How To Train Your Dragon 3
Directed by Dean DeBlois
Produced by Bonnie Arnold & Brad Lewis
Written by Dean DeBlois
Based on How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell
Starring Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Cate Blanchett, Craig Ferguson, F. Murray Abraham
How To Train Your Dragon has been a major franchise since the first (of twelve) books by Cressida Cowell came out in 2000. In addition to the three wide-release animated movies, there have been three graphic novels, four short films, and an eight-season television series of 118 episodes. While the popularity of the series showed no signs of waning, the level of saturation suggested that an end to the story was due.
HTTYD3 is that coda, the capstone film that brings a finality to the story. As such, it works wonderfully.
Toothless, Hiccup’s dragon, has always reminded me of cats, partially because I had a cat named Weasel who physically resembled the Night Fury. In this closer, Toothless meets a white dragon, clearly of the same species, who the humans dub a Light Fury. Hiccup nearly called the new dragon a White Fury, but luckily for the film, he was overridden by Astrid on that.
While Toothless never acted particularly feline, his new friend is very distinctly cat-like, affecting many of the same mannerisms and making some of the same noises as a receptive molly might make.
One of the highlights of the film is the mating dance the two engage in; both comic and a marvel of animation.
The focus of the story is on the dragons, which is good, since on the human side, the story is an overfamiliar one: a baddie (Abraham) shows up who wants to capture and/or kill all the dragons. After all the similarly themed stories in the series, this doesn’t engender any deep sense of suspense.
However, we get a look at the hidden world of dragons, and it is a visual marvel, luxurious and lucent, it is a luciform world, not unlike Pandora. Dragons have their own society, and even a regal form of government.
If the portrayal of the dragons has matured, so have the humans. Hiccup’s group are all visibly older, past their teens. DeBlois has managed to translate their quirks into these more adult versions seamlessly, the way Rowling did with her Harry Potter series.
The medium itself has matured significantly over the past 16 years. The art has always been quite good, and the animation is superb. Fire, water, hair; all are portrayed realistically. The alterations in the humans are subtle, but significant. At one point, late in the movie, there is a brief scene of Hiccup and Toothless from the first movie, and it’s startling how cartoonish they appear, even though nobody saw it that way at the time.
It’s been an engaging and entertaining series, with original characters and a neatly-devised plotline that subverts all the other dragon stories. In How To Train Your Dragon 3, it comes to a well-deserved and satisfying end.