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I just watched a disappointing 3d CGI movie so I am currently inclined to assume the worst, despite an inner 5 year old in me shouting "SQUEEE!!! DRAGONS!!!"
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On a different note... have we ever seen a movie about a dumb kid that manages to succeed for some reason other than being, well, smart? Or not necessarily dumb but whose defining characteristic is not being the quirky smart outcast guy? On one hand its kinda nice that a huge percentage of kids movies have protagonists that I personally (as a guy who is largely defined by being quirky, smart and often outcast) can identify with... it seems to be we could use more children's movies that provide good role models for kids who aren't on the honor track. (I realize that can come across as sounding somewhat arrogant, but I assume most people in this forum are in a similar boat as I am)
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quote:Originally posted by Raymond Arnold: On a different note... have we ever seen a movie about a dumb kid that manages to succeed for some reason other than being, well, smart? Or not necessarily dumb but whose defining characteristic is not being the quirky smart outcast guy? On one hand its kinda nice that a huge percentage of kids movies have protagonists that I personally (as a guy who is largely defined by being quirky, smart and often outcast) can identify with... it seems to be we could use more children's movies that provide good role models for kids who aren't on the honor track. (I realize that can come across as sounding somewhat arrogant, but I assume most people in this forum are in a similar boat as I am)
Frodo or Sam maybe? Cleverness didn't really seem their defining character trait.
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While I wasn't very clear, I was referring more specifically to kids movies starring kids. (Whether Frodo and Sam count as kids is debatable also)
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Up, maybe? Russell wasn't particularly smart. Really, I thought his defining characteristic was his stubborn niceness.
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Harry Potter? He was always diving headfirst into stupid and dangerous situations. Thank goodness for a smart girl sidekick and a devious headmaster.
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quote:(Whether Frodo and Sam count as kids is debatable also)
Not really. Frodo is in his 30s at the beginning of the Fellowship, and it's a few years after the birthday party until the rest of the story.
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Blayne Bradley
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Harry is arguably talented though.
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Up definitely counts (you might say Incredibles count too, although the kids weren't as centerpoint in that movie). Come to think of it, while Linguini from Ratatouille wasn't "technically" a kid he had a enough of a kid vibe to maybe qualify and his defining characteristic was that he didn't have any talents whatsoever. (Granted, he also teaches the lesson "if you have no talent whatsoever, pray to God you run into a master chef rat you can exploit"). Regardless I guess I can give Pixar a pass on the issue.
Not sure what I think of Harry Potter. His defining characteristic is bravery rather than intellect but even though he's vastly outclassed by Hermione I think he still falls into the category of "Smart Guy." Especially because you have Ron to compare him to.
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I realized early in life that "Brains over brawn" was always a devious plot by those with brains to subjugate those with brawn. However, as one of those with good brains and few brawn, I didn't let the secret out.
Those with Brains seem to be pushing this propaganda in all cartoons, family TV and movies.
The brawny response has been Zombie movies, where the brawny zombies dine out on the brainy brains.
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Just saw this. Thought it was great. It's the first movie I've seen that I thought really used the 3D to help tell the story, rather than just improve the visuals somewhat (in particular scenes in the beginning where there are some close ups of the dragon's face, and the 3D emphasizes the eyes in a way that heightened the emotional quality of the scene).
I also really liked that this was a movie about a nerd where you get to see the nerd do things that are genuinely SMART, as opposed to using technobabble to fake smartness.
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Well, this is now the movie thread as opposed to trailer thread, and it also wasn't my thread to begin with. There's also a newer better trailer anyway. If you take a stroll down google lane I suspect you can find it.
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1. The movie as a whole is very smart. A lot of movies (kids movies in particular) have nerdy main characters. What we DON'T see all that often is nerds getting to ACTUALLY be smart, as opposed to having their smartness faked via technobabble ("if we adjust the phase emitter we can increase the power of the shields and save the day wooo!!!!"). I'm not sure the devices that Hiccup makes would actually work but a lot of thought was clearly put into how they might work and I found them totally believable. We really get the sense that not just anyone could have did what Hiccup did, and what he did took time and intellect to study and prepare. I love that Toothless couldn't fly straight with an injured tail, and that they not only had to make a fake tail but build a device to change the position and then learn how to work together to operate it.
2. The two headed dragon was particularly neat. It actually works the way I always thought dragons probably should (breathing flamable gas and creating a spark to ignite it). And seeing the twins flying on it at the end was funny.
3. Having Hiccup lose his leg at the end was pretty neat. The friend I saw it with didn't like seeing a kid in a movie lose a leg, but I thought it was a very good way to to introduce children to the fact that going into war is going to have consequences without having to actually kill off a main character to showcase it. And it had a very nice symmetry - the dragon loses his tail at the beginning and Hiccup helps him recover, and then Hiccup loses a leg and needs the dragon's help to walk at the end. I've been reading some blogs on the portrayal of handicapped people in movies and this film definitely had some good stuff in that regard.
4. I think this is the first 3D movie where I felt that the 3D was worth paying extra for. A lot of scenes in the beginning actively used 3D to emphasize facial expressions which enhanced the emotional impact of the scene rather than distracting from it. I was still a little disappointed that the big epic scenes near the end did not use the 3D to its full extent. It basically was "realistic", which is okay I guess but I for one miss the 3D where stuff actually jumped out at you. The giant canyons and the huge dragon both could have used some exaggerated perspective to emphasize how huge they are. Still, I found the 3D worth the money I paid extra, more so than I did for Avatar or Alice.
5. Minor quibble on a related note: I like that the girlfriend character gets to be a badass, but honestly we've come far enough that that's a cliché unto itself. I didn't like that despite that, she essentially is a background setpiece for the main character's benefit, with no particular arc of her own. She spent most of her life trying to be the best dragonslayer in her class, and suddenly the entire dragonslaying occupation becomes meaningless. Granted, everyone then gets to ride dragons all the time, which is really frickin' sweet, but still, it'd have been nice to see how she dealt with that. Also, having a job in the climax other than to stand around and be supportive of the protagonist. (In isolation, I don't think the movie was all that bad in the feminist-regard, but overall the "scripts-are-clearly-written-with-male-biases" is still enough an issue in Hollywood that I feel obligated to point it out when it happens).
6. And then on the other hand... "Here son, wear your Mom's left boob on your head. Now we have a matching set!" LOL!
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My expectations were exceeded. I was fully aware that I was walking into the theater to see a Dreamworks movie, a category that notoriously fluctuates between "painful" and "decent" and averages "cute," as opposed to Pixar, which has steadily climbed from "good" to "great" to whatever is beyond "great." I was bracing myself for a slew of pop-culture references and toilet humor that never came, and when I eased up, I found I enjoyed the clever, if formulaic, setting and the generally adorable characters.
My biggest complaint in the characterization department is that the father is a terrible father. He's not abusive, no, and he's not negligent per se. As far as Dreamworks' father figures go (Shrek's father tried to eat him; Po's father is completely, blissfully unaware of his son's ambitions, etc.), he's actually a step up from the norm. But he practically disowns his son three times!
The other characters fit their archetype well. Hiccup was initially bolder than any Viking, seeking to slay a dragon despite having none of the fighting experience or natural ability the other Vikings had. This is quickly reversed, conveniently at the exact moment the older Vikings agree to let Hiccup train to fight dragons. I like Hiccup because of his character's qualities: despite all his time spent planning to kill a dragon, he connects with a dragon and spares it. He shows sympathy with his mortal enemy. He is also truly smart, as Raymond pointed out, progressively learning about dragons as he spends more time with Toothless, and applying it in ways that avoids getting people hurt.
I agree with Raymond on the girlfriend character note, but I'm willing to hand-wave it because she played as much a role in the story as she needed to. I'm torn between saying she lightened up from her ferocious Viking form too fast, and agreeing that the wordless flight scene with the complementary musical track was the best way to convey her transformation. The exchange between her and Hiccup before the climax was very well-done, and I thought that that scene showed much respect to both characters.
I'm impressed with Dreamworks' animation. The expressions on the human and dragon characters alike brought life to what would otherwise have been a lame movie (my mother saw it and thought it was dumb, but I think it was because she was put in a bad mood after being cheated at the ticket booth and only realizing it right before the movie started). I even came close to changing my mind about 3D. I believe 3D is a pointless craze and films are better in a traditional format, but this time the 3D was so seamless it actually made the movie better in retrospect. Perhaps I could care for the characters more because I saw them "realistically," even though they were of course animated stylistically. Oh, and the action was pretty cool.
I loved the overall tone of the movie: occasionally quirky, but serious, and it makes sense with its own internal logic. I'm glad Dreamworks is finally learning to get their audience to suspend disbelief. Instead of loading every scene with needless pop-culture references, this movie takes the time to tell a story.
Now, where the movie shines in cinematography and tone, it drags a bit with plot. The story is very formulaic, I'll grant that. If you bother to try to guess what happens next, you will probably guess right. Where this movie succeeds is, if you just open yourself up to it, it immerses you in the experience so that you forget to guess what comes next. This is probably why I enjoyed it and my mother didn't: she wore a cynical, reproaching mood and therefore detached herself from the movie, whereas I allowed the experience to take me on a fun ride without dismissively predicting comes next. A word to anyone who sees this film: switch the cynical part of your brain off and you'll enjoy the movie. There's nothing in it that will automatically turn the cynical-lobe back on, as there is in truly bad movies.
After all, there's this rule about cliches: they work best when you forget they're cliches. Star Wars (the original movie) and Avatar depend on that. The goal of a formulaic movie is to create a sufficiently fresh experience to make the audience do just that, and this movie succeeds at that. If, in a few years, a bunch of new films do what this movie did with 3D, How to Train Your Dragon may look bland in retrospect. But for the time being, it is a good movie and a fresh experience, and it's a step in the right direction for Dreamworks.
I'm still not sure I want to see Shrek Forever After, though.
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No characters from the Karate Kid movies were ever very smart. Maybe the newest one will give what Raymond wants, a quirky outcast that isn't terribly smart, just friends with Jackie Chan.
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I agree with much of what C3PO and Raymond said, so I don't have much to say myself. This is the best movie I have seen in a long time. I can't remember the last time I lost myself in a movie like I did here.
And Vikings riding Dragons is now on the list of awesome!
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I thought this was adorable, funny, and was in general a very well made movie.
I saw it in 2D, and am considering seeing it again in 3D.
SPOILERS . . . . I liked that he lost his leg at the end. Or rather, I liked how they portrayed a child amputee as not being impaired, but that the two of them were a matching set that fit together perfectly, and that young people with disabilities can still interact normally with others. I think that was a bold move.
I did not like the love interest girl. I thought she was rather useless. If you take her out of the movie and have someone else fill her role for the maybe two things you actually need her for, if that, you don't miss her at all. If they were going to include her, I wish they would have made her actually matter.
I thought the animation was excellent. Facial expressions made this movie in many ways. Toothless never said a word and yet managed to be extremely expressive, much like Wall-E.
I wasn't really enamored with the voice used for Hiccup. I felt it was a little old sounding. But otherwise I love this movie.
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Definitely see it again in 3D. It's worth seeing twice and it's worth the 3D.
While the love-interest girl did bother me, one thing I did like was that she was clearly attractive, but in a completely unsexualized way. I do hope that if there's a sequel they give her a bigger part.
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Blayne Bradley
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I watched the movie and it was awesome, having the cynical part of my brain on made it funnier for me as that part of my brain would give "voice" to toothless's expressions, essentially I was watching a movie where Toothless was a speaking character that was snarking at the events around it.
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Im tempted to see it, it left a good impression on this prison guard I know who takes his kids to see movies like this. Only they had seen it with thier mom already, and he went to see it on the recomendation of his nine year-old.
Note: poor guy had to sit through Tooth Fairy... he works at the AZ State Penitentiary and he said he would have rather gone to work than see The Rock in a tutu.
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I should point out that Chris Sanders (director of Lilo and Stitch) was at the helm of this flick. I don't make decisions solely based on associations like this but this plus the word of mouth has me pretty excited for when I have some time.
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I saw it, and enjoyed it quite a bit. It wasn't on the par of Pixar's best for me, but it was more enjoyable than pretty much everything else.
As Lyrhawn says, one of the details of the ending, quite surprising storytelling for a big-time movie, and I liked that, too, just for its boldness.
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