How to Train Your Dragon [Blu-ray]

How To Train Your Dragon is most definitely one of the biggest sleeper hits in recent memory. While the film got great reviews from critics, audiences never really paid it much mind, forgetting it quickly in exchange for more "toddler" oriented animated movies, such as Tangled, Rio, or 3D remade family classics such as The Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast. 'Dragon' being a PG animated film tailors towards older kids, but will be just as adored by adults for its epic action and deep and heartfelt characters. So no, this is a not a film made for 3 and 4 year old toddlers who just wanna go and see a cute animals make funny faces. Some dragons can be a bit scary for them, not to also mention the fiery action, so I'd recommend this for at least 6 years and up.The story takes place during the Viking era and stars Hiccup, a small and skinny Viking son of a much bigger, manlier, and grander dragon-slaying father. Hiccup must compete with other kids his age in order to train to be dragon killers, yet this is the classic story of a kid who simply feels different from the others, and figures out a truth about the dragons that no one else knows - that they can live in a good peaceful coexistence. Hiccup stumbles upon a dragon himself, trains with him and soon learns many life lessons using his brain instead of his brawn in order to humble the dragons, in the hopes of proving all the others wrong.The best thing about 'Dragon' is its attention to the characters - there is much time taken to build up the relationship between Hiccup and his black sheep dragon named Toothless. Lots of quiet moments are granted to us making this a very unique film about characters and how relationships grow despite cultural obstacles, really making this a parallel on society in a strange way. This is way different than the usual loud and obnoxious animated family films that rely way too much on impressing the audience with crazy special effects instead of giving them a good story. 'Dragon' does have much action and great effects on its own, but what makes this film work is that the effects are used to guide the story, not tell it. Hence, we get a great character story ALONG WITH all the great epic action to accompany it. 2 for 1, can't go wrong with it. 'Dragon' does not disappoint in all regards; it's definitely apparent the filmmakers put lots of effort into a well-told story as well as good special effects and animation. Moreover, we must understand that this story is not anything we haven't already seen before in a different setting, but the simplicity of the story and its reliance on character actions instead of constant monologues and dialogues granted by movies that simply talk too much and do very little.Some people may be disappointed that the comedy aspect of this film isn't at the forefront. This is more of an action/adventure with some comedic elements simply SPRINKLED upon the film, but the movie is not made to be a comedy. The beauty here is that the story is so good, it doesn't ever matter to the viewer. You'll be too busy "whoah'ing to ever care to chuckle a cheap 'haha.' So no, 'Dragon' won't pull out any dumb and overused pop culture trendy lines in order to be loved by the latest Entertainment Weekly subscriber a la Shrek, nor will you find any sort of product placement nonsense. The filmmakers are here to give you an epic adventure, and on honing in on this goal it is then done incredibly well, you won't really care about anything else. The story may be simple, but since it's told so fantastically, you appreciate it anyhow.This all leads up to an epic dragon battle finale which contains some of the best special effects editing and shot in recent animated film history, and I would have to say on a personal note that seeing action this intense and well directed is not something you'll probably find in any other family film out there. So if you're tired of just being fed little kiddie stories about cute animals walking around in colorful little worlds, check out 'Dragon' for some more intense action that dares to walk on a slightly grittier terrain. With a story full of dragons, Vikings and epic longships, you will not be disappointed.On a technical side, and this is a pretty big point and one of the main reasons that make the Blu-ray copy of this film so appealing. That the film, in a nutshell, looks ABSOLUTELY IMMACULATE. The detail found on this Blu-ray transfer is simply stunning and jaw-droppingly GORGEOUS to any fan of High Definition video. Landscapes are clean and fully detailed, edges are sharp, colors are extravagant, smoke and light are eye-poppingly smooth, motion is flawless. Out of my collection of 130 Blu-ray titles, this would have to be on my top three in terms of visual detail, perhaps tying first place with Tron:Legacy, another epically gorgeous-looking film. I simply cannot say enough good things about how incredibly perfect the video detail looks on this blu-ray, and is way ahead of the visuals I saw in the movie theaters for this film.Now to make matters even better, the film also contains one of the crispest, cleanest, most flawless audio soundtracks I've ever heard. The film runs on the latest TrueHD Dolby sound, and it is well noticed (even though other soundtracks that run on the same system don't sound nearly as good). Every sound is not only audible, from the voices to wind and fire battles, but every single sound is even, smooth and incredibly clean. The music in the film itself ever even borders on overtaking the film, and while the soundtrack score to the movie is great, the general volume level of it is kept at a respectable distance, guiding the film's entire feel, giving the viewer an almost subconscious trip into the world of the Vikings because it never boasts saying "hey, listen to me, i sound really good at the expense of the voices and other things." No, the soundtrack knows its place, as well as all the other sounds; nothing is ever too loud or too low, but there's other way to say it - it's juuuuust right. So just as the video is one of the absolute best I've ever seen, the audio soundtrack is one of the absolute best I've ever heard. It amazes me just how much work was put into making this blu-ray transfer this good.In closing, in terms of blu-ray performance, I believe 'Dragon' should be playing on all retail store tv displays, if only to show the absolute maximum capacity of every television unit they are selling. Yup, it looks THAT good. My hat goes off to the transfer team to showing us exactly what the power of blu-ray can do. Hence a great story, great characters, and stunning presentation make this an easy pick for any movie fan.

I came home from watching the new release in the theaters and rented this to see again in the different venue. Though the same plot line and characters, this animated version far surpassed the remake imho.

Very good movie!

Video rental

Wonderful family film with a cute story. Beautiful animations and wonderful music together create a glorious film that'll bring a tear to your eye.

Cute movie.

Beforehand, I had not been impressed with previous DreamWorks Animation films. This film then completely changed my mind about DreamWorks. It was a great movie that I admit is a must-see for kids who like Power Rangers, superhero movies, etc.Hiccup is a Viking who wants to be like his dragon-killing father Stoic. In the beginning, he actually shoots down the most feared dragon of them all, the Night Fury. No one believes Hiccup since no one saw him shoot the dragon down. But, they do see him run away from another dragon. Hiccup ends up running away. While running, Hiccup finds the Night Fury and instead of killing it, he decides to let it go due to feeling bad for it. The dragon almost goes for the kill, but in return for his release only roars in Hiccup's face. Apparently, the Night Fury lost a little bit of his tail wing from the crash during Hiccup's attempted capture. Scared, Hiccup runs home and his father decides to let him train to fight dragons, only Hiccup now feels that he shouldn't. Hiccup joins some other Vikings including his secret crush, Astrid, to begin training. Taught by his lifelong teacher Gobber, Hiccup doesn't do so well in dragon training. He finds the Night Fury again at a secret cliff. After a few close encounters, Hiccup becomes friendly toward the dragon and he begins to invent a prosthetic replacement for his injured tail as well as inventing a saddle to fly on him. He even names the dragon Toothless and later discovers secrets on how to get a dragon calm. He uses those 'secrets' in dragon training, soon stealing all the attention from Astrid, who soon grows jealous, especially after it is decided that Hiccup would get to kill a dragon. One day, Astrid follows him into the woods and discovers Toothless after having a pep talk with Hiccup. Toothless responds negatively to Astrid when he first sees her, and ends up taking her up on the saddle and ignoring Hiccup's commands, even making him say, "Thanks a lot, you useless reptile!" Astrid then apologizes during a sickening spin, and Toothless begins calmly flying. Astrid then begins to like the experience of flying on a dragon. But when she reminds Hiccup that he has to kill a dragon, Toothless overhears and flies at fast speed toward a secret location. They run into other dragons and go into a cave where they see the dragons tossing their food down into a fiery pit, which later is revealed to be a tyrannosaurus rex-type dragon who eats dragons that don't give it what it wants. Realizing they had found the "nest" that his father had been looking for, Hiccup tells Astrid not to tell anyone. The next day, Hiccup's father returns to the village to hear from his fellow Vikings that stayed behind that Hiccup had become top student in dragon training. Stoic is proud and gives Hiccup a Viking helmet made of his late mothers' breastplate. Hiccup comes up with an idea to convince everyone of the truth about dragons. The next day is the match where Hiccup is supposed to kill his first dragon, and he drops his weapons to try and be nice to it. But his father then gets enraged and the dragon gets spooked, causing the plan to fail. Hearing Hiccup's scream, Toothless comes into the field and fights the dragon off. However, he is later kidnapped by the Vikings and Stoic is angry at his son. Hiccup accidentally then reveals to him that he found the nest and Stoic goes out ignoring his son's warning. Stoic gathers a band of Vikings to go out with Toothless tied up on their boat. Stoic orders him to lead them to the nest. Toothless leads the Vikings to the nest, and meanwhile, Hiccup debates with himself on why he didn't kill Toothless in the first place. Astrid then reminds him that he was the first Viking to ride a dragon, and it makes him come up with an idea. Hiccup then convinces Snotlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut about the truth on dragons. They then fly to the island where his father and fellow Vikings have already arrived, and they blast the cave open, scaring away all the dragons inside it. Following that, the tyrannosaurus dragon comes up from the ground enraged and tries to do away with the Vikings. Hiccup and company arrive and set up a plan to trap and kill the monster. Most of the Vikings are unsuccessful upon their jobs, but upon seeing that his son was right, Stoic saves him and Toothless while Hiccup was trying to save Toothless after the ship sunk from a fire blast by the dragon. Hiccup and Toothless fly into the sky and lure the tyrannosaurus dragon to fly up with it. After hiding from it in the sky, it fires at it into the mouth and causes it to fall. Unfortunately, during the blast to destroy it, Toothless crashes into the tail and causes him and Hiccup to fall into the flames. Toothless manages to rescue Hiccup alive, and his father finds them. He ends up losing one of his legs (though he isn't shown without his leg) and is replaced by a prosthetic leg invented by Gobber. Hiccup then wakes up to see his people riding dragons. Hiccup is convinced by his father that they have realized the truth about dragons. Hiccup continues flying with his dragon and even gets a kiss from Astrid, as he would say, "I could get used to it".The animation is absolutely breathtaking, and it seems like the most realistic animation of 2010 (ranking alongside Tangled and Legend of the Guardians). The action and peril seen is somewhat intense, though it isn't necessarily violent and it flies clear of bloodshed. The character Toothless is more adorable than menacing, and a character design that resembles closely to Stitch from Lilo & Stitch (probably because How To Train Your Dragon was directed by Lilo & Stitch's directors Dean DuBlois and Chris Sanders). There's also a few funny parts, particularly with Snotlout, Fishlegs, and Ruffnut and Tuffnut. It's comedy relief from some of the most dramatic parts.Getting into further detail, I do have to say that there may be a few dragons that might scare young children, particularly under the age of 6. But, the combination of great action and pure heart make this movie a winner. The best release yet for DreamWorks Animation, and I am honestly looking forward to a sequel.

My kids really enjoyed this movie!