Friday 10 July 2015

How to Train Your Dragon (My review of the franchise)

Source: youtube.com
In 2010, we were introduced to the world of the Vikings by Dreamworks as an adaption of the awesome collected works of Cressida Cowell. This extremely exhilarating animation is one that has captured the minds of both children and adults alike and has continued in the pace of its original momentum by exposing it followers to the lives of the characters.

How to train your dragon (2010) ranked 11 on the rotten tomatoes’ Top 100 animated movies list with 98% rating which is seen as a very big win for the Dreamworks driven movie. This and many more achievements made by the movie worldwide prompted the release of the spin-off of the movie as a TV show shown on Cartoon Network as Dragons: Riders of Berk and Dragons: Defenders of Berk. I dare say that the TV shows are in a way better than the movie with it explicitly explaining how the events of How to train your dragon has affected the Isle of Berk even going as far as exploiting the bond between Toothless and Hiccup. With the extraordinary addition of both Snotlout and the twins “Ruffnut and Tuffnut” who were expressly downgraded in the movie and made their character more developed and extra mischievous.

Closely followed is also how it seems that Hiccup and his dragon were slowly but beautifully been revered by the Vikings in the Archipelago. Hiccup’s journey to heroism is a much more fascinating story due to the shows and we also see how he constantly tries to lead his band of not-so-compatible younger Vikings to help them become heroes that will build the Hairy Hooligans tribe. His encounter with both Alvin and Dagger also proved that he still had a long way to go to become who he was meant to be.

The sequel to the movie picks up 5 years after the events of the first movie and it shows how much work Hiccup had done to make sure that the relationship between the Hairy Hooligans and the dragons is a lot better but it also shows that Hiccup having accomplished all these wonderful things was still looking for more has he still does not know who he is. He had gained respect all over the archipelago and even snagged the beautiful and warrior bride so he wanted more than to just be the next chief of the tribe. This movie ranked below its predecessor at 34 on the list and 92% in ratings, nonetheless, it was more matured and had better animation than the previous one with a more substance to the story-line.

Netflix picked up the season 3 for only 13 episodes compared to the last ones. Dragons: Race to the Edge was equally more matured like the movie itself and also had better animation but it shows the characters on an Isle different from berk with the characters creating a little safe haven for themselves separate from their normal home so that they can explore the bigger world on the edge of the archipelago.

All in all, this endeavor by Dreamworks is a very worthy one and I sure look forward to all the wonderful things they are going to do with this movie. If you are a lover of animated works, this is one you should watch as you will not be disappointed.


FYI, the books are another avenue I think you guys should explore because they are totally different from the movie and you sure will not regret it.

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