WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Latin American activists protested outside the Tower Records store where Elton John was making his first in-store appearance in five years Tuesday, saying he was autographing the soundtrack to a movie that is "racist and anti-indigenous."

The veteran pop singer/songwriter worked on Elton John's "The Road to El Dorado" with lyricist Tim Rice and composer Hans Zimmer, the same team he collaborated with on The Lion King (1994). That project produced the hit "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," which won a Grammy and an Oscar.

"The Road to El Dorado," scheduled to open nationwide March 31, is another animated film, which tells the story of two swindlers' travels to the fabled City of Gold. John called it a "really fun buddy picture."

But the protestors, about 20 members of a group called Mexica Movement, believe the film "commits a crime against humanity" by ignoring "the genocide and other crimes perpetuated by the Spaniards" against the indigenous people of Central America, Mexica Movement director Olin Tezcatlipoca said.

"It's the same as if someone had made a musical comedy out of the concentration camps and make it seem like they were having a picnic — no racism, no Holocaust, no nothing," he said. "To turn something like that into a musical comedy, everybody would be outraged. But to do the same thing to indigenous people, it's totally acceptable."

"All I can say is they haven't seen the movie," DreamWorks spokesperson Vivian Mayer said on Wednesday (March 15). DreamWorks is releasing the movie and the soundtrack, which came out Tuesday.

Publicists for Scoop Marketing, which promoted the in-store appearance, referred comment on the protesting to DreamWorks.

Inside the Sunset Boulevard store, John, dressed casually in a button-down shirt and baggy pants bearing two types of plaid prints, signed autographs for hundreds of fans. He said the appearance was a way to celebrate his project coming to fruition after nearly five years' work.

"It's like giving birth to a very large baby," said John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight), who turns 53 next week. "It's a long process doing an animated movie — it was four-and-a-half years — and this is the end result. This is the exciting part."

The soundtrack's first single is "Someday out of the Blue" (RealAudio excerpt), the movie's theme. The song is #11 on Radio & Records' adult-contemporary chart this week.

The protestors carried banners with such messages as "Road to El Dorado Denies Genocide," "Racism Lives at Universal Studios" and "Hitler's Hero Was Cortez." Tezcatlipoca said no one in his group had seen the film, despite repeated requests to DreamWorks for an advance screening. He said they have researched the movie via its Web site and other promotions.

The group has sent an open letter to DreamWorks chief Steven Spielberg, requesting he stop distribution of the film and produce a commercial television miniseries about the "glory and pride of the Indigenous Anahuac civilization." The group also plans to protest outside Universal Studios this weekend.

John fan Jeff Weinstock, who had his CD signed by the star inside Tower, said the protestors "have a right to be here and say whatever they want.

"But it's kind of like people who hate Howard Stern who've never listened to him," he said.