How to Train Your Dragon (2010 film)

How to Train Your Dragon
File:How to train Your Dragon poster.jpg Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Chris Sanders Dean DeBlois
Written by	Adam F. Goldberg Peter Tolan Dean DeBlois Chris Sanders Cressida Cowell (Story)
Produced by	Bonnie Arnold Doug Davison Roy Lee Michael Connolly Tim Johnson
Starring	Jay Baruchel Gerard Butler Christopher Mintz-Plasse Jonah Hill America Ferrera Craig Ferguson
Narrated by	Jay Baruchel
Edited by	Darren T. Holmes
Music by	John Powell
Production company	DreamWorks Animation
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	March 26, 2010 (2010-03-26)
Running time	98 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$165 million
Box office	$429,247,696

How to Train Your Dragon is a 2010 computer-animated fantasy film by DreamWorks Animation very loosely based on the 2003 book of the same title. It bears little resemblance to the novel it's based on. 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 movie is the first to use the new DreamWorks Animation logo.

The story takes place in a mythical Viking world where a young Viking teenager named "Hiccup" aspires to kill a dragon in order to get notice in a viking society. He finally shoots down a dragon, capturing it with a bolas cannon, though no one sees his feat nor believes him. But even with his chance at finally proving himself, he finds that he no longer has the desire to kill the dragon he captured and with time, befriends it. The film was released March 26, 2010, to near universal acclaim, but with a relatively disappointing premiere box office gross. However, the subsequent enthusiastic audience word of mouth created an outstanding sustained run that led to the film being reassessed as a major success and the start of a new media franchise for its studio.

Plot

Hiccup is the son of the Viking Chief, Stoick the Vast, on the island of Berk. Hiccup's village is beset by dragons which raid their stock of sheep. Hiccup works as an apprentice to the blacksmith, Gobber the Belch.

During a raid, Hiccup shoots down a rare 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, but can not bring himself to kill it. He frees it and it flies 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, Hiccup returns to the forest. 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 wing 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 (who were too in awe to notice that Hiccup didn't actually "slay" the training dragons, but only fended them harmlessly back to their holding fences) and the jealousy of Astrid, who becomes strongly suspicious.

Stoick and his army return battered and tired, without having found the nest. 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 and Hiccup asks for a chance to explain, and they take her for a ride which first terrifies and then charms her. 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 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. Impressed by Hiccup's determination, Astrid agrees to keep quiet for the night.

The next day, during Hiccup's graduation battle, 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 attacks Hiccup. Toothless hears Hiccup's screams and rushes to save him. He quickly overpowers the dragon, the Vikings sent to capture him, and finally Stoick until Hiccup calls him off. Although Toothless becomes tame and docile, Hiccup cannot convince him to escape and the dragon is quickly pinned by Vikings over his protests. Stoick confronts his son angrily at learning about his son's friendship with a dragon and disowns him. At that, 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.

The Vikings set sail with Toothless leaving Hiccup with Astrid, as he notes that this situation would not have happened if he had killed Toothless in the first place. Inspired by Astrid's insightful question of why he didn't, Hiccup decides to use the dragons that the Vikings use for dragon fighting practice to fly to the nest to help Toothless and his tribe. Astrid gathers 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 dragon sets all the boats on fire, including the one on which Toothless is chained. Hiccup and the others arrive, and, while he goes to free Toothless, the others try to distract the giant dragon. As the boat is sinking, Hiccup tries to free the still-chained Toothless but nearly drowns. Stoick saves both his son and Toothless from drowning and apologizes to Hiccup as the boy and his dragon prepare to attack the giant dragon.

Toothless shoots a fireball at the dragon to anger it. It works and the huge dragon chases them into the sky, where Hiccup and Toothless hide in the clouds. As the dragon looks for them, Toothless shoots fireballs at it's wings. The dragon gets angry and breathes fire in all directions, setting Toothless' makeshift tail wing alight. So, they dive downwards with the huge dragon close behind. The dragon opens it's mouth and is about to breath fire on them, but Toothless shoots a fireball into it's mouth, setting it's insides on fire. Since the giant dragon can't pull up because his wings have holes in them, the dragon crashes down on the beach and explodes.

As Toothless and Hiccup fly out of the flames, Toothless' tail wing burns up and they collide with the dragon's tail; Hiccup is knocked out and falls into the explosion; Toothless dives in to save him. Stoick searches the rubble from the explosion for his son, but only finds Toothless exhausted. At first, everyone thinks Hiccup has died in the explosion, but Toothless reveals that he saved Hiccup by wrapping him in his wings, much to Stoick's relief.

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 (presumably amputated after being severely injured) and has been replaced with a prosthetic made by Gobber; 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 kiss on the lips from Astrid. Hiccup and Astrid ride their dragons through the newly-reformed Berk, as the war between dragon and Viking ends.

Cast

• Jay Baruchel as Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, the protagonist of the movie. Hiccup is going to become a Viking warrior his own way. Unfortunately, in the crude world of the Vikings, Hiccup's sophisticated observations and wry humor make him an outsider. In the beginning of the film, he is a Outcast and always made fun of for his ways, but in the end, he becomes the hero and everyone grows to respect him for being him.
• 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 realizes Hiccup's wisdom and courage as well as Toothless' loyalty.
• Craig Ferguson as Gobber the Belch, the seasoned warrior appointed to drill the new recruits. Gobber dispenses advice, and is missing his right foot and his left hand. Usually, his advice is bad, but he truly cares for his students, as shown through acts like saving Hiccup during his training.
• America Ferrera as Astrid Hofferson: striking, energetic and tough, Astrid embodies the Viking way. Her competitive, determined persona makes her hard to impress, but Hiccup cannot help but be entranced by her beauty and ferocity. When Hiccup begins to show the strain of leading his double life, Astrid is the first to be suspicious. Astrid at first dislikes Hiccup, but befriends him after riding Toothless, while also growing to see him as a powerful Viking warrior in his own way. Eventually, she grows to love him as much as he loves her.
• Jonah Hill as Snotlout Jorgenson: initially makes fun of Hiccup for being weak, but by the end of the movie 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 with Hiccup .
• T. J. Miller and Kristen Wiig as Tuffnut and Ruffnut Thorston. Tuffnut, a boy, and Ruffnut, 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 Zippleback dragon in tandem.
• Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Fishlegs Ingerman: Fishlegs is 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 Green Death in the end.
• David Tennant as Spitelout: a Viking who is not named in the movie, he appears to be Stoick's Second-in-Command, and bears a striking resemblance to Snotlout. Tennant has previously narrated a series of Hiccup adventures on audio book.

Production

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. 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 movie and "add a live-action feel".

In keeping with the more mature tone of the revised film, the directors decided that having the heroes defeat the great dragon while remaining unscathed would harm the story's thematic authenticity. To rectify that, the story's climax was changed to have Hiccup being wounded and requiring his left leg be amputated below the knee, in parallel of how Toothless earlier lost his left tail fin. When this scene was screened for test audiences, the producers were approached by parents in the audience on their own accord to praise the story development and requesting that it be retained in the final edit. In addition, Cressida Cowell also approved, saying it was true to the spirit of her books.

The dragons were modeled after reptiles, except for Toothless who was modeled after mammals. The producer describes him as a “large leopard-like creature”." The supervising animator in charge of Toothless based the dragon's interactions with Hiccup on how he interacted with his own pet cat.

Music and soundtrack

The sound track was released by DreamWorks studio on March 23, 2010.

Untitled

All tracks are written by John Powell, except where noted

No.	Title	Length
1.	"This Is Berk"	4:10
2.	"Dragon Battle"	1:55
3.	"The Downed Dragon"	4:16
4.	"Dragon Training"	3:11
5.	"Wounded"	1:25
6.	"The Dragon Book"	2:22
7.	"Focus, Hiccup!"	2:05
8.	"Forbidden Friendship"	4:11
9.	"New Tail"	2:48
10.	"See You Tomorrow"	3:56
11.	"Test Drive"	2:36
12.	"Not So Fireproof"	1:12
13.	"This Time For Sure"	0:44
14.	"Astrid Goes For A Spin"	0:43
15.	"Romantic Flight"	1:56
16.	"Dragon's Den"	2:29
17.	"The Cove"	1:11
18.	"The Kill Ring"	4:29
19.	"Ready The Ships"	5:14
20.	"Battling The Green Death"	6:18
21.	"Counter Attack"	3:05
22.	"Where's Hiccup?"	2:44
23.	"Coming Back Around"	2:51
24.	"Sticks & Stones" (Song by Jónsi)	4:06
25.	"The Vikings Have Their Tea"	2:03
Total length:		1:11:57

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 expected to be heavily promoted during the 2010 Winter Olympics prior to its release date of March 26, 2010.

Video game

Activision released a video game also titled How to Train Your Dragon for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, and Nintendo DS. The game allows players to customize their own dragon and fight others. In this game, it is revealed that the massive dragon in the end of the movie was called the 'Red Death'. A video game of the same name has been produced by Glu Mobile on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Books

An electronic kid's book of the same name will be produced by iStorytime on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

Toys

Action figures of Hiccup, Fishlegs, and other main characters of the film were produced and marketed. Also, Hiccup's Viking accessories were released as plastic toys.

Release

Initial screening

Due to Russian children's holidays, the film had a limited run starting on March 13, 2010 in Russia, going into wide release on March 18, 2010, two weeks prior to the North American release. In the Philippines, the film was officially released on March 19, 2010, both in 2D and in digital 3D, and in IMAX 3D on March 26, 2010. In Indonesia, the movie had a limited 3D release on March 20, 2010, going into wide 2D and 3D release the next week, at the same time as the North American 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. 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.

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.

Critical reception

The film has received positive reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 98% of 147 professional critics have given the film a positive review and it has a rating average of 7.8 out of 10. Among Rotten Tomatoes' Top Critics, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 93%, based on a sample of 27 reviews. 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." 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. 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.

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". 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." 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." 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." 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." 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". 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." Village Voice film critic Ella Taylor panned the film describing it as an "adequate but unremarkable animated tale". 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." 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."

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. 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 DreamWorks' stock fell in reaction. However, the film has 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. As of May 12, 2010, the film has grossed $207,647,696 in the United States and Canada and $221,600,000 in foreign countries with a worldwide total of $429,247,696. Furthermore, the film has remained strong in the box office, being beaten by a narrow margin by Kick-Ass in its fourth week, and returned in its fifth week with an undisputed placing in the top position in box office earnings, a very rare occurrence in the modern North American theatrical film market. As a result, the film was reassessed by pundits as a major success which ultimately outgrossed Monsters, especially internationally.

Subsequent franchise projects

With the success of the film, DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg formally announced in The Hollywood Reporter that How To Train Your Dragon will be further developed as a major media franchise for the company.

Among the projects announced are a theatrical film sequel scheduled for release for the second half of 2013, a television series, an online interactive simulation, and a live touring show.

See also

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

External links

• Official website
• How to Train Your Dragon at IMDb
• Template:Bcdb title
• Template:Top250 movie
• 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