longsufferingcritic

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Toothless

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i do understand people's frustration with how persistently negative fandoms can be, but at the same time when the equivalent is a space where everyone is expected to be overwhelmingly optimistic and accepting and uncritical of even the worst shite in a series and take everything at obtuse face value then yeah fuck I'd pick the haters any day. especially with a series as bad as this one. do you know how annoying it is to have to justify the fact alone that you Have Criticisms.

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It's so funny how the HTTYD remake's version of the downed dragon scene apparently has Toothless just stand next to Hiccup (...menacingly!) instead of actually pinning him down with his claws, because I guess making the actor convincingly interact with the CGI was deemed not worth the effort. That's a lower standard than the Minecraft Movie chicken jockey fight scene. Is that really "the best live-action remake"? Bested in basic filmmaking techniques by chicken jockey??

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Komodo Dragon

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More redraws from GotNF and RTTE!!

I love them in case it wasn’t obvious

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HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (2010) dir. Chris Sanders & Dean DeBlois

Score composed by John Powell

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Without looking it up, do you know what an arbitration clause is?

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It’s like this…

You’re fourteen and you’re reading Larry Niven’s “The Protector” because it’s your father’s favorite book and you like your father and you think he has good taste and the creature on the cover of the book looks interesting and you want to know what it’s about. And in it the female character does something better than the male character - because she’s been doing it her whole life and he’s only just learned - and he gets mad that she’s better at it than him. And you don’t understand why he would be mad about that, because, logically, she’d be better at it than him. She’s done it more. And he’s got a picture of a woman painted on the inside of his spacesuit, like a pinup girl, and it bothers you.

But you’re fourteen and you don’t know how to put this into words.

And then you’re fifteen and you’re reading “Orphans of the Sky” because it’s by a famous sci-fi author and it’s about a lost generation ship and how cool is that?!? but the women on the ship aren’t given a name until they’re married and you spend more time wondering what people call those women up until their marriage than you do focusing on the rest of the story. Even though this tidbit of information has nothing to do with the plot line of the story and is only brought up once in passing.

But it’s a random thing to get worked up about in an otherwise all right book.

Then you’re sixteen and you read “Dune” because your brother gave it to you for Christmas and it’s one of those books you have to read to earn your geek card. You spend an entire afternoon arguing over who is the main character - Paul or Jessica. And the more you contend Jessica, the more he says Paul, and you can’t make him see how the real hero is her. And you love Chani cause she’s tough and good with a knife, but at the end of the day, her killing Paul’s challengers is just a way to degrade them because those weenies lost to a girl.

Then you’re seventeen and you don’t want to read “Stranger in a Strange Land��� after the first seventy pages because something about it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth. All of this talk of water-brothers. You can’t even pin it down.

And then you’re eighteen and you’ve given up on classic sci-fi, but that doesn’t stop your brother or your father from trying to get you to read more.

Even when you bring them the books and bring them the passages and show them how the authors didn’t treat women like people.

Your brother says, “Well, that was because of the time it was written in.”

You get all worked up because these men couldn’t imagine a world in which women were equal, in which women were empowered and intelligent and literate and capable. 

You tell him - this, this is science fiction. This is all about imagining the world that could be and they couldn’t stand back long enough and dare to imagine how, not only technology would grow in time, but society would grow. 

But he blows you off because he can’t understand how it feels to be fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and desperately wanting to like the books your father likes, because your father has good taste, and being unable to, because most of those books tell you that you’re not a full person in ways that are too subtle to put into words. It’s all cognitive dissonance: a little like a song played a bit out of tempo - enough that you recognize it’s off, but not enough to pin down what exactly is wrong.

And then one day you’re twenty-two and studying sociology and some kind teacher finally gives you the words to explain all those little feelings that built and penned around inside of you for years.

It’s like the world clicking into place. 

And that’s something your brother never had to struggle with.

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finished that damn wip sorry for removing toothless hes too hard to draw 💔

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Matching

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Never-before-published model sheets for canned Amblin Cats movie 🐈‍⬛✏️👁️

Hi all. As promised, I am sharing a comprehensive .PDF of model sheets that were created for the Amblimation Cats movie that never saw the light of day. Most of these model sheets have not been published or posted anywhere on the internet as far as I'm aware. I'm going to get ahead of some questions for the good of the order:

Are these real? I certainly didn't sit and create all 117 pages myself for the sake of an elaborate hoax!

How did you get these? I work in the animation industry. A senior coworker caught wind of my cats obsession and said he had the Xeroxes and asked if I wanted him to bring them in. Internally, I flipped my shit. And then I digitized his hard copies.

How did your coworker get these? They were found in the library of the university he used to go to. (Not super unusual at an arts school in southern California.) He made photo copies back then and has been holding onto them. The thing is he knows nothing about CATS; isn't a CATS fan, never seen it, etc. I guess he just felt it was something worth holding on to!

Can you upload better quality? Unfortunately what you're seeing as good as the quality gets. These are scans of photocopies from the 90s. There is nothing to be done for the crunchiness.

What about (missing characters)? I'm showing you everything I was personally given!

Which character is (nondescript drawing of a cat)? If the image isn't labeled, your guess is as good as mine! I put all the misc./unlabeled cats in the back of the PDF. The only exceptions are ones that I felt were abundantly obviously supposed to be a specific character.

Who are the artists? Unfortunately, there's no way I can tell for sure. None of the sheets are signed. I wouldn't even go about guessing because many concept artists can perfectly emulate more "well known" illustrators whose styles were sought after. My coworker said he might be able to figure out who the draftsmen were; until then it's a mystery! If I find out, I will come back to this post and update it with that information.

Are these all the model sheets ever? No! In fact, there are model sheets that have been posted online that are not in the bundle I was given. I have no idea of the sum total of model sheets in existence.

Where's the link?! Here it is! Have fun kitties!

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"Maybe that's you; maybe you're a Netflix Avatar fan and feel annoyed at someone saying all this mean stuff about it. And if it is, I just want to say one thing. It's rare in life to get to be the biggest hater -- to not just hate something but hate it more, perhaps, than anyone else on the planet. And when that opportunity does present itself to you, you need to express yourself, to share your evil opinions. Who else can do it? Who else is up to the task?"

-- Big Joel -- "Netflix Avatar Bad: A Needlessly Thorough Autopsy"

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I like sarcastically saying No Fun Allowed as much as the next Tumblr user, and believe it or not I do like having fun myself, but honestly, there comes a point where certain people wanting to shut down any and all criticism of Hollywood blockbusters because "Why do you have to be so negative? Can't we just have fun?" borders on genuine anti-intellectualism. It certainly shows a dearth of media literacy to imply that you should only ever have positive things to say about works of fiction. So jokes aside, it's legitimately kind of concerning that a not-insignificant number of grown adults are vocal about this attitude.

Some adult fans of animated movies will say "it's just for kids, it's not that deep!" as a way to imply criticism is automatically petty and unreasonable BUT praise is just fine. I recently saw someone trot out "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" in response to people criticizing Disney's colonialist/imperialist/racist messages. Because otherwise you might hurt the feelings of the $200,000,000,000 multinational entertainment conglomerate "who worked really hard on the movie". That person was dead serious.

In reality, mass media is not an elementary school play, it's an industry created by adult professionals and used to generate profit for multinational corporations. It is neither unreasonable nor unfair to say negative things about movies -- yes, even movies that you personally like, or that are intended for children. (Children are people who deserve high-quality media just as much as adults, if not more considering they are more vulnerable to media manipulation and marketing.)

Perhaps people should apply the "don't like, don't read" mantra to critical analysis instead of just to (fan)fiction itself. If people online saying not-nice things about a movie annoys you or makes you feel insecure, that's on you to deal with, not on everyone else to stop being critical; you have a right to your own opinion, not a right to demand that others keep quiet about our own opinions. It's fine to disagree with criticism or to enjoy a movie anyway, but decrying any and all criticism as invalid and mean-spirited by default is just bad faith.

And at the end of the day, toxic positivity and sycophancy is an incredibly shortsighted and damaging way to navigate mass media, even when it's dressed up as "let people enjoy things have fun." So sorry kids, No Fun Allowed.

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I think every film critic review needs a footnote called the “fun-o-meter” where they ignore everything they said in the previous paragraphs and have to answer objectively. put it on a scale. good good to bad good to bad good to bad bad. for example. did venom get a 30% on rotten tomatoes? yes. but watching sweaty tom hardy sit in a fish tank and eat a live lobster was VERY fun. some movies aren’t meant to win awards. they’re just meant to be a hoot n a holler

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How are YOU celebrating Day of Dragons?

Toothless is chowing down.