I have been a fan of the franchise How to Train Your Dragon ever since it came out in 2010. After the first movie I have watched and rewatched the first two movies, a Netflix Original TV series along with various animated shorts. My sister and I have been major fans for nearly a decade. One day, not too long ago, she ran into my bedroom screaming in excitement about the third movies’ trailer. It was a long anticipated day. We watched the trailer until we basically had it memorized and started making our predictions about how the movie will go. A few months after the trailer debuted, I saw an ad for an early showing for the movie, about three weeks before the movie was supposed to come out. I bought the tickets immediately after seeing the ad. Then the day came to see the movie. I walked into the theater with the same excitement I had when I was seven years old.
The very beginning of the movie was different than the rest. The other movies started out with a pan over of the viking village of Berk, with the main character, Hiccup, narrating. However, the third movie starts with a dark and quiet scene of Hiccup and his squad raiding a dragon hunting ship, on a mission to free the captured dragons. The differences between the first and second movie against the third continued throughout the movie, drawing a noticeable line between the movies. Soon after the movie starts the villain of the story is introduced and differs from the other movies because the other villains have involved a giant dragon who controls the other dragons. This villain, Grimmel, had many dragons that obeyed him. Grimmel has killed all the Night Furies except Toothless, and plans to “hunt” Hiccups best friend.
As part of Grimmel’s plan for Toothless’ demise, he releases a new dragon, the Light Fury. The movie goes on to reveal that Toothless falls in love with the Light Fury and wants to be with her. However, she doesn’t like humans so Toothless, who cannot fly without Hiccup, cannot get a moment along with her. With the threat of Grimmel trying to take over Berk and it’s dragons Chief Hiccup decides to pack up and try to find the hidden world, or the birthplace of dragons. He aims to live there with his people and their dragons, safe from the evils of the world.
The movie has plenty of jokes which made the whole theater laugh. It also had sad, tear-jerking moments that left the audience in tears. Although I had predicted the very sad ending to the trilogy, since it was similar to the book series, it did not make saying goodbye to one of my favorite childhood franchises any easier. The movie had wonderful attributes and an excellent staff which made it into another masterpiece by Dreamworks. I suggest bringing tissues if you are attached to the characters.
