How to Train Your Dragon (also released by the name How to Train Your Dragon 3D) is a 2010 computer-animated fantasy film by DreamWorks Animation loosely based on the 2003 book of the same title. The film stars the voice talents of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, T.J. Miller, Kristen Wiig, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

The story takes place in a mythical Viking world where a young Viking teenager named "Hiccup" aspires to follow his tribe's tradition of becoming a dragon slayer. After finally capturing his first dragon, and with his chance at finally gaining the tribe's acceptance, he finds that he no longer has the desire to kill it and instead befriends it. The film was released March 26, 2010,^[2] to universally positive reviews. The film overcame a disappointing opening weekend at the box office to become DreamWorks Animation's most successful film in the United States and Canada outside of the Shrek film series and Kung Fu Panda.

Plot

On the island of Berk, which is beset by dragons that raid their stock of sheep, the Viking chief Stoick the Vast's son Hiccup works as an apprentice to the blacksmith. Hiccup explains to the viewer he is a small Viking, and doesn't have the strength or skill that his fellow Vikings have and is somewhat overlooked and not taken very seriously amongst his tribe. He also explains that his tribe celebrates strong dragon slayers, and he desperately seeks to become one. His father does not wish for his son to be hurt, especially because he doesn't have the strength to survive, and generally avoids having him included in the more violent aspects of the tribe.

During a raid, Hiccup shoots down a rare and greatly feared dragon called a Night Fury with a bolas cannon that he made, but no one believes him. Attempting to get proof, Hiccup goes to the woods and finds the downed dragon. He threatens to kill the dragon (saying he will cut out the dragon's heart and take it to his father), but cannot bring himself to do such a task. Instead, he frees it, and it aggressively sizes him up before flying off to a canyon.

Stoick enrolls Hiccup in dragon training with the other village youths and leaves with a search party of Vikings to find the Dragon’s Nest, in order to wipe them out and finish the war. After being told that dragons are vicious and will always "go for the kill," Hiccup returns to the forest, wondering why the Night Fury didn't. The Night Fury is still trapped in the canyon, and is missing a part of its tail from the previous crash landing, leaving it unable to fly properly. Hiccup decides to befriend the dragon, which he names Toothless, and eventually fashions an artificial tail fin and control harness. While helping Toothless fly again, Hiccup gains an extensive appreciation of dragons. With this knowledge, Hiccup is able to progress in dragon combat training to the amazement of his classmates and the jealousy of Astrid, who becomes strongly suspicious. He is given a book by Gobber that contains much knowledge of the different species of dragon that assail the village, and he quickly finds through his own interactions with the dragons that the information within the book is wrong.

Stoick and his army return battered and tired, without having found the nest. However, Stoick's spirits are lifted when Gobber and others begin congratulating him on Hiccup's rise as a formidable warrior. Feeling a chance to bond with his son, Stoick honors Hiccup with a Viking helmet made from half of the breast plate of Hiccup's late mother.

When Hiccup earns the right to kill a dragon as a graduation rite, he decides to leave Berk with Toothless to avoid performing such an act. Astrid follows him to the hideout and discovers his friendship with the dragon. She tries to run back to the village, but Hiccup and Toothless stop her by picking her up and flying her to the top of a nearby tree; where she is stuck. Hiccup asks for a chance to explain, and they take her for a ride. In their flight, they get caught in a herd of dragons carrying food and follow them to their nest. There, they discover that the dragons steal food to feed a much larger, parasitic dragon (aka the Green Death, called the Red Death in the film) that eats them if they do not provide enough food. After they leave, Astrid wants to tell the village of the nest's location, but Hiccup decides against it in order to protect Toothless. Astrid agrees to keep quiet for the night.

The next day, during Hiccup's graduation, he throws down his weapons and tries to show everyone that dragons are not as bad as they seem. Stoick shouts to stop the battle before Hiccup can continue, and the agitated dragon, a Monstrous Nightmare, attacks Hiccup. Toothless hears Hiccup's screams and rushes to save him. He quickly overpowers the Monstrous Nightmare, the Vikings sent to capture him, and finally Stoick. He opens his mouth to kill the tribe leader, but at the last second Hiccup screams "No!" Toothless backs off and becomes tame and docile, and is quickly pinned by Vikings. Stoick confronts Hiccup angrily at learning about his son's friendship with a dragon. Hiccup accidentally tells him that he has been to the nest, and Stoick decides to use Toothless to lead them there, ignoring his son's desperate warnings about the nest's true danger, and disowning him in the process.

The Vikings set sail with Toothless, leaving Hiccup with Astrid. He notes that this situation would not have happened if he had killed Toothless in the first place, but he also discovers that he was merciful towards Toothless because of compassion, not weakness. Invigorated, Hiccup decides to use the dragons the Vikings use for dragon fighting practice to fly to the nest to help his tribe. Astrid gathers fellow classmates Tuffnut, Ruffnut, Fishlegs and Snotlout to help, and all mount the training dragons and set off after the Vikings.

As the Vikings arrive at the nest, all the dragons flee the island in the resulting attack and the roused giant Red Death sets all the boats on fire, including the one to which Toothless is chained. Hiccup and the others arrive, and, while he goes to free Toothless, the others try to distract the Red Death. As the boat is sinking, Hiccup tries to free the still-chained Toothless but nearly drowns. Stoick saves both his son and Toothless. Before Hiccup flies off on Toothless to fight the Red Death, Stoick apologizes and states that he is proud to call Hiccup his son.

During the aerial battle, the Red Death and Toothless face off,with Toothless mounting an aerial assault on the larger, slower dragon. The Red Death burns away Toothless' prosthetic tail, but Hiccup urges Toothless to set the Red Death's insides on fire. The Red Death then crashes to the ground, causing an explosion. Hiccup is knocked out and falls into the explosion, and Toothless dives in to save him. Stoick searches the rubble for his son, but only finds Toothless; at first, everyone thinks Hiccup has died in the explosion, but Toothless reveals that he saved Hiccup by wrapping him in his wings.

Hiccup reawakens in his home some days later, to find Toothless by his bedside. As he is getting out of bed, he realizes that his left foot was lost in the explosion and has been replaced with a prosthetic made by Gobber, parallel to the artificial tail fin created by Hiccup for Toothless; outside, he sees that the Vikings have invited the dragons to live in the village. Hiccup is welcomed back as a hero and receives a passionate kiss from Astrid. Gobber gives Hiccup a new prosthetic tail fin for Toothless, so then Hiccup and Astrid fly on their dragons through the newly-reformed Berk, signifying a new beginning for both worlds.

Cast

• Jay Baruchel as Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III. The earnest, bright teenaged son of the Viking chief , Hiccup plans to become a Viking warrior in his own way. Unfortunately, in the crude world of the Vikings, Hiccup's sophisticated observations and wry humor make him an outsider. His dragon is Toothless, a Night Fury.^[3]
• Gerard Butler as Stoick the Vast: Stoick is the chieftain of the Viking tribe and Hiccup's father. He does not understand his son. Hoping to bring out the man in him, Stoick sends Hiccup into dragon training. Upon learning of his son's friendship with a dragon, he rejects him, but has a profound change of heart in the climatic battle when he truly sees Hiccup's wisdom and courage as well as Toothless' unbreakable loyalty to his son.^[3]
• Craig Ferguson as Gobber the Belch, a close friend of Stoick and the seasoned warrior appointed to drill the new recruits. Gobber believes in 'sink or swim' training, and dispenses questionable advice. He is missing his right foot and his left hand, the latter of which he has replaced with a variety of specialized prosthetics.^[4]
• America Ferrera as Astrid Hofferson: Striking, energetic and tough, Astrid is a teenage embodiment of the Viking way. Her competitive, determined persona makes her hard to impress, but Hiccup cannot help but be smitten. When Hiccup begins to show the strain of leading his double life, Astrid is the first to be suspicious. Like all the other Vikings, Astrid at first dislikes Hiccup. After riding on Toothless with him, however, she befriends him, while also growing to see him as a powerful Viking warrior in his own way, eventually falling in love with him. She rides a Deadly Nadder.
• Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Fishlegs Ingerman: Fishlegs normally acts nervous and frightened, but is smart and expresses his knowledge in role-playing game terms. He memorized the manual of dragons, and figured out the weak points of the film's antagonist/villain The Green Death in the end.^[5] His dragon is a Gronckle.
• Jonah Hill as Snotlout Jorgenson: Though he initially makes fun of Hiccup for being weak, by the end of the film he comes to respect Hiccup's intuition and bravery. He also seems to have an interest in Astrid and has made several attempts to impress her, but eventually concedes to her relationship to Hiccup.^[3] His dragon is a Monstrous Nightmare.
• T. J. Miller and Kristen Wiig as Tuffnut and Ruffnut Thorston. Tuffnut the elder twin, a boy, and Ruffnut the younger twin, a girl, are fraternal twins. Both are thugs with ferocious intents and foul tempers, especially regarding each other. Despite their rancorous relationship, they eventually flourish as a dragon riding team, each riding a head of a Hideous Zippleback in tandem.
• David Tennant as Spitelout: a Viking who is not named in the film, he appears to be Stoick's Second-in-Command, and bears a striking resemblance to Snotlout, implied that he is Snotlout's father. Tennant has previously narrated a series of Hiccup adventures on audio book.^[6]

Production

[[File:|thumb|right|Early production concept artwork of "Toothless" and "Hiccup".]]

Development

In initial development, the plot followed the original novel closely but was then altered. About halfway through production, Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois, the writer-directors of Disney's Lilo & Stitch, took over as co-directors. The original plot was "heavily loyal to the book", but was regarded as geared to a too-young demographic and too "sweet" and "whimsical", according to Baruchel.^[7] In the novel, Hiccup's dragon, Toothless, is incredibly small for a dragon. In the film, Toothless is a Night Fury, the rarest of all dragons, and is large enough to serve as a flying mount for both Hiccup and Astrid.

The filmmakers hired cinematographer Roger Deakins (known for frequently collaborating with the Coen brothers) as a visual consultant to help them with lighting and overall look of the film and "add a live-action feel".^[7][8]

Music and soundtrack

The sound track was released by Dreamworks studio on March 23, 2010. The score was met with overwhelmingly positive reviews.

Marketing

The first trailer was shown in front of A Christmas Carol on November 6, 2009. A second 105-second trailer was shown before Avatar on December 18, 2009. A third trailer was shown before Alice in Wonderland on March 5, 2010, three weeks before the film's release. An advance screening resulted in a financial analyst projecting the film to be a major boost for the studio due to a strong marketing plan, merchandising opportunities and potential for sequels. The film was heavily promoted during the 2010 Winter Olympics prior to its release date of March 26, 2010.^[9]

Release

Competition for 3D screens

In February 2010, according to insider reports, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg protested Warner Bros.' decision to convert Clash of the Titans from 2D to 3D, then to release it one week after How to Train Your Dragon.^[10] Entertainment reporter Kim Masters described the 3D release schedule around March 2010 as a "traffic jam", and speculated that the lack of 3D screen availability could hurt Katzenberg's prospects despite his support of the 3D format.^[11]

In March 2010, theater industry executives accused Paramount of using high-pressure tactics to coerce theaters to screen How to Train Your Dragon rather than the competing 3D releases, Clash of the Titans and Disney's Alice in Wonderland. As theater multiplexes often had just one 3D screen, theaters were unable to accommodate more than one 3D presentation at a time.^[12]

Box office

How to Train Your Dragon topped the North American box office with an estimated $43.3 million in its first weekend of release.^[13] This relatively low gross for an animated feature with 3D presentation was initially considered a disappointment by box office analysts compared to its DreamWorks predecessor, Monsters vs. Aliens and the other DreamWorks films released after Shrek 2, and DreamWorks' stock fell in reaction. However, the film benefited from exceptionally enthusiastic word of mouth, resulting low box office declines as the film, such as a slippage of only 14.3% on its third weekend, compared against the previous Easter holiday weekend^[14] Furthermore, the film presumably^[15] regained the top box office spot on its fourth week of release, and did so conclusively in its fifth—a very rare occurrence in the modern North American theatrical film market. How to Train Your Dragon currently holds the fourth-highest opening weekend for an animated film in 2010, after Toy Story 3 with $110,307,189, Shrek Forever After with $70,838,207, and Despicable Me with $56,397,125, and currently twelfth overall for 2010. The film grossed $217,581,231 in the United States and Canada and $275,602,689 in foreign countries with a worldwide total of $493,183,920.^[1] How to Train Your Dragon is Dreamworks Animation's highest-grossing film in the American and Canadian box office that is not a Shrek film.^[16] It is the third highest-grossing animated film in 2010 with $493.2 million, behind Toy Story 3 with $1,056.4 million and Shrek Forever After with $732.2 million and the 8th highest-grossing movie of 2010^[17]

Critical reception

The film received universally positive reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 98% of 150 professional critics have given the film a positive review with an overall rating average of 7.8 out of 10.^[18] Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs,^[19] the film holds an overall approval rating of 93%, based on a sample of 27 reviews.^[20] The site's general consensus is that "Boasting dazzling animation, a script with surprising dramatic depth, and thrilling 3-D sequences, How to Train Your Dragon soars."^[18] On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 0–100 reviews from film critics, the film has a rating score of 74 based on 33 reviews.^[21] CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend revealed the average grade cinemagoers gave How to Train Your Dragon was A on an A+ to F scale.^[22]

Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times gave it 3 stars out of 4, stating that: "It devotes a great deal of time to aerial battles between tamed dragons and evil ones, and not much to character or story development. But it's bright, good-looking, and has high energy".^[23] Claudia Puig of USA Today gave it 3.5 out of 4 stars, saying "It's a thrilling action-adventure saga with exhilarating 3-D animation, a clever comedy with witty dialogue, a coming-of-age tale with surprising depth and a sweetly poignant tale of friendship between man and animal."^[24] Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers praised the film, giving it three out of four stars and in his print review wrote, "[The film] works enough miracles of 3-D animation to charm your socks off."^[25] Mark Sells of The Oregon Herald gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, concluding that it was "a visually stimulating, but slightly inconsequential "how to" tale." ^[26] Roger Moore of The Orlando Sentinel gave the film 2½ stars out of 4 wrote a mixed review describing the film as a "more coming-of-age dramedy or 'everything about your world view is wrong' message movie than it is a comedy. And that seems like a waste of a funny book, some very funny actors and some darned witty animation." ^[27] Kyle Smith of The New York Post gave the film 2/4 stars labeling the film as "Avatar for simpletons. But that title is already taken, by Avatar".^[28] A. O. Scott of At The Movies felt the characters and the story were not strong points, but loved the cinematography and said, "that swooping and soaring, they are worth the price of a ticket, so go see it."^[29] Village Voice film critic Ella Taylor panned the film describing it as an "adequate but unremarkable animated tale".^[30] James Berardinelli, film critic for ReelViews, praised the film and its story, giving it 3.5 out of 4 stars he wrote, "Technically proficient and featuring a witty, intelligent, surprisingly insightful script, How to Train Your Dragon comes close to the level of Pixar's recent output while easily exceeding the juvenilia Dreamworks has released in the last nine years."^[31] Entertainment Weekly film critic Owen Gleiberman praised the film giving it an A- and wrote, "How to Train Your Dragon rouses you in conventional ways, but it's also the rare animated film that uses 3-D for its breathtaking spatial and emotional possibilities."^[32]

Awards and nominations

Home media

How to Train Your Dragon will be released on single-disc DVD, 2-disc DVD and Blu-Ray/DVD combo pack in the United States on October 15, 2010. Among the features available in the 2-disc DVD edition will be an original sequel short, Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon. The short will air on October 14, 2010 at 8:00 PM ET/PT on Cartoon Network.

In addition, Samsung has signed a deal with DreamWorks to gain exclusive distribution rights to a Blu-Ray 3D version of the film. Beginning on October 15, 2010, How To Train Your Dragon will replace Monsters vs. Aliens in the Samsung 3D Starter Kit which retails for $349.99 and contains two pairs of active-shutter glasses and either Monsters vs. Aliens or How To Train Your Dragon on Blu-Ray 3D.^[35]

Sequel

On April 27, 2010, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg told The Hollywood Reporter that they were planning a How to Train Your Dragon 2. In addition, they were planning a television series and a live tour show. DreamWorks is targeting a release date of the sequel sometime in the summer of 2013.^[36]

On October 11, 2010, it was announced the voice cast - Baruchel, Ferguson, Ferrera, Hill, Mintz-Plasse, Miller, and Wiig - would return for the sequel.^[37]

See also

• List of animated feature-length films
• List of computer-animated films
• How to Train Your Dragon (video game)

References

External links

• Official website
• How to Train Your Dragon at the Internet Movie Database
• How to Train Your Dragon at the Big Cartoon DataBase
• How to Train Your Dragon at Allmovie
• How to Train Your Dragon at Box Office Mojo
• How to Train Your Dragon at Rotten Tomatoes
• How to Train Your Dragon at Metacritic