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| How To Train Your Dragon (2010) Dreamworks |
As soon as this movie became a box office hit, they
green-lighted two other sequels practically the same day. I can’t say I blame
them because the main character was basically an animal we can all appreciate,
a half dog, part cat with the demeanor of a friendly beast for being a dragon.
They actually used all sorts of animal noises like elephants, elephant seals,
tigers, horses, and domesticated cats to create the sounds Toothless made. The
side character was a small kid with the annoying voice of Jay Baruchel who is
famous for being a loser in film, but it was fitting nonetheless.
Hiccup was the modern day tale of a kid with daddy issues.
He wanted to live up to his father’s expectations and continually fell flat on
his face. His dad was relatable because he seems like the everyman who has
trouble expressing his feelings to his son. He was a big strong Viking and it
was just not in his nature to be emotional or understand the reasoning behind
why Hiccup did what he did. He had other stuff to worry about, like feeding the
village.
Whenever they talked about Hiccup they told him that he
should stop being himself because it wasn’t helping him become a productive
member of society. Whenever he was around disaster happened and it was
difficult for his father to lead the people with such a misfit son.
When Hiccup meets the dragon, he is put in an interesting
conundrum. Slay the dragon and become famous? Or not kill the dragon and
eventually find out more about them? If I were Hiccup I probably would’ve killed
the dragon and the plot would have ended similarly. Since no one had ever
caught a nightfury, it’s safe to assume he would be a big celebrity and that
his invention would be used to fend off more dragon attacks. They would
eventually force more and more of the dragons away and their village would be
safe.
Instead he doesn’t kill the spotted catdog dragon because he
sees that it is just another animal and that he was scared of people. Hiccup
was being himself and it leads to him finding out all sorts of secrets about
dragons. In reality Hiccup just needed to be more of himself and he was going
to change everything.
I don’t have a problem with non-conformity to societal and
social norms, but I can’t help but feel like Hiccup would’ve had a great run as
an inventor. All he really needed was for people to believe in his inventions
to prove that they worked and they did work.
The sad part of the movie was the ending when Hiccup loses
his left leg, which is a parallel to Toothless losing his left tail fin. It was
actually emotional to see Hiccup have to come to grips with losing a limb,
which can be a difficult for anyone in the same situation. It was nice to see
that Toothless was there to support him the whole time and it reminded me of my
awesome dog that would probably do the same. I enjoyed the film and am ready
for the other two sequels. A trailer just came out for
the second film and it looks good.
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