...How to Train Your Dragon.....

[Kelly Tindall]

We saw it again tonight with a new group of friends. I'm in love with the Nico Marlet designs, so awesome.

It's better in 2D, too.

[Elliotanimated]

There is so much great stuff going on in this film that the stuff I didn't like really made it hard for me to love the film as a whole.
I'll elaborate if anyone really gives a shit.

Kung Fu Panda still stands as my favorite Dreamworks film (favorite big studio film ever, really).

[daniel cox]

--

[daniel cox]

Bravo DW! This film is an absolute triumph (and a special nod to Rod Guen for his write up...otherwise I might have just waited to see this film on DVD). Instead I took the kids to see it at the Imax in Darling Harbour over Easter, and we all had a fantastic time! Anyone who's questioning whether to see it in 3d needs to buy a ticket at Imax. This is by far and away the best way to see the film...it totally immerses you.

For me, this is now my favourite modern animated feature. Everything about this movie works...and DW have raised the bar on Pixar with this one. The way they took those great 2d drawings and translated them to 3d...just simple things like maintaining the integrity of Stoics conventional 2d nose...something no studio has been able to achieve...the subtle hairs and textures of the skin, just to differentiate from other surfaces...fantastic! All characters were great, but I especially enjoyed Astrid, who had this very believable awkwardness and angst of a teenage girl. Looking forward to its release on Blu-Ray.

PS. For anyone on the board who lives in Sydney, I highly recommend dining at the Meat and Wine Co after the movie...it's right next to the Imax theatre. It's kid friendly, has a very extensive wine collection (order from the cellar if you can afford it) and the best Wagyu rump I've had yet.

[emceeONE]

Kung Fu Panda is still my favorite, mainly for the opening sequence, but Dragon is definitely a winner. Like others have said, it picks up when Hiccup and the Dragon start bonding. I wanted to see more of that and less of Hiccup in the village, which seemed boring and unneccesary, at least prior to the bonding scene. Also not thrilled by the designs for Astrid and Hiccup. I'd like to say it stopped bothering me by the end, but it didn't. They just seemed so bland compared to the rest of the characters.

Elliot, please do elaborate.

[Elliotanimated]

I agree with your comments for a starter.
When the film first started I felt I was treated to a selection of animation check points that we've seen a million times before.
Initially, Hiccup was Flick, the guy from Meatballs, the guy from Disney's Atlantis, a stock failure character that we've seen so many times in animation I was waiting for the moment I would walk out.
Once it warmed up it was great though.

Like yourself, I didn't like the design of Astrid, nor did I like the character (or any of the other kids).
Every time there was a bit of Hiccup and Astrid business, I wanted more Hiccup and Toothless which is a thousand times more important than wedging in some old love interest in.

I found the design throughout to be disjointed (for want of a better word).
The vikings, the kids, toothless and the other dragons all seemed to come from four different films.
A small detail that frustrated the shit out of me was that everyone gets to be Scottish, except for the kids.
It worked against creating a fully realised organic world.

Ultimately, it's a very entertaining film, but the pedestrian elements (act one, some of the design, most of the characters) kept me from adoring it.

[iPenguin]

I found the design throughout to be disjointed (for want of a better word).
The vikings, the kids, toothless and the other dragons all seemed to come from four different films.
A small detail that frustrated the shit out of me was that everyone gets to be Scottish, except for the kids.
It worked against creating a fully realised organic world.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed those things. I saw the movie a couple weeks ago and drafted a long winded post here about just those things, but never actually posted it, which is fine because you summed it up much better than I did.

Also, the fact that the vikings had Scottish accents at all was a little weird to me. Aren't vikings usually, y'know, Nordic?


Still it was a decent enough film, although no where near being able to contend with some of Pixar's heights for me, or even Lilo and Stitch for that matter...

[Elliotanimated]

An animation friend suggested that the whole thing would have been funnier if they all had Danish accents, and I tend to agree...

I don't think the non Toothless dragons translated well from 2D to 3D... shame, because those drawings are STUNNING.
The whopping big monster dragon at the end was very, very fine though, even though it's kind of not very dangerous or very scary, just big.

Personally, I like this film rather more than Pixar's recent efforts.

[unclepheel]

awesome.

[bangalore_monkey]

Really fun movie!

The best DW animated feature yet.

perhaps not the best looking (kung fu panda), but certainly the best overall package.

i did find it a bit odd that only the grownups were Scottish, ah well, it's a movie about dragons...

[Kelly Tindall]

I agree that the design work is a little all over the place (particularly how Toothless is flagrantly Chris Sanders' work, while the rest of the dragons have Nico Marlet's fingerprints all over them) but I enjoyed most of the designs enough that I didn't consider it a problem.

The only designs I actively disliked were the Viking women; the old elder, and the token background women.

The voice thing didn't bother me, either. I can't think of a single film that's ever made an effort to cast along the lines of accent, and it's probably a bad idea to do so. Kung Fu Panda had a gaggle of weird accents; it's China, yet you have an Orange County panda fighting a British snow leopard raised by a Jewish red panda.

[Elliotanimated]

The voice thing didn't bother me, either. I can't think of a single film that's ever made an effort to cast along the lines of accent, and it's probably a bad idea to do so. Kung Fu Panda had a gaggle of weird accents; it's China, yet you have an Orange County panda fighting a British snow leopard raised by a Jewish red panda.

I have to disagree enthusiastically with you here.

There's a world of difference in Kung Fu Panda having a collection of different accents and Dragon doing the same.
Kung Fu Panda is using a well established talking animal convention (much like Disney's Robin Hood).
Because we're not dealing with humans, character with different accents actually bring some depth to the film by suggesting there are worlds and cultures beyond the one we're seeing.
You know the Rhino guards in that film?
I bet I'm not the only one who thought, "I wonder what the Rhino homeland is like".
Once animals are talking to each other, the rules are different.
We're not in "our world".

Despite the design and the fantastical elements, Dragon is supposed to be in "our world".
Everyone should have the same accent and I think the film loses considerable depth because it doesn't.
To say that it's a bad idea to cast accents relative to the story is crazy (perhaps you need to elaborate on this).
Let's compare Dragon to Iron Giant or ET (two films I think we can agree it's related to).
Would it make sense if the neighborhood kids were all Irish?
Let's say Gertie had a Japanese accent.
It wouldn't make sense and it wouldn't work.
Most films make some effort to cast the right accent (or a vaguely similar one), at least when dealing with an exotic location like the island in Dragon.

Please note.
I don't want to shit on this film, I liked it a lot but there were things about it that frazzled the shit out of me.

[emceeONE]

Well, it's not just that, Elliot. In Kung Fu Panda, all the talking animals had their own actor's accents. The only Chinese accents in that movie were Monkey's and Po's father.

Had Dragon had a hodge podge of accents, it might have been less of an issue. But since all the adults had accents and the kids didn't, it was a distraction.

[Elliotanimated]

Oh sure, I'll take that too, what with you explaining in 3 sentences what I took me 25 minutes to type...

[Moonman]

If you can't enjoy a cartoon because the accents of the characters aren't historically accurate, you need a serious perspective check.