How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
We're vikings. It's an occupational hazard.
THE SUMMARY: A misfit boy ends the war between vikings and dragons by befriending one, learning that the enemy is not evil as believed. Despite some broad themes that give me skepticism, it’s still a fun, charming movie with a unique Nordic aesthetic.
FROM MOVIE-PICKER GABE: An awkward, clumsy, pathetic excuse for a viking literally stumbles into becoming best friends with the most deadly of his enemies. A wonderful demonstration of how someone can struggle through the confusion of conflicting moral ideas and be thrust into increasing amounts of responsibility, ultimately growing into a man, a leader, and eventually husband material. This movie is riddled with small details that make rewatches even more enjoyable and characters even more likable. With many moments of fascinating cinematography and an absolutely incredible soundtrack, there is so much about this movie and its sequels to love.
JAMIE AND JEANNE’S AI FACESWAP ART: I can’t believe the video faceswap was possible, but here it is.
I guess riding a dragon finally gave me the courage to sport a handlebar mustache.
With a face that wide, Blonde’s nose gets so much narrower.
The facial animation isn’t nearly as off as Blonde learning to love an enemy so quickly.
THE BEST:
I’m a sucker for the aesthetic: It’s completely subjective, of course, but I love the Scandinavian/viking setting. Even though they have Scottish accents for some reason, but that’s fine - given the dragons and other fantasy elements, it’s clearly not going for historically authentic. This movie checks all the Scando snow-ape boxes: cool weapons, awesome boats, and even themes of futility and failure to honor the Minnesota football team.
You can’t stop them - you can only prepare them: It’s a subtle point, but Gobber has a line to help Stoick with his fatherhood struggle that is exactly correct: ‘you can’t stop him - you can only prepare him.’ A good father doesn’t necessarily protect his son from every possible danger - such a thing isn’t possible. A good father teaches his son to protect himself. A father’s job isn’t to hide his son from the world. It’s to ensure his son can navigate the world on his own. It can sound like a small difference, but it’s gigantic. It’s the difference between self-sufficiency and dependency. A good man is an independent man, so a good father raises them.
Work smart, not hard: Actually, work both - to be efficient and creative is to be a master of your craft. But one of Train Your Dragon’s fundamental premises is that brute strength isn’t always superior. Creative thinking and trying new approaches to solve a problem is how we advance, hence Hiccup becoming a dragon ‘slayer’ much more quickly than his viking-trainee peers.
There is a danger in taking this thinking too far, and disregarding tradition automatically when in fact it has good reason, but in general, thinking critically about everything you do in life is the path to prosperity. Why do you do the things that you do? If you can’t explain, you probably shouldn’t do them. Is there a more efficient way to do those things? If so, you should probably do that. In general, life rewards the critical thinker over the hard worker, though of course the hard work is necessary and admirable too, but there’s an order of operations. Think first, work second, because work first, think second inevitably leads to wasted effort.
Identify your niche, and work within it: Train Your Dragon is in many ways the classic misfit-becomes-hero type story, where a character unlikely to save the day finds and unlikely way to achieve it. But what I like about this particular presentation of that theme is it’s the right balance of ‘understand your role’ limitations and ‘you can be whatever you want to be’ flowery nonsense. Each one of us has a unique set of talents, and a range of potential abilities within those talents, so the trick is not believing you can succeed at literally anything - you assuredly can’t. The trick is finding your particular talent, something you do better than most, and maximizing it.
Hiccup was never going to be the strongest viking, but that doesn’t mean he can’t contribute great value through the traits and talents he does have: creative thinking and engineering. When he stopped trying to smash skulls, and started designing ways to ride dragons, he found his potential. There’s no wisdom in smashing skulls forever if that’s not your niche.
Accidentally (I think) anti-feminist: I am 99% sure the writers didn’t intend this interpretation, but the story has some anti-feminist themes in that Astrid, despite her training, effort, and commitment to beating the boys in dragon slaying… can’t. In fact, she can’t even beat Hiccup, who’s physically weak, disinterested, and only participating because he has to. Despite all of Astrid’s efforts to fill a traditionally male role, she still loses to a man, and becomes the romantic interest wife-to-be anyway. Like I said, work smart, not hard. Ladies, find yourself a strong and smart man. Don’t try to be one.
A great opening scene in a great setting.
Astrid submits to the patriarchy.
THE WORST:
Shades of globo-homo propaganda: The dragons aren’t evil, they’re just misunderstood, so actually we should integrate and form a diverse dragon-human melting pot! I know, it’s a kids’ movie, and they probably aren’t trying to condition us all to believe that actually, our border should be wide open to cartel dragons who are similarly misunderstood - they only do evil because their cartel kings make them, not because they want to. But I do think that philosophical piece of the movie is bullshit. If someone, or something, is constantly trying to kill you, you don’t owe them the benefit of philosophizing about why, and they probably will kill you if you give them that opportunity.
And even if they don’t kill you, there’s often value in separate cultures anyway. Viking culture and dragon culture are not necessarily the same, and mixing them doesn’t necessarily provide benefit. It necessarily dilutes the things that make them unique.
Shades of anti-masculine propaganda: I know I just wrote in appreciation for Hiccup maximizing his talents, but in some ways, this presentation implies that traditional male strength is inferior to the nerd brain. The nerd brain has its advantages, yes - it’s how we develop new technologies and solve problems. However, the ideal man is smart and strong. The ideal man is Hiccup and his father combined, and we should all strive to maximize ourselves in both traits, even if we’re better in one area than the other. That’s why the warrior poet is the goal, not a weak genius, or a hulking idiot.
I emphasize shades here, because I think these themes are are only there if I force myself to see them. In totality, Hiccup succeeds because of and with the help of his father’s strength, not despite it, so to say this movie has hate for traditional masculinity would be greatly overstated.
The dragon switch to nice and friendly is a little too easy: The ease with which the dragons suddenly join the viking team and act nicely, and the ease with which the viking trainee kids suddenly learn to ride them, is very convenient. Gobber warns the kids, ‘a dragon will always go for the kill.’ Except all these dragons, the second you ask them not to. I understand the plot has to keep moving, but if was really that easy, wouldn’t some of the vikings have figured that out by now, instead of training arduously for constant fights to the death? The movie undoes a central premise in a snap: dragons will viciously kill you with any chance they get! Oh wait, no they won’t.
Hiccup cucks for the dragon invaders.
Suddenly the dragons are very nice and manageable.
THE RATING: 4/5 Wickies. More like 3.5, but half-Wickies round up, and I’ve been on such a streak of mediocre and poor ratings that I am compelled to reward a movie I enjoyed watching. I love the aesthetic, and I have questions about some of the themes, but overall, it’s a unique and entertaining watch I may revisit with my sons.
ABOUT THE BAD RATING STREAK: the last four-Wicky rating I gave was In the Mouth of Madness on November 25. The last five-Wicky rating I gave was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind the next week, December 2. That was eight consecutive movies I rated at three Wickies and below, which I believe is my longest stretch of such ratings in the history of the segment. Glad it’s over.
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NEXT WEEK: Back to the Future (1985). Last week the nominations were rejected by the vote, so this is a random selection from IMDb’s top-250 list.
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