of slipped my mind, until I have watched it on T.C.M's "Cartoon Alley" last December, for they were showing Christmas cartoons at the time. When I have first watched this short, I know it certainly lives up to the old saying: "Peace on Earth, and Good will towards Men." And if I had to choose which is better : this short or the other one; it would be this short.

This is a beautifully-made and quite poignant animated short film, but while no one can doubt the sincerity of the sentiment, it reduces the discussion of war to a level of simplification unfitting for the subject. To diminish such a topic to a five-minute short, and to aim it at children using anthropomorphic squirrels (or mice, in the 1950 remake "Good Will to Men") is the essence of propaganda.In 1939, Europe was torn by Nazi aggression, but the United States had yet to enter the war. Many people of good conscience were arguing that the U.S. should remain neutral, essentially ceding all of Europe to the tender mercies of Adolf Hitler. It was in this climate that "Peace on Earth" was made, arguing that both sides in a conflict are morally equivalent, since both have violated the commandment "Thou Shalt Not Kill" (which is more correctly translated as "Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder", a very different thing.) It's a good thing that minds of more mature reasoning decided that it would be very necessary for us to fight the Axis powers. "Peace on Earth" comes from the same sort of personality that states in all earnestness that "war never solves anything" while conveniently ignoring the many things that war has indeed solved: tyranny, oppression, slavery, genocide, fascism, Nazism, and (in the cold war) Soviet communism; the elimination of totalitarian Islamist extremism is still underway. Peace is not just the absence of war, but the presence of justice, and there are some things for which is is worth while to fight or even die. Diplomacy is of course preferable to armed conflict, but if honorable goals are abandoned in the course of diplomatic negotiation, then the result is simply defeat by a different means, and the justice that was desired was perhaps never deserved.

I'm amazed at movies whose content preaches one thing and their form uses exactly the forbidden paths.Often it is a teen film about being unique, about not following formulas, but is presented in a rigid formulaic method. Or it may be a comedy that makes fun of a certain type of person but depends on that very same person to buy tickets.It is such a common situation, I have stopped remarking on it unless the effect is particularly striking. It is here.On its surface, this has heart. It is a strong antiwar statement that uses Christmas, the Bible and good old family/community values to argue about the stupidity of war.(Let's set aside the context: Europe was at war — all the uniforms here are European — and America was divided about entering the war except through its clients. Already by this time, the war would be all but over if America hadn't committed to finance Russia and Britain. A huge sector of the US population wanted to remain "neutral," meaning in that context, unviolent. In its day, this would have been seen as a suggestion to not oppose Hitler.)Here's the thing that rankles me as a lucid moviewatcher. Look carefully at the argument. It is based on values that do not transcend cultures. In other words, it is saying that the guys that are fighting are doing so about things that don't matter because they are not *these things* over here that we know and trust and love.Eventually, the sentiments in this cartoon would be behind the US entry into the war: the US as the preservers of goodness. So it was a good thing in retrospect, for a generation. And then the questions begin.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.