Moments pages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.
- Hiccup. Untying the Night Fury. The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. Even the fully grown Vikings run from it as fast as they can. He untied it. Without any assurance that he'd live.
- Hiccup falling out of the sky with Toothless. Anybody else in that world would have panicked, frozen and then died. Hiccup stays calm enough (and virtually assumes a skydiving position) to try and control the situation and eventually remounts Toothless. Not to mention, Hiccup had also taken a good, sharp whack from Toothless' tail during the fall, and still managed to pull this off.
- And then he steers him perfectly through a group of rock formations without his cheat sheet. When Hiccup throws the sheet away, trusts his instincts and his bond with Toothless, and just goes for it while "Test Drive" soars to its overwhelming climax, shivers will run through your entire body!
- This marks the moment where Hiccup and Toothless change nature: from a human riding a dragon to a combined being, trusting each other implicitly with their lives. From this moment on, Hiccup is no longer a Viking- he's a dragonrider. When Hiccup gives his barbaric yawp when they reach clear skies, he's earned it.
- When picking up the falling Astrid in the end battle. The picture, the music, everything is perfect. To cap it off, this valiant maiden says the only thing that needs to be said to a mighty fellow warrior about to accomplish the impossible:Astrid: Go...
- The end of Astrid's little speech on top of the wharf. ..Then something crazy!
- The whole speech. Drags Hiccup out of his self-pity and gets him to do what's needed to save the entire village from the giant dragon that only she and Hiccup have seen.
- High-speed flight. On the back of a dragon. Just above the foggy surface of the sea. Between cliffs and stone pillars. With an abomination at least twenty times as big chasing after you.
- Even just Toothless' dive-bombing precision plasma attack, in general, complete with that eerie whistle.
- The entire battle against the Red Death. First when it's introduced, and the hardened dragon-killing Vikings who just moments ago were ready to kill thousands of dragons ran for their boats in sheer terror. Then, the neglected prince comes in at the last minute, and their fight soon takes to the skies where all the Vikings on the ground can see is explosions like thunder and lightning silhouetting the Red Death. Then the Red Death comes plummeting out of the sky and explodes. Every scene evokes the feeling of an epic Viking tale 200 times greater than Beowulf.
- Standing out in that fight, Hiccup and Toothless going in for the shot.Hiccup: That thing has wings! Let's see if it can use them!BOOM
- That shot is so powerful the Red Death gets knocked flat!
- The gist of Hiccup's plan to save everyone's asses? Have the other teenage Vikings distract the Red Death long enough for him to get to Toothless. note
- The final battle really shows how effective a team Hiccup and Toothless really are. The massive armies of Vikings and Dragons independently have no chance but to flee from the Red Death. The newly recruited riders do nothing except annoy the massive beast. Hiccup and Toothless? Not only do they provide the only real challenge the Red Death faces, but also come out victorious in the end. The only reason Hiccup and Toothless couldn't hang in the fight for any longer was because Toothless' artificial tail fin caught on fire. In the end, a young boy and his pet dragon are more of a threat than a gigantic dragon monstrosity.
- The rest of the kids showing up with their own dragons and holding their own against the Red Death is also incredibly badass, considering their parents and the other adults are practically useless against it. Special mention goes to Snotlout, the all-talk-no-action Dirty Coward Jerk Jock, who gets knocked onto the the Red Death's head, and proceeds to distract the giant dragon by bopping it in the eyes with a mallet.
- While the Viking were hopelessly outmatched against the Red Death, Stoick got a moment where even though he knew the dragon would kill him, he was planning to divert his attention to let the rest of the army make an escape to the other side of the island. Even when facing an enemy he knows he can't beat, it won't be picking him off like some sheep.
- Standing out in that fight, Hiccup and Toothless going in for the shot.
- Stoick the Vast's introduction.Hiccup: That's Stoick the Vast. They say that when he was a baby, he popped a dragon's head clean off its shoulders. Do I believe it? (Stoick grabs a cart and throws it at a dragon, bringing it crashing down.) Yes, I do.
- During the attack, the catapult he's near gets attacked by a Monstrous Nightmare while it's on fire. What does Stoick do? Calmly tells the others to reload the catapult, while he pounds the thing upside the head with his hammer.
- Stoick and Gobber's last stand.Stoick: I can buy the men a few minutes if I can give that thing something to hunt!Gobber: Then I can double that time.Stoick: (smiles, then charges at the Red Death) Come on! Attack me!Gobber: Oh no... here! Here!
- Test Drive and Forbidden Friendship. So good that it was nominated for an Oscar for best film score.
- The whole soundtrack really does give you the sensation that you're flying. Do yourself a big favor and invest those ten dollars in it.
- After a Monstrous Nightmare pins down and tries to attack Hiccup, Toothless appears seemingly out of nowhere, jumps on its back, slashes at it, and basically scares it off into hiding. The thing was a little over three times his own size, and it was a very one-sided battle.
- Addendum to that statement: since Toothless has lost his left tail fin, he can't fly. But when he hears from a distance that his friend is in danger, he throws himself up the cliff that pins him into the box canyon and then he half-runs, half uses his wings to get to Hiccup in time. Especially awesome since he gets there just in the nick of time to place himself in front of Hiccup to protect him from the Monstrous Nightmare. Epic.
- Even better, Toothless gets out of the canyon by getting his claw onto the same ledge Hiccup uses to get in and out of it, which he didn't notice during his more panicked attempts to escape at the start of the film. It seems Hiccup isn't the only one who's paying attention.
- Let's not forget how Hiccup was about to take on the Monstrous Nightmare: by taming it and showing the village that the Vikings don't have to kill dragons. He was about to use his coming-of-age ritual as a way to force the village to change their way of life. Not only does that showcase his Character Development, but he might have pulled it off if Stoick hadn't panicked!
- The montage where it shows Hiccup using smarts and intellect to overcome his lack of bravado and become top of the class. It truly is awesome to watch a case of brains over brawn defeating dragons with relative ease.
- Bonus point for being one of the few moments that subverts the overturned the Flawless Token You Go, Girl! archetype; Hiccup outperformed the sole ace of the group, Astrid without using raw power!
- A lot of people seem to overlook a particularly satisfying moment of Awesome for Hiccup: After the disastrous final exam, Stoick drags Hiccup off and begins condemning him for his traitorous actions. Keep in mind that up until this point, the conversations between Hiccup and Stoick have always been very awkward and in the end, Hiccup just takes whatever his dad throws at him. But here, when Stoick is blaspheming the misunderstood dragons and saying "They've killed hundreds of us," Hiccup finally strikes back: "And we've killed thousands of them!" He then goes on to tell Stoick the real reason behind the raids. And when he accidentally reveals how to get to the Dragons' Nest using Toothless and his dad immediately sets off to do just that, does Hiccup just stand there? No. He tries to warn his father about the Red Death and makes one last desperate attempt to get Stoick to listen, culminating in "For once in your life, would you please listen to me?" Does it turn out badly for him? Yes. Does it show how far he's come from the beginning of the movie and that he's gained the courage to stand up against what he knows is wrong? You bet it does.
- As a bit of a precursor, the scene in the cove after discovering the dragon's nest is a similar moment for Hiccup. They've found "the thing Vikings have been looking for" for over 300 years, yet Hiccup is so determined to protect Toothless from the villagers that the firmness of his one-word response to Astrid's solid reasoning is so plain that the only thing Astrid can respond with is a completely defeated "okay". That moment probably seeded both confidence in his own convictions and a belief that, perhaps with the right reasoning and tone, he could get anyone to understand what he had learned about dragons. Astrid deserves recognition for a moment of awesome as well for not pushing Hiccup any further, accepting his loyalty to Toothless over his village's desire to be free of dragons instantly.
- It's awesome enough when Stoick manages to pull Hiccup out of the water in time during the climactic battle. But the second his son is safe, he dives right back into the water again to free Toothless, the "unholy offspring of lightning and death itself." Granted, we all know that isn't the case by this point, but that's centuries of belief bred into these vikings. Even after everything Hiccup said to defend Toothless, Stoick was still taking a huge leap of faith by freeing him, especially after treating him so badly. Then Toothless has his own moment when he carries Stoick back out of the water to safety. And just shakes himself off and gestures for Hiccup to hop on so they can take the monstrous behemoth of a dragon down and all the while, the film's heroic theme is thundering on the soundtrack as the two disrespected heroes are back in action. So much awesome packed into a few seconds.
- There is actually another moment of awesome for Stoick within that scene. It's the reason he's gone back for Toothless. Stoick has just taken his people into a hopeless battle where they will all be slaughtered and he did this despite Hiccup warning him not to. They had a full-blown argument (note that this was probably the FIRST TIME Hiccup ever stood up to his father) that ended in Stoick disowning the son he loved dearly. And when everything Hiccup warned him about turns out to be true, what does Stoick do? He frees Hiccup's dragon and apologizes, turning the battle over to him without hesitating. He realized he made a mistake and owned up to it, and began to work to repair it.
- A subtle one from a writing perspective: After Stoick disowns Hiccup and leaves him behind, look at his face. It immediately hits him what he just did. He realizes right away that he went too far. He wasn't dehumanized of the sake of being a Straw Man. He was just an angry Viking who made one irrational decision too many.
- And speaking of the theme, if you watch Phoebe-Kate on Youtube's amazing video breaking down the score and listen to it in that part of the movie, you can hear it's Hiccup and Toothless's leitmotifs playing together, very clearly, which hasn't happened in any part of the movie previously. They really are one being about to take down a Goliath.
- Comparing Toothless and Hiccup's initial flying skills to their fight against the Red Death. When they're falling during the Test Drive scene, Hiccup barely manages to pull them back up before they hit the ground, and Toothless's wings fan out just in time to catch them. When Hiccup realizes that the Red Death has wings, Toothless spreads his wings again to stop in midair, whips around, and dives straight for the dragon, completely controlled. That, along with Hiccup's nonchalance during Toothless's spinning temper tantrum with Astrid, shows just how far they've come in terms of their flying ability.
- Being a 3-D theatrical film in which the glasses and extra money is justified and was wholly recommended for the stellar use of it during the flying sequences, which give off an exhilarating effect on par with James Cameron's Avatar, which is no small feat.
- The Bookends ending: "The only upside is the pets. Other people have ponies or parrots. We have...DRAGONS!"
- There really should be a Chekhov's Gun page for this film. Among the things that play into the final battle that appear throughout the story:
- Fishlegs' breakdown of the Red Death's anatomy;
- Crashing into the rock formations during the test flight;
- Hiccup and Astrid's flight through the clouds, showing the visibility limits;
- Hiccup's understanding of how a bellows intensifies the heat of a forge;
- Gobber's instruction of targeting a dragon's wings and tail.;
- Toothless' inability to pull out of the freefall during the test flight;
- How Toothless tried to use his wings to decelerate at the same time; and
- The squabble between Toothless and the Terrible Terror ("Not so fireproof on the inside, are you?").
- In essence, the entire climax is Hiccup killing a dragon with LOGIC.
- And one that's overlooked: Hiccup shooting Toothless down in the first place. Consider that modern day anti-aircraft weapons are mostly effective due to being able to home in on a target. Before that, dealing with aircraft on the ground was More Dakka with flak cannons and the biggest rapid-fire gun you could get. Toothless is a Night Fury, the draconic equivalent to a stealth fighter, and Hiccup shot him down with an unguided bola from a man-portable launcher, one that did not even have the ability to elevate that far. Say what you will about how it pales in comparison to the rest of the two's Moments of Awesome, but give Hiccup credit for being able to pull off that kind of shot.
- A very small example, but no less notable: Hiccup picking up a knife with his foot and tossing it into a lake during his second face-to-face meeting with Toothless. Picking up a nearly flat object with your shoe is hard enough, but then he balances it on his foot and tosses it with enough distance that you can hear it go in the water. It's also very subtle Foreshadowing that Hiccup is much more competent than he’s initially presented as.
- One thing that's impressive about Astrid is that she sees what's happening, far better than the other characters. Hiccup is the one to learn that dragons are different from what the Vikings thought, and forge the first friendship with a dragon. But it's not him but Astrid who realizes that this friendship is going to change everything. Hiccup just wants to protect a friend, but Astrid knows he's going to end a war, to the point where, during Hiccup's Darkest Hour, she's actually in a pretty good mood - Hiccup is miserable because he's ruined everything, but Astrid is excited because she knows that something incredible is about to happen. She knows that is one of those moments that makes history, that what happens next is going to alter the course of not just their lives, but their home and its future.Hiccup: Why is this so important to you all of a sudden?Astrid: Because I want to remember what you say, right now.
