Never is that more clear than with Shrek. Disney heroes are almost always good looking, well-mannerred & somewhat limited. Shrek is ugly (Well, he’s supposed to be. I still find him charming.), impolite & more free-ranged. Instead of a pretty princess getting a handsome prince, an ugly ogre gets a pretty princess; & then she becomes ugly. And they’re both kind of gross & unorthodox. Shrek is a complete parody of everything Disney, with loads of role reversals.

I won’t bother to comment about your character criticism, as you didn’t bother to elaborate on lt. You say they are just there to further the plot & don’t bother to list a single example. For someone who purportedly hates DreamWorks, you’re not very thorough in your rant. You only mention a few of their animovies. The one thing I can somewhat agree on is the voice acting. While I by no means find lt bad, I do prefer lesser known actors. This one really comes down to opinion, so lt can’t be considerred right or wrong. About the characters occupying different planes than the backgrounds, this is a real technique that isn’t exclusive to DreamWorks. It’s there to make the characters stand out.

Finally, your prediction of How To Train Your Dragon is pretty accurate, to your credit, but you’re incorrect about Hiccup banding with other losers, unless you consider dragons losers. I would suggest you give DreamWorks another chance & try to take in their rugged, liberating style. I enjoy Disney more as well, but that doesn’t mean you can’t also enjoy DreamWorks.

“Surely, if I hate Dreamworks, the number two animation company, I’m not all that passionate about animation! Right? RIGHT?”. This sort of thing bounces around in my head in various manifestations, all the fucking time.

Thank you for writing this. You took the honest opinions that are buried SOMEWHERE within the confines of my being, and articulated them in a way that I never could. I feel like my faith in my potential future career is flooding back already.

The only problem I face now is how to go about earning a living in this gig, without selling myself out to shit-yet-prominent companies such as this. I don’t know if it’ll even be possible… but I’ll have to give it a shot. Hey, there’s always Aardman or possibly Laika! Paranorman was utterly beautiful :)