How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (HTTYD3)

@kablammin45 Since I read the books first, instead it felt to me like they tried to shoehorn the same ending into the films, yet minus all the reasons this came about in the books. Like some exec came up and said 'alright, take what you have from the prior movies and series, make a third film, and give it the same ending as the books.'

Edited by ViperMagnum357 on Oct 17th 2019 at 4:09:39 AM

Ralph Breaks the Internet would've worked better if they just couldn't save Sugar Rush. It removes the snarl of "going Turbo."

God I feel so vindicated. I always hated Wreck It Ralph.

Thinking about it, I don't agree entirely there. Mostly on account on the second movie — that film did not really have the moral that dragons and vikings could definitely expect to coexist indefinitely without the outside world butting in to ruin things. In fact, Hiccup spends most of that movie thinking that he'll be able to reason Drago into submission by just showing him how awesome the dragon community at Berk is. He's proven wrong when it turns out you can't just reason all people out of being racist pricks. Ultimately, the outside threat to the dragon community in that film is defeated through force, not reason.

In fact, I think that in that sense the second film bridges the different attitudes of the first and third films far more smoothly than you're all giving it credit for. It is a pretty reasonable transition to make Hiccup as an adult ultimately more cynical about the vision he had as a child.

I don't think the third film has any kind of segregationist message as people have been implying. I think its general point is that ultimately, it's more important for Hiccup as a leader to make an unpleasant decision that will save lives than to prove an ideological point to a hostile world.

The Berkians and Dragons had won, though. Sure, Hiccup's worldview should, and had, become more realistic, but why send the dragons away when things could be safe for quite a while now that another major threat had been vanquished?

Why did Hiccup not capitalize on spreading his worldview rather than abruptly giving up then and there?

If peaceful methods didn't work, why not then use more force to keep the peace? That's what modern security forces do, after all.

As others have said, there should've been more anti-dragon technological advancement, and more scenes of dragons being subjugated by humans outside of Grimmel's forces, to show that Hiccup couldn't just fight his way to victory.

First came Drago knocking on their door. Then the Warlords that followed him. And the Warlords brought in Grimmel.

In six years of Hiccup pushing for dragon/human coexistance, the message never reached beyond Berk (if you count the extended universe, in all those years they only made two allies that practiced Hiccup's view of humans and dragons living in a mutually beneficial relationship).

In the meantime, raids in the adjacent regions of Berk happened so frequently, that by the opening of 3, Berk is officially overpopulated with rescued dragons.

To me the picture is clear. The world just wasn't changing. And so Hiccup and Toothless took measures to ensure both Berk and dragonkind survived.

The issue of continuity between the show and the movies still seems hazy, but I would argue that the 3rd movie did a disservice to Hiccup's character (as well as the worldbuilding in general) by having him solely focus on rescuing dragons.

If he's got negotiating skills on par with General Kenobi, why isn't he visiting other tribes on other islands? Hiccup would be doing a lot more to help if he talked to as much other tribes as he spends his time rescuing dragons.

And while we're still on Hiccup, Toothless isn't the only one whose intelligence was hit in the 3rd movie. How did Hiccup get to the point of overpopulating Berk, huh?

Anyway, moving on to the "negotiating with others" issue. Why can't we see more tribes and islands? There were a hell of a lot more of those in the books.

Seriously, outside of Berk, Outcast Island, Berserker Island, The Edge, Dragon Hunter Island, and Caldera Cay, what other islands and tribes do we see?

(I may have missed some other tribes from the TV show, because I did not find it worth my time to watch it all the way through. So correct me, if you must.)

Edited by BrightLight on Oct 24th 2019 at 4:34:19 AM

I think the TV show is functionally non-canon to the movies. At the very least, the second and third movies didn't go out of their way to acknowledge it.

Deblois has been explicit that he never considered them for his story.

There are nods introduced here and there, but very minor stuff.

So effectively, in the movieverse, Hiccup's views never caught on and the rest of the world continued to hunt down dragonkind.

The problem with that is they didn't really show this. The only people we saw that explicit hunted dragons out to subjugate them was Grimmel and the Warlords. Grimmel could not fight off a whole army of dragons from Berk and the Warlords were pretty much non-entities after their introduction in the film despite the sheer potential they had.

If they wanted to go with the angle that humanity and dragons could not coexist because humans were hunting dragons out despite Hiccup's efforts than they needed to show more of this. Show that the Warlords and their armies also had anti-dragon technology similar to Grimmel's. Show the sheer hatred that humans of other nations had for dragons.

The other thing that also bothered me is Hiccup mentions that maybe humans and dragons can be reintroduced to eachother later. Hiccup should very well know that that is something exceedingly naive to say as introducing dragons to humans later on in history will likely result in the same thing happening all over again. Humans think dragons are scary, dragons and humans kill eachother out of fear, and another dragon vs. human war starts again only this time dragons or humans could potentially get wiped out as their may not be a Hiccup at that time to bridge the gap.

Edited by Wispy on Oct 24th 2019 at 9:36:40 AM

This just goes to show how misguided it was to suddenly want the book and the movies to be faithful.

Edited by AegisP on Oct 28th 2019 at 11:02:46 AM