This notice recently accosted me on the deviant-art website. Obviously deviant-art is a silly website full of trash-marketing-vulnerable adult babies, but everything is –we have bred several generations to whom that is normal– so I can hardly be faulted for lingering there if I linger anywhere. While I do gripe at my getting coercion to become an under-compensated advertising vector for a major corporation disguised as a legitimate opportunity shoved at me, but unique to today I will gripe at the content of what I am to be advertising.

A question: How can I sincerely believe that the friendship is “unlikely” if you already told me it happens? And how can I believe that in any event, based on the past 20 years of animated cinema?

I have seen plenty of human children teaming up with, and usually riding on big misunderstood oafs, human or otherwise. These kids need to get stepped on once in a while to make it seem less likely when they do not.
And there are even more such pairings where there is a tiny little thing and a big thing but both are considered to be adults. And I have heard tell this is not even the first time a cartoon apatosaurus has taken on strange companions and journeyed forth. It is a functional setup. I grant its right to happen, but not to pretend it is profound.
I am not even here to fuss at any of these movies, specifically (least of all Totoro, whose film did not get an America hype-job until years after its production). For one thing, I haven’t seen more than promotional material for any of them.* But I doubt that any person who did watch these films would sincerely proclaim: I never expected those two to become friends! That twist took me completely by surprise!

*Actually, the book Where the Wild Things Are was in my house during the pertinent period of my development. I recall not being impressed.

And anyway, in this case, I am being instructed to evaluate the film exclusively based on its promotional material. It will not be released to theaters until November 25, five whole days after the contest entry deadline!

To be fair, dinosaurs generally are not big thinkers.

He is intimidating because I say he is. Even though I also said his scar makes it apparent visually, and I included a picture, and so I don’t need to say anything. But I have space and so I must say and say and say!

The contest page is full of character descriptions, terrible artwork and rogue plot details. Essentially I am to base my masterwork on a webcomic cast list. Many details, very little meaning. And if the event organizers believed for T seconds that any development, not necessarily restricted to friendships, were at all unlikely, they would be cautious about spoiling it for me! They would want me to be surprised. But they actually know that there is no chance I would be surprised. Go into a movie without knowing exactly what’s going to happen? Why that’s Unamerican!

And only americans can enter the contest! I knew a single person who found that Lorax movie at all endearing, and the person lives in Estonia.

My task in this adver-tunity is to donate free promotional “fan” artwork to stir up hype for the thing before it comes out. I am supposed to endorse it, and pledge to it considerable effort, based entirely on stuff I am told about it by another party, without any guarantee of payment, even if it turns out to be garbage that I would not want my name attached to.
How could I, and why should I be a fan of something that isn’t available? How could I know anything about the power of their friendship or the spirit of their adventure? I am suspicious any time somebody has to tell me an adventure happened or is happening.

In fact, another dumb movie where all the exact same stuff as before happens, that you tell me about before I am even eligible to see it: that is the OPPOSITE of adventure. Just as fan art is the opposite of original art! It isn’t even POSSIBLE to do what the contest demands.
Why should I be inspired by what some context-devoid list says each character supposedly is or does? I might as well draw fanart for the Michelin Man. At least that would be by my own inclination. And potentially less ugly. I hate those “eyes too close to each other on the front of the head” pixar character designs anyway, but ESPECIALLY on dinosaurs. “Good” is only in the title as a form of mind control because my natural inclination would be to proclaim these dinosaurs as less than adequate in quality.

The contest also encourages me to view the film’s trailer. Trailers exist to simplify, exaggerate and mislead. And to stop the music abruptly so I know what I am supposed to laugh at. I avoid the Star-Wars previews because I want to see the movie without knowing anything. I avoid the the Good Dinosaur preview because I just plain don’t want to know anything. That does not invalidate my earlier complaint; I probably would not watch the film, but I absolutely would not create a derivative work paying homage to its virtue unless I HAD watched it.

And it probably isn’t as terrible as the advertisement inevitably presents it as, but it most certainly isn’t as good as post-release praise will swear it is. Why try and force me to swallow that in advance? Apart from “because we are getting paid by Disney to hold this contest,” I mean. And that is “we” as in them, not me. Unless I win, which I wouldn’t, because I hate it. “It” as in all that has transpired this evening.