How to Train Your Dragon
| Directed by | Chris Sanders, Dean DeBlois |
| Produced by | Bonnie Arnold, Doug Davison, Roy Lee, Michael Connolly, Tim Johnson |
| Written by | Adam F. Goldberg, Peter Tolan, Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders, Cressida Cowell (Story) |
| Narrated by | Jay Baruchel |
| Starring | Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Jonah Hill, America Ferrera, Craig Ferguson |
| Music by | John Powell |
| Editing by | Darren T. Holmes |
| Studio | DreamWorks Animation |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
| Release date(s) | March 26, 2010 |
| Running time | 98 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
How to Train Your Dragon is a 2010 computer-animated fantasy film by DreamWorks Animation loosely based on the 2003 book of the same title. 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 story takes place in a mythical Viking world where a young Viking teenager named "Hiccup" aspires to follow his tribe's tradition of becoming a dragon slayer. After finally capturing his first dragon, and with his chance at finally gaining the tribe's acceptance, he finds that he no longer has the desire to kill it and instead befriends it. The film was released March 26, 2010, to very positive reviews.
Plot
Hiccup is the only son of the Viking Chief, Stoick the Vast, on the island of Berk, which 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 cannot 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 and will always "go for the kill," Hiccup returns to the forest, wondering why the Night Fury didn't. 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 and the jealousy of Astrid, who becomes strongly suspicious.
Stoick and his army return battered and tired, without having found the nest. However, 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; Hiccup asks for a chance to explain, and they take her for a ride. 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. 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. He opens his mouth to kill the tribe leader, but at the last second Hiccup screams "No!" Toothless backs off and becomes tame and docile, and is quickly pinned by Vikings. Stoick confronts his son angrily at learning about his son's friendship with a dragon. 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. He notes that this situation would not have happened if he had killed Toothless in the first place, but he also discovers that he was merciful towards Toothless because of compassion, not weakness. Invigorated, Hiccup decides to use the dragons the Vikings use for dragon fighting practice to fly to the nest to help 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 to 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.
After an aerial battle, Hiccup and Toothless kill the giant dragon. Hiccup is knocked out and falls into the explosion, and Toothless dives in to save him. Stoick searches the rubble for his son, but only finds Toothless; at first, everyone thinks Hiccup has died in the explosion, but Toothless reveals that he saved Hiccup by wrapping him in his wings.
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 in the fire and has been replaced with a prosthetic made by Gobber, in contrast to the artificial tail wing he created for Toothless before; 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, signifying a new beginning for both worlds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Train_Your_Dragon_(film)
English-language films | 2010 films | American animated films | Computer-animated films | 3-D films | Animated films | Films about dragons | Films based on children's books | Animated features released by DreamWorks SKG | Animated features released by Paramount Pictures | DreamWorks Animation films
