{"id":15995,"date":"2014-12-27T19:18:31","date_gmt":"2014-12-27T09:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=15995"},"modified":"2014-12-27T19:23:31","modified_gmt":"2014-12-27T09:23:31","slug":"how-to-train-your-dragon-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=15995","title":{"rendered":"How To Train Your Dragon 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"howtotrainyourdragon2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Director: \u00a0<\/strong>Dean DeBlois
\nWriter:\u00a0 <\/strong>Dean DeBlois
\nCast:\u00a0 <\/strong>Jay Baruchel, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler<\/p>\n

T<\/span>he original How To Train Your Dragon<\/em> was a pleasant surprise and is my favourite animated film to be produced by Dreamworks. \u00a0Based on the book series by Cressida Crowell, it followed the journey of Hiccup, an anxiety riddled son of a Viking chief, whose bundle of nerves and passive nature has him struggling to meet his fathers approval. \u00a0The Viking village of Berk remains constantly vigilant for dragon attacks but when Hiccup comes face to face with a dragon that he injured, he finds that they are friendly and non-threatening. \u00a0He forms a bond with his new dragon friend Toothless and together they help prevent future conflicts between the people of Berk and the dragons.<\/p>\n

The original How To Train Your Dragon\u00a0<\/em>film was a success on many fronts – from its spectacular visual effects to its wry sense of comic timing to the emotional highs it managed to achieve in the final act. \u00a0I certainly felt that the story\u00a0left itself wide open to sequels (there are several books in the series) and I welcomed a second instalment that kept the same writers and director from the original. \u00a0I’ve since learnt that Dean DeBlois has plans on turning\u00a0How To Train Your Dragon<\/em> into a trilogy of films.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0How To Train Your Dragon 2<\/em>, Hiccup and his friend Astrid discover a new group of vikings that are capturing dragons and amassing an army to invade the rest of the Viking realm. \u00a0They are lead by the warrior Eret who is doing the grunt work for an insane conqueror by the name of Drago. \u00a0When Hiccup warns his father of Drago, it is only then that we learn the depths of Drago’s depravity. \u00a0He once murdered a whole meeting of Viking chieftains for disrespecting him, with Hiccup’s father Stoic the only survivor.<\/p>\n

To complicate matters futher, a mysterious cloaked rider appears to watching events unfold from the sidelines, her intentions unclear to Hiccup. \u00a0She is revealed to be his estranged mother, a revelation that I thought would be a big deal in the film but Dreamworks felt was unimportant enough to casually reveal in all the trailers.<\/p>\n

\"howtotrain2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How To Train Your Dragon 2<\/em> is a film that greatly expands the scope of the original film with larger battles, higher stakes and surprisingly dark story developments. \u00a0DeBlois has cited My Neighbour Totoro<\/i> and\u00a0The Empire Strikes Back<\/em> as his inspirations for this film and it certainly shows. \u00a0Having said that, despite his best intentions and despite the polished final product, I found that I didn’t take to\u00a0How To Train Your Dragon 2<\/em> nearly as much as I did with the original. \u00a0I found that the broader scope of the film detracted from screen time showcasing the friendship between Hiccup, Astrid and Toothless, the emotional anchor for the original film. \u00a0This time, a lot more emotional energy is invested in Stoic and his estranged wife Valka. \u00a0Their marital problems, their emotional reunion and the tragic final chapter to their story.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure I totally knew what I wanted from this sequel but a sad and brooding tale\u00a0about Hiccup’s family wasn’t it. \u00a0I found it difficult to fully invest in Stoic’s character development because mostly he’s been played as an over the top character archetype with voice actor Gerard Butler doing his best THIS IS SPARTA routine. \u00a0The film wears its fantasy and sci-fi influences on its sleeve and it clearly wants to tell a story with spectacle and grandeur. \u00a0And yet I felt it came at the expense of all the little things the original film did well – playful interactions between Toothless and Hiccup, the simpler and more resonant story of a son winning his father’s approval.<\/p>\n

How To Train Your Dragon 2<\/em> is far from a bad film. \u00a0There’s still not really anything out there like it and I’ll be along for the ride to watch the final instalment. \u00a0If DeBlois can stick the landing with the closing chapter, maybe some of my reservations about the direction this film took will wash away. \u00a0For now though, I feel this is a slight misstep from what the original did so well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hiccup, Astrid and Stoic must work together to stop a dangerous new threat to the village of Berk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":16817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1756,1627,711,2137,1148],"class_list":["post-15995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-cate-blanchett","tag-gerard-butler","tag-how-to-train-your-dragon","tag-jay-baruchel","tag-jonah-hill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15995"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16823,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15995\/revisions\/16823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}