You know how you can tell when a scene is really bad? When the very next scene is the filmmakers trying to do a do-over.
We go right from one action scene into another as we smash cut to the open ocean. Hiccup and Toothless fly across the screen, gliding over the water and soaring up into the sky. They’re having a grand old time: Hiccup is testing his latest invention, a flight suit, that lets him glide like Toothless. They have some fun with it before he nearly hits a rock formation, forcing Toothless to blast through it and wrap his wings around him as they crash land in uncharted territory.
This sequence is an extended version of the footage used for the movie’s teaser trailer, and I honestly don’t have a problem with most of it. It’s fast-paced, it features our protagonists and it sets a tone of excitement and adventure. So here’s the thing: what was the purpose of the dragon racing scene? What was so essential that you absolutely had to keep that in? With a little editing, the Hiccup/Toothless flying scene would have made a fine opening. You guys could have waited a bit to show us what was going on in Berk. Instead it took you five minutes of film to provide us with anything substantial. Well done.
The other problem I have is with the scene itself: namely, the music. One movie-going experience I’ll never forget is seeing the first proper flying scene in the original HTTYD on the big screen, in 3D, with that gorgeous score playing. Fans of the series will know that that particular track is called “Test Drive,” and it’s become a leitmotif of sorts for the films. And because these filmmakers don’t seem to know what subtlety means, they took that to its logical extreme.
So now we’ve got “Where No One Goes,” an uninspired pseudo-pop song by Icelandic artist Jonsi, who wrote the infinitely better “Sticks and Stones” from the first film. This is just a few sped-up samples of “Test Drive” with some generic “empowering” lyrics stuck over them. I guess it fits with the scene in that it’s not what Quest for Camelot did with “The Prayer,” but I think it prevents the scene from conveying the wonder, power and majesty that it should. The teaser trailer was able to do that just fine. The filmmakers were going on and on about how epic this was gonna be. They could have set that tone right off the bat with this scene set to some appropriate music, but they didn’t, and the scene loses something as a result.
Once the dynamic duo land, Hiccup doesn’t even check to make sure his dragon is okay after slamming through several trees and rolling down a hill. He just brushes it off with a “Well, that sure came out of nowhere!” Dude, you should be thankful you two weren’t seriously injured. What the hell? Get used to that phrase, because I’m going to be using it quite a lot in regards to Hiccup during these posts. Along with its more vulgar counterpart.
Toothless seems to share my opinion of this, because while Hiccup is busy admiring the view and showing off his rugged new look for the fangirls, Toothless glowers and throws a pebble at the back of his head. Which brings me to the discussion of the first major flaw in this movie.
The best thing about the original HTTYD, hands down, was Toothless. He was a wonderful character: he was likeable, he had an interesting design, he had his own personal arc and he was brilliantly animated. He had his silly moments, but for the most part, he moved and acted like a real animal would. That was part of why he was so interesting to watch: you still knew he had the potential to be incredibly dangerous, which kept his interactions with others suspenseful.
In this sequence, I noticed a change in the way Toothless behaves that I found rather jarring. His expressions are more human in nature. He walks on his hind legs at one point. He even laughs and makes sounds that resemble human speech. He’s been slightly anthropomorphized, and when he does act like an animal, it’s much closer to a puppy than to anything we saw in the original film.
Here’s my problem with this: I noticed in several reviews that some critics were interpreting the Hiccup/Toothless stuff in the third act as a cautionary tale about projecting human qualities onto pets and what can result from that. I don’t know if that’s what the filmmakers were intending, although I can see where those critics got that idea. If that was indeed what they were going for, then they shot themselves in the foot by having Toothless act as consistently silly and human-like as he does. They’re not showing the error of Hiccup’s ways by having him project human qualities onto his dragon where there’s few or none. They’re not leading the audience into anthropomorphizing him ourselves because they’re doing it for us. There’s very little fear, if any fear at all, that he could turn on anyone. When he does later, it doesn’t work the way it was intended because it doesn’t feel properly built up. But I’ll analyze that scene more when we get to it. No matter what way you look at it, the filmmakers sacrificed the point they were trying to make for the sake of making Toothless cutesy for the kids in the audience. Great job, guys.
After this, we get a short but well-done scene where Hiccup takes an intricate map he’s made out of his suit, unfolds it on the ground and begins adding to it. There’s no dialogue while he does this. Instead the movie sits back and lets the visuals speak for themselves, showing all the work Hiccup’s done. We even get a funny moment with the “Itchy Armpit” line (although I wish fanfic writers would stop taking that seriously). It ends on a forlorn note as Hiccup asks “So what do you say, bud? Just keep going?” It’s an effective few seconds, and the closest this movie has come to capturing the feel of its predecessor so far.
Now let’s ruin the mood. :)
Enter Astrid - at least, I think that’s supposed to be Astrid. You remember how she was interesting in the first movie? With her own goals and character tics and story arc? Yeah, forget all that. Now she’s Hiccup’s girlfriend and nothing more.
"But that’s not fair!" I hear you cry. "Astrid’s awesome!" I agree, she is. But this isn’t really Astrid. Here’s the thing: Astrid’s conversation with Hiccup in the scene can sum up her role in the film. In fact, it can sum up how all of the women in this story are treated.
Astrid asks Hiccup where he’s been. “Avoiding my dad!” he answers.
"Oh no. What happened now?"
I’ll give the writers credit for disguising their exposition as a conversation cleverly for a while. We get some good character moments in this scene, such as Hiccup imitating Stoick and Astrid imitating Hiccup. But now comes the main point: Hiccup drops the bomb - or rather, Astrid figures it out a second beforehand - that Stoick plans to make him chief.
Astrid has an “OMG!” moment and congratulates him, asking him what he told his dad. “I didn’t,” he says. “By the time he turned around, I was gone.” She tries to tell him what an honor it is and how she’d be pretty excited, but all he does is insist that “it’s not me.”
Yeeep, we’re doing this again: hero on the cusp of adulthood is reluctant to follow in parent’s footsteps due to identity crisis. Yawn. “I know I’m not my father, and I never met my mother…” Hello, heavy-handed foreshadowing! “So what does that make me?”
Now we come to the line that kind of breaks this conversation for me. “What you’re searching for isn’t out there, Hiccup. It’s in here. Maybe you just don’t see it yet.”
Okay. I once heard a saying that went something along the lines of “a good friend will do a stupid thing with you, but a best friend will stop you from doing the stupid thing.” And I feel like that’s kind of what this is. It’s supposed to be advice, but it’s not. The Astrid from the first movie - the Astrid I know - would encourage Hiccup to actively find a solution. Talk things out with his father, find something that can work for both of them. Instead she spouts out this vague, pseudo-inspiration line written just so it can be used in the trailer.
Here’s the problem with Astrid, and it’s a problem that all the women in this movie have: they are relegated to being satellites of male characters, even if they don’t start out that way. They’re basically the personal cheerleader of whatever guy they follow around, and they hardly ever do anything that’s not for the sake of the guy or because the guy told them to. The filmmakers don’t even try to hide this, because I point out every specific instance of it with clarity. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It’s sexist to an almost disturbing point, and I can’t figure out what the writers were thinking when they decided to do this.
"Maybe," Hiccup says in response to Astrid’s line. "But, y’know, there is something out there.” He’s referring to the plumes of smoke rising up from the forest before them. Off they fly to investigate, towards the true horrors to come.
I need a break from this. See you in the next scene.
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