Member review

I'm not one for romance; in fact, I feel the pop-culture perception of love is flawed and permits toxic behaviours like possessiveness or rushing into a romantic relationship with someone you just met because you find them hot. However, I did like this romance between dragons despite the implication of love at first sight.

In the film, Toothless meets a Light Fury, a contrast to him as a Night Fury. When Toothless meets her in a forest, he's instantly interested. You can read it as: "I love you! I need you. Let us leave this place and forge a love to last the ages." But you can also read it as: "Ooh, she's like me. But different!" I read it as the latter.

After this interaction, Toothless becomes a tad lovesick. Hiccup takes notice of this and builds him a brand new tail so Toothless can go out into the wild, wild wood. This leads to a pretty entertaining sequence where Hiccup tries to help Toothless introduce himself to... I don't think she's named beyond "Light Fury". The most common fan name is Luna, so I guess I'll call her that. I can't believe I didn't notice that till now.

Eventually, this comedic interaction leads to a cool flying scene. I will say this about all the flying scenes: they are amazing and keep getting better as the series (and animation tech) advances.

I think something that helps this romance is that Luna and Toothless can't speak, so there are no loud, passionate professions of love, as much as they are nice. But this key silence puts more of a priority to the body language. And Dreamworks is known for writing good love stories, unlike Disney, which likes to solve things with just a kiss.

There's something I was hiding, kind of deliberately. This is a plot from Grimmel to capture and kill Toothless. In a scene, he explains that dragons should rather than be treated basically like people but with wings, they are lesser. And thusly either have to be killed or used. Hence, Grimble's obsession with dragons. Grimnir is a great villain and antagonist, he's devilishly charismatic and freakishly intelligent. Well, freakishly intelligent compared to the idiots around him, at least.

And he had a good line about Stoick the Vast, which I wrote right here:

"Your father knew of me. Now, there was a chief, one of the greatest dragon hunters to have ever lived."

Hiccup: "He changed his mind."

"Look where that got him."

So yeah, devilishly charismatic. His presence in the story is striking and intimidating, creating a sense of fear when he has a scene, and it is his scene. Dreamworks is good at this. For a good example from me, look at characters like Lord Shen (Kung Fu Panda 2) and Death (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish). Those are two that just came up off the top of my head. I'm sure I can analyse the villains in Dreamworks if I have the time to watch their films, and I got a chance to watch all their films.

I wrote this review for more than just because I like this film. See, there's this guy I know, he's my friend. He says I inspired him to review the first HTTYD film. When I got to read it, there was no mention of me! I could not let this stand. When I next see you, I will give you the sequel to HTTYD on the sole condition that you write a review and mention me as the inspiration for your writing both of your reviews. My honour demands it!