Sequel Baiting #9 - How to Train Your Dragon 1 & 2

We’re going to end sequel baiting with something a little different. Sequel baiting is a massive time drain, which is why I’ve ultimately decided to cancel it. But I love this franchise and I want to look into their library of TV series at some point, so where better to start than with the 2 movies that have come out. I am aware there’s a third due out next year, which is why this would not normally qualify for the sequel baiting treatment. So, think of it is me combining 2 mini reviews together, patching together my thoughts, with a little compare and contrast. There won’t be categories or scoring on this one, but I hope it’s still relatively clear

How to Train your Dragon introduces us to the unusual world of Berk, it’s a place that always seems to be sunny despite every bit of narration to the contrary and a place that gets attacked frequently by dragons. They steal the sheep from under them; the people of Berk fight but are often unsuccessful. We are introduced to Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), a protagonist who’s eager but held back by the fact that’s he walking disaster area. His father, Stoick (Gerard Butler), is the Chief of the village, and has no idea how to handle his son.

So, we have a protagonist who’s an outsider to his own kind, so how much of this arc are we going to have. Well, Hiccup doesn’t exactly run away, which is usually part of the cliché. It does strike me that Dreamworks does this character type a fair bit. Lenny in Shark Tale, Po in Kung Fu Panda, hell even Shrek can be considered a kind of outsider following some of the clichés. Still, Hiccup stands out a bit for being among the smarter of this type of protagonist. Once he gets out of his own way with his eagerness, he begins looking at things from a different perspective.

He’s placed in Dragon training, run by our friendly neighbourhood Gobber (Craig Ferguson) with our supporting characters, most of them are stock, and this applies to the second movie as well. We have the nerdy but kinda pudgy character named Fishlegs (Christopher Mintz-Plazze), the womanising idiot Snotlout (Jonah Hill), the comic relief twins Tuffnut and Ruffnut (T. J. Miller and Kirsten Wig) and of course Astrid (America Ferrara), who is the tough as nails love interest.

The core of the first movie is a liar revealed, but it’s handled a little better than Shark Tale in that it wasn’t a stupid as f*ck lie to keep. It helps that the animation is fantastic. This movie had a pretty hefty budget of $165m, pretty high for an animated kids film, it’s bright and vibrant, it keeps the Viking aesthetic whilst making everyone look unique and the creature designs are great too. Toothless looks adorable. Hiccup comes across Toothless, a Dragon he downed and has to come to terms with the fact it looked as scared as he did fuels into his already present identity crisis.

It does follow the usual beats, Astrid is the one who finds out although, breaking type, she doesn’t manipulate him with the lie, she got jealous of him but ultimately sharing in this secret and discovering the adventure, another thing this movie excels at, actually brings them closer together. But yeah, the lie is revealed, the movie shames him for lying but in an interesting twist, this is where the climax actually starts, sure the movie stalls briefly as is expected with a liar revealed but it’s really one scene between Hiccup and Astrid that gets them to act.

I do like that Hiccup persuades the youth of the village to follow him, feels kinda relevant with things going on at the moment, the youth trying to show the way to the old and stuck in their ways. But they don’t vilify the old, they’ve got perfectly just reasons for feeling the way they do. If anything I think the Red Fury and the revelation that the Dragons do what they do because they’re forced to is a bit of a cop-out in dealing with a lot of what’s going on. I understand why it had to be, but it makes Hiccup’s journey a little easier.

Still, he doesn’t come out of the battle unscathed, he loses a leg for his trouble.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 renews Hiccup’s identity crisis by in many ways addressing my issue with the ending. Hiccup is 20 years old now, and Stoick is thinking of making him chief, something he doesn’t consider himself ready for. And his belief in himself as a diplomat is tested against Drago Bludvist (Dijimon Hounsou) a man who planned to rise above his hatred by conquering dragons, and then, you guessed it, take over the world

I really should stop using that, #changethechannel and all that. Anyway, Hiccup is faced with an adversary who’s brutal, merciless and vicious but also powerful and cunning, not someone that can be negotiated with, especially since he has a dragon army at his disposal. Still, Hiccup spends most of the movie convinced he can find a way and everyone else spends most of the movie trying to convince him he’s crazy.

But then things take a different turn when we’re introduced to Hiccup’s mother, Valka (Cate Blanchett) she’s similar to Hiccup in that she has an affinity with Dragons, but unlike Hiccup she was more sure of herself, so when she found that viewpoint challenged, she ran away. In other words, she did the cliché they wisely avoided in the last movie, and wisely skipped over for most of in this one. She quickly warms to the audience, and I thank Blanchett for a pretty special performance.

Of course, actions need to have consequences in movies, and the price of Hiccup’s lack of judgement when it comes to Drago is very severe indeed. The death of his father was inevitable, it was foreshadowed throughout the movie, the fact he was going to make Hiccup chief, the fact that he cut short any drama after finding out that his wife has been alive for 20 years (and I thank him for that) and they shared a bonding jig/song. I do applaud Dreamworks for, mind control or not, having Toothless be the one to make the killing shot, because that worked as an emotional gut-punch and as a bold and unexpected move just from a marketing standpoint

It also fills the standard hero’s journey story arc that Hiccup is going through, because this is where he hits his lowest point. But rather than talk about Hiccup’s character arc, let’s talk about the animation. Everything is a lot bigger in this movie, more adventuring, more dragons and a full on dragon war in the 2^nd act and good god it looks stunning. I hear Dreamworks debuted some new software in this movie that meant they could view the results of their work on animation in real time rather than having to wait till the next day. The animators of this really had an eye for detail. And it’s interesting to note the budget for this one was $20m less than the last one.

There is a bit of a riff on love triangles on this one, Ruffnut has managed to gain the romantic attention of Fishlegs and Snotlout (some of this is carried over from the last movie) she doesn’t share their affection until the end of the second act, because she has the hots for Eret (Kit Harington) he’s a pseudo-villain dragon trapper who started off working for Drago until his survival instincts, and a bit of affection from Astrid’s dragon, got him to change sides. I like Eret, he provided a bit of levity, and allowed someone familiar for characters to play off of, particularly Astrid and the crew. He blatantly does not share her affections, but it never goes into uncomfortable territory, she does try and get a hug from Fishlegs and/or Snotlout but they end up going to hug their dragons. The downside of this suplot is Tuffnut doesn’t get much to do. That said, with current feeling regarding TJ Miller, that might not be a bad thing.

Astrid meanwhile is very much committed to her relationship with Hiccup. Not in a lovey-dovey kinda way but she’s willing to listen to him, go along with his plans, and tries to mount a rescue when she thinks he’s in trouble. Hiccup is a little busy in his own arc to do anything to prove any devotion to her. But don’t think she’s lost her character, she picks up Eret with her dragon and threatens to drop him and early on does mock Hiccup’s confidence in himself. She’s still a tough Viking through and through.

My only personal issues with the film are with the ending, again. Not because it doesn’t fit thematically or make sense, but again things seem to come to a head a little too easy. The confrontation between Toothless and Hiccup where Hiccup manages to shake off Toothless’ mind control is a little too quick and then Toothless basically becomes the dues ex-machina to end the movie and defeat Drago. I would’ve liked a confrontation between maybe Valka and him near the end of the movie that was more physical, showcasing her dragon against him. The ‘bewilderbeast’ went down a little too easily, with just a few shots from Toothless. (Also, it was nice of the movie to note that Toothless is about the same age as Hiccup, that was nice)

I guess it was a fine resolution to Hiccup’s character arc, him doing the thing he’s been told a chief should do and defending his people and it opens things up a lot for the third movie. Berk has more dragons, Eret looks to be returning as a regular character, riding Stoick’s dragon no less, and the world opens up further and further for them. I hope it’s worth the wait.

If you want my honest opinion, the second movie is my favourite of the two movies and ranks among my all-time favourite movies. The first is a great little adventure but relies a little too much on tropes I’m bored of, the second one ups the stakes, gives you more compelling villains and better serves the character arcs it sets up, it also gives you some pretty heavy emotional gut-punches. 

Dreamworks has an amazing franchise with How to Train Your Dragon, but we’re not done yet, a third movie is due out next year, which I will cover and I’ll try and start retrospectives on this series, although it may be another year I have a gap in the schedule to get to them.