A Thrilling Conclusion to a Beloved Franchise: DreamWorks and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

Written by: Joseph Naguski

The ending to the final installment of the animated film trilogy How to Train Your Dragon will leave audiences on the edge of their seats until the credits roll.

Hiccup, Astrid, Toothless, and the Light Fury

The Hidden World takes place a year after the events of the second film, with the island of Berk becoming comparable to a utopia to its human and dragon citizens. As the people of Berk continue to rescue and bring back more dragons, Hiccup faces his first real challenge being chief. The overpopulation of the island is becoming more evident and he must find a way solve it. He finds his resolution through multiple flashbacks of the late Chief Stoick informing a young Hiccup of a legendary dragon safe haven which he dubs “The Hidden World”. To the rejection of his mother and many others, Hiccup becomes determined to find this mythical world. He is hindered by Grimmel the Grisly, an infamous dragon slayer who is determined to capture toothless and uses a female “Light Fury” as bait to lure Toothless into his hands. The two dragons fall in love and Hiccup must find a way to save them and the rest of his friends while finding a new home for the dragons.

Toothless and the Light Fury engage each other

While the overall plot of this film does not quite stand up to its predecessors, the series' finale is still noteworthy. A major theme in this film is learning to “fly on your own”. What arose from this was a change in The Hidden World’s plot formula from the previous movies. While the first two films focused heavily on trying to outmatch unbelievably colossal dragons as enemies, there is a much more human battle between good and evil. Hiccup and the rest of the humans learn to become less reliant on their dragon companions while Toothless has his own little adventure with the female Light Fury. They do come together to try and defeat the antagonist but the way this happens is very much unique to this film. The antagonist himself is pretty mundane, but that is lost through the exhilarating moments of the characters’ journey.

Hiccup and Toothless attacking a dragon captor ship

Much like this film DreamWorks itself has grappled with the concept of flying on its own. DreamWorks continues to be a 3D-animation beast that can rival Pixar, but still struggles to be the superior animation studio. The How to Train Your Dragon series is certainty a standout trilogy that has elevated the success of DreamWorks. The film maintains themes of thrilling fantasy atmospheres that takes them past even the level of their previous pictures.  The Hidden World continues to bring stunning visuals to the franchise through the new technology that has been developed since the original’s release in 2010. In an interview with cartoonbrew.com, the series director Dean DeBlois noted some of these technological advances. He mentioned some simple things like displacement of clouds and characters walking through grass. Adding greater amounts of characters in the frame and increasingly complex camera movements have also developed over the duration of the series. These things may seem trivial to some but in the grand scheme they make for much more aesthetically pleasing and interactive film. As DeBlois says “Now that we have the technology, I wanted to make sure that we used it. Our environments are very alive.”

Hiccup and Astrid flying in a new setting

Overall, this movie is a fantastic ending filled with the adventure, friendship, romance, and ageless humor which makes the series so special. I would definitely recommend this film to anyone who is a fan of animated films and/or has watched the previous two films in the franchise.

Work Cited
https://www.cartoonbrew.com/interviews/how-to-train-your-dragon-series-director-dean-deblois-on-being-blown-away-by-the-advancement-of-animation-tech-169217.html