How To Train Your Dragon 2 (SPOILERS) · 7:52pm Jun 25th, 2014
Disclaimers: This will contain spoilers for How To Train Your Dragon 2 and possibly How To Train Your Dragon. For the sake of brevity I'm going to refer to How To Train Your Dragon as "Dragon 1" and its sequel as "Dragon 2".
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I was thoroughly disappointed with Dragon 2. It was unquestionably worse than Dragon 1 and a mediocre film in its own right. I'm listing my reasons why below so perhaps anyone who reads this can avoid the same pitfalls in their own work, and so that I can link this to people rather than filling their IM chats with enormous walls of text. So, without further ado...
1. The entire plot falls into one enormous plothole that also contains a few smaller plotholes: mindcontrol.
-How is Drago able to control dragons by waving a spear around and imitating William Shatner? If it was that easy you'd think a bunch of pissed-off Vikings running around holding swords and spears and roaring would've subdued them with ease. This completely contradicts Dragon 1: violent, intimidating displays are useless against dragons. That's why the Vikings were fighting a losing battle and only Hiccup's compassionate methods provided a solution (see Problem #4). According to the official Dragon 2 website, Drago found the Grey Alpha (his Bewilderbeast) as a hatchling and raised it to be his slave, but that wasn't explained in the movie and therefore isn't part of the story.
-"He does that to control the Grey Alpha, who controls dragons for him". Then why did the Grey Alpha have to stare at Toothless and concentrate in order to control him? It wasn't looking at the Monstrous Nightmare Drago cowed, or any of the dragons on Berk...so why did it have to stare at Toothless? Why did Hiccup have to blindfold Toothless? Why didn't the Grey Alpha mindcontrol Toothless the very instant the blindfold came off and they were staring directly at each other? Because Night Furies are just badass that way?
-If Drago can control dragons by doing that stuff, why didn't he just control the White Alpha (Valka's Bewilderbeast) during his battle against it? Why didn't he control all of the White Alpha's dragons, either by himself or through the Grey Alpha? Valka said they'd never betray their Alpha, but we're talking mindcontrol here. What, does the White Alpha continually mindcontrol all of its own dragons? That doesn't sound very noble or heroic to me.
-Why didn't the Grey Alpha just rebel? Again, Drago is a contradiction of Dragon 1. Dragons, as Hiccup says in Dragon 2 are intelligent and gentle creatures, and as we saw in Dragon 1 if you try to intimidate them they'll kick your ass. All it took was Toothless breaking out of some ice, roaring and shooting the Grey Alpha in the face to get it to freeze in fear, so why didn't it just take Drago's dragon army, get rid of him and do its own thing? I can understand Drago being intimidating when it's a hatchling (which, again, isn't part of the story), but now it's this enormous thing with its ice breath and mindcontrol and everything; Drago is nothing more than a meaningless insect riding on its back.
-Why does Drago pay poachers to find dragons for him when he has a mass-mindcontrol device at his disposal?
2. Hiccup's "decision" to become chieftain of Berk is as forced as could be, contradicts his character, isn't accompanied by appropriate character development, is preceded by the meaningless death of Stoik and completely throws out an unresolved plot point from the start of the film.
Before all the business with Drago really gets underway (see Problem #4), Hiccup is pressured by both of his parents to become a chieftain: of Berk by Stoick and of dragons by Valka. He doesn't want to do either. What he really wants to do is explore the world with Toothless, charting new lands, searching for any other Night Furies and continuing to figure himself out. This is consistent with Hiccup's defiance of his father and Viking convention in Dragon 1, and his defiance of how both of his parents want to deal with Drago in Dragon 2. Hiccup does things only one way: his own.
Stoick's death in the film is supposed to both place Hiccup in a position where he can't ignore his future role as chieftain any longer and motivate him to embrace that role. This is indicated by Hiccup echoing Stoick's "A chieftain looks after his own" line, filled with resolve and determination, before going off to stop Drago. The problem with this is that Hiccup was going to stop Drago anyway; he was always determined and never hesitated in what he wanted to do (contrast his constant anxiety in Dragon 1). He didn't need to be further motivated, especially given that he had to save Toothless. Hiccup doesn't learn anything about himself or life in the wake of his father's death, he doesn't change his ways of thinking, he just mourns and then resolves to do what must be done. There's no character growth, and without that character growth him suddenly deciding to abandon his other goals for the sake of doing something he doesn't want to do makes no sense--and no, "giving up your dreams for the sake of responsibility" isn't something he learns. He was already responsible, just not for the things other people wanted him to be. Stoick dies for nothing.
At the end of the film, after Toothless becomes the new Alpha, suddenly the Hooligan elder calls Hiccup to a pyre and makes a mark of ash on his head. Then the village cheers Hiccup as the new chieftain of Berk and the film ends. There's no deliberation or even indication that Hiccup actually chooses to be chieftain, he just lets it happen. Nevermind that Toothless is still the only Night Fury around, nevermind that there's still a whole world to explore. Now that he'll be busy being the chieftain he won't be able to pursue those goals, unless the writers decide to simply ignore that for the third movie, and if they do then Hiccup's "decision" will have meant nothing. There were two other people who could've made good chieftains: Astrid, who is more of a traditionalist than Hiccup as evidenced by her encouraging him to become chieftain and her characterization in Dragon 1, and Valka. Valka might seem a weird choice since she only seems to care about dragons and her family, but given how completely Berk has embraced living with dragons anyway she could've taken them a step further--she's basically another Hiccup--what with all the wisdom she's acquired from living only with dragons for two decades, while being among her people again would've allowed Valka to restore at least some of her humanity without giving up everything she gained from dragons. And while either of them ruled Berk Hiccup and Toothless could've flown off into the sunset, returning to their exploration.
3. Lack of focus.
This might just be me but the film seemed to meander between two different plots: the Drago plot and the Hiccup-as-chieftain-vs.-Hiccup-as-dragon-scholar family dynamics plot. It started with exposition, then kicked off the Drago plot, then just kinda wasted time for a bit as a bunch of Vikings on dragons flew around all over the place. Then the family plot started with a very long introduction to Valka, the White Alpha and their whole thing, and finally the Drago plot really got underway and was pretty much nothing but action for the rest of the film, at the cost of some previously established plot points (see Problem #1). The happy, revelatory, reconciliatory tone of the family plot was completely opposite to the impending doom tone of the Drago plot and I found myself wondering if the film was ever going to get back to Drago given how long it stayed on the family plot. In hindsight, I wish the film had stayed on the family plot.
4. The movie botches both its own themes and the themes of the first movie for the sake of an "action-packed" final battle that was as puerile as Dragonball Z and shouldn't have happened.
The primary theme of both movies is that compassion is better than aggression, and this theme manifests itself through specific sub-themes in both movies (Dragon 1: cooperation is better than violence. Dragon 2: empathy is better than domination). In Dragon 2, there's also a theme of Hiccup being the pinnacle of dragon riders:
-He's more empathetic than Stoik and Drago but also not drachen uber alles like Valka; he wants what's best for everyone.
-He's closer to Valka than Stoik in his approach to dragons and outlook, but uses the tools of men as well...
-...and those same tools make him one with his dragon since he controls Toothless' left tailfin. They also make him the only dragon rider who can "fly" alongside his dragon. Then there's his "let's do this as one" line just before he and Toothless take on Drago and the Grey Alpha.
-The movie outright calls him a Dragon Master and "the only one who can bring both worlds together".
Both of these themes come together when Hiccup is able to free Toothless from the Grey Alpha's mindcontrol, through his sheer love and the bond they share. Unfortunately, this thematic synergy is ruined immediately afterwards: the battle against Drago and the Grey Alpha is ultimately resolved by Toothless, followed by Toothless and all the other dragons present, shooting the Grey Alpha with their breath weapons until it runs away. In other words, instead of compassion being better than aggression, compassion is cast aside in favour of aggression, specifically "my dragon is better than yours because it shoots better stuff than yours" DBZ-level garbage. Toothless even turns Super Saiyan.
Anyway, this method works for Drago since he turned out to be exactly what Stoik said: completely unrepentant and unwilling to change. I like the message that that and the various heroic characters' treatment of Drago expresses because it's more sensible than a purely idealistic "Everyone can be redeemed". Most people can be redeemed, and you should give everyone a fair a chance at first, but sometimes you'll find destructive people you simply can't change and at that point all you can do is stop them however you can. I don't mind that Drago gets his ass kicked because he's beyond redemption, just as the Red Death Toothless killed in Dragon 1 was. Compassion is better than aggression, but that doesn't mean it'll always work.
So what's the problem? The Grey Alpha, for one very simple reason: in the final moments it hesitates. For most of its "fight" with Toothless it just stands there clearly terrified while Toothless shoots it down (which, as you can imagine, wasn't all that exciting to watch). Does Drago hesitate? Nope. He continues to bark out orders that the Grey Alpha is too afraid of Toothless to follow, which means that the Grey Alpha, unlike Drago, isn't completely devoted to Drago's cause (remember Problem #1?). It wasn't beyond redemption and could've changed its mind; had that not been the case it would've obeyed Drago and continued to fight, we would've seen some crazy awesome scene of Toothless' breath weapon vs. the Grey Alpha's and I wouldn't have had any problem with it.
Upon seeing the Grey Alpha hesitate, Hiccup should've immediately told Toothless to stop and tried to bring the Grey Alpha to the right side, perhaps with Toothless helping; the same TLC that allowed Toothless to resist its mindcontrol, along with having previously witnessed the indomitable strength of Toothless' bond with Hiccup, would've allowed the Grey Alpha to resist its lifelong fear of Drago and properly betray him. Drago would've been the one to be blasted into oblivion by dragonfire, not the Grey Alpha. Finally the Grey Alpha would've bowed to Toothless, conceding the status of Alpha Dragon to him. That's how the conflict should've been resolved: through compassion, not aggression.
I liked Dragon 1, but I get the feeling that the second movie isn't very good.
So.. is it worth seeing?
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Yes. I loved it. It's a very good film, and while I would acknowledge some of the problems Feather points out, they honestly don't matter or bother me in the slightest. The film just works and I'm perfectly happy to suspend my disbelief.
But really, why are you reading a spoiler'd gripe post before you see it? There's no way you can see it now without specifically looking for those problems.