After writing the first post, I saw the second movie again in theaters (with a family member who hadn't seen it before), and doing so and discussing it afterward helped me localize and identify several things I felt watching it the first time. You will have surmised from my previous post that I very much liked this movie, and you would be correct; in some ways, it is superior to the first. In others, however, it is not quite as strong; my overall preference at this point leans slightly toward number one. In no particular order, here are my five favorite things about HTTYD 2, and with them my five least favorite. Obviously, MAJOR SPOILERS ABOUND for both the first and second movies; proceed at your own risk.
(Edit 7/8/14: Further investigation has helped clarify some of the issues raised in complaint #3; I've amended that section accordingly)
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| It's the second blog post, so I use the poster for the second movie. See? I'm clever. |
The excellent
1. Stoick & Valka
My previous post already discussed at length how much I love the reunion of Stoick and Valka and their tender, hesitant work to rebuild 20 years of burnt bridges together. I still love it. A lot. I don't know that there's anything more to say.
2. Conflict resolution - sometimes parents do know best
Now consider the second movie. Once again, Hiccup's father reacts to an external threat with an instant and (apparently mindless) solution of violence (or at least preparation therefor). Once again, and in no small part because of his experience the last time around, Hiccup assumes that there must be a better way and disobeys his father. Then he meets his mother, and while she clearly has a very different approach to issues of human-dragon relations than his father, she also seems to have the same reflexive reaction to reject dialogue and default to being enemies with Drago rather than seeking a solution. Which is, obviously, frustrating for Hiccup.
It's about this same time, though, that his insistence that he can change Drago's mind, despite never having met him and knowing nothing about his actual motivations, starts to sound rather naive, and more than a little arrogant. Even after hearing from two entirely different perspectives (three, counting Eret) that Drago is unreasonable, he is convinced - not hopeful, but convinced - that he can talk some sense into the guy. To feel strongly that one must make an attempt to reach an understanding before declaring war is one thing; to be unshakably convinced that one can do so is quite another. I've seen at least one review raise the specter of Neville Chamberlain, which I don't think is quite justified; Hiccup never shows any hint of appeasement or suggests that he'd be willing to compromise his principles. But his unshakable faith in diplomacy, to the point of undermining contingency plans to the contrary, is similarly foolish. And while it's difficult to say exactly how the confrontation between Hiccup and Drago after the death of the white bewilderbeast would have turned out had Hiccup gone into it with more realistic expectations - after all, the dark BWB could have mind-controlled Toothless regardless of what they were doing at the time - by landing in front of Drago, dismounting, and disarming, Hiccup certainly didn't do much to make it harder for Drago to set in motion the chain of events that led to Stoick's death. Was that his fault? No. Could he have possibly prevented it had he taken better counsel from his parents beforehand? Again, it's difficult to say for sure, but my strong suspicion is yes. At the very least, he could have gone in with some backup plans to pull out should Drago prove (as he did) unamendable to reason.
To Hiccup's credit, in the wake of Stoick's death, he seems to have learned his lesson. His actions against Drago are not vengeful - he even gives Drago two more chances to back down, including one that results in him being nearly turned into a popsicle - but he is ready and willing to use force (in the admittedly tame form of body-slamming Drago off of his mount) in an attempt to compel Drago to accept terms. I also really appreciate Valka's words to Hiccup at the funeral that helped him reach this balance; that he has the heart of a chieftain and the soul of a dragon. While Stoick and Valka were both more right about Drago than Hiccup was, that doesn't make either of them actually right. Stoick's flaw was that his otherwise commendable instinct to protect his people manifested as isolationism and a refusal to even try to engage with the rest of the world, and Valka's diametrically opposite flaw was that her disengagement from human affairs (most tellingly, the raising of her own son), while helpful to her in her relationships with dragons, manifests as an inability - not just unwillingness - to handle problems with other humans without either running away (from Berk) or initiating violence herself (the dragon trappers). Hiccup - or at least the post-funeral Hiccup mk. II - is sufficiently grounded in human affairs to recognize the need for a common defense and proactive problem-solving while maintaining enough of his mother's creativity and flair for adventure to seek more creative solutions than simply winning a fight. While he still has to work a bit on his execution (again: knocking Drago off his BWB is probably not going to be enough to win the fight all on its own), his priorities and approach to conflict resolution have matured enormously over the ... 2-ish days? ... that the movie depicts.
And all of this is excellent enough on its own, but what really is striking to me is how it subverts the narrative of the first movie. In the first movie, Hiccup's parent was stubborn and bullheaded, so Hiccup ignored him and was rewarded enormously both personally and socially for doing so. In the second movie, Hiccup's parents seemed stubborn and bullheaded, Hiccup ignored them again ... and it resulted in tragedy. Just because you don't understand why your parents hold a position doesn't mean there isn't a reason; this is a lesson just as important for teenagers (and, to be honest, young adults) as the more child-centric lesson of the first movie. At the same time, though, the movie allows a lot of room for children to build upon their parents' beliefs; just because your parents have good reason to hold a position doesn't mean that, having understood and accepted their position, there isn't room for you to innovate and improve upon their responses. At the end of the movie, Hiccup has attained what I think is a very healthy balance between acknowledging and understanding the wisdom of his parents and maintaining his own initiative and agency, which is an excellent topic for a movie aimed at late teens/young adults to tackle (and it is definitely aimed at that market, which is probably a large part of why it appears tragically on track to underperform in the box office compared to the original). Of course, hopefully viewers in this age group can reach the same balance without getting one of their parents killed in the process, but it remains an extremely sophisticated study of conflict resolution and child-parent interactions. Pity none of that actually contributed to the resolution of the story (see complaint #1, below).
3. Valka's self-recrimination
For Valka and Hiccup to reunite, after 20 years of thinking that she was dead/he was better off without her, opens a huge and snarly can of emotional worms for both of them. And the movie gets that. Valka's earnestly hopeful question - "You're not ... upset?" is met by a perfectly reasonable "I don't know. It's a lot to take in!" The self-recrimination she feels when she realizes that it was possible for the vikings of Berk to change, and that by giving up on them when she did, she left her son to handle the difficult task without her to guide and support him, is clearly (and rightly) deeply painful for her. The fear and vulnerability she shows when she asks if they can maybe start again, and he doesn't say anything, and she starts babbling a bit, is enormously authentic. And of course, as discussed in my previous post, her reaction to meeting Stoick again - the fragile defenses she arrays against a painful conversation that she's clearly had innumerable times in her own head - is exactly on point and provides the perfect set-up for the best line he gets in the entire franchise. This is a person who made a heartbreakingly difficult decision for all the right reasons and now has to face 20 years of the consequences of being wrong. And, of course, Cate Blanchett perfectly nails it. What a fantastic piece of characterization.
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| "You're not ... upset (that I abandoned you as a baby to be raised by people so brutish and violent that I gave up on reforming them entirely)?" |
4. Hiccup and Astrid at the beginning/in general
The writing regarding Astrid is far from perfect (see my extensive comments further down), but one thing the movie absolutely nails is the relationship between her and Hiccup. They have grown from gangly, awkwardly adorable teenyboppers (my comment to my ladyfriend the first time I saw the first kiss in the first movie was "Oh my God, they are so 13") to a more comfortable, familiar companionship that is absolutely perfect in their first scene together on the promontory at Itchy Armpit. Much credit has to go to the animators, who nail the facial emotions between them (someone on tumblr has a helpful repository of gifs showing them being adorable), but it's even moreso about really good writing. The conversation in which she imitates his voice and mannerisms and then they bicker about whether he actually looks and sounds like that is unbelievable - first, because the animation for her imitation of him is exactly spot on, showing exactly how someone of her build would imitate the sort of hunched, jerky movement that is Hiccup's hallmark - but also because this is the kind of idiosyncratic, intensely personal banter that I could easily imagine sharing with my own similarly long-term ladyfriend, breaking out in laughter included. The bit where she absentmindedly starts braiding his hair is cute; what makes it unspeakably cute is that there's another braid just like it in the same spot, implying that this is something she does to him often, and that despite his less-than-enthused expression, he leaves the braids in place ... because they're from her. Which all at once shows cutesy romanticism and a degree of comfort and habit in their relationship that is exactly what they should have after five years of this (I've not watched the TV show, although it's on my to-do list, but I'm given to understand that the ongoing relationship between them is further chronicled and expanded upon there.) And the animation, again, is so perfect throughout. Dreamworks gets a lot of praise for the big flying 3D spectacle scenes, and rightfully so - those are glorious. But I'd be willing to bet that, when Dreamworks animators and Pixar animators meet after work at the bar to brag and talk shop, the face and body work in this scene between Hiccup and Astrid will be what the Dreamworks team is boasting about.
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| Is she really ... ok, fine, I can use another braid there. |
Watching the two behemoths battle, with the smaller dragons and riders zooming between, beneath and around them and the rest of the army engaging wild dragons on the beach, scratched an itch I don't think has been properly scratched for me since Return of the King. I particularly appreciate the way the big dragons move and fight; ponderous and weighty, taking full advantage of their natural attributes. I feel sure that Dreamworks animators watched hours of footage of elk and elephants and rhinoceri fighting to get this right. (I have to say, though, that I get that you have to keep this PG, Dreamworks, but if you can't show blood, you might want to come up with a cause of death other than 'stabbed in the stomach with giant tusks, which are then waved about in clear daylight in the very next shot.') Aside from that fairly mild detraction, though, I have to say that a movie such as this that openly wants to be the Empire Strikes Back of its franchise needs a scene like this, one that makes clear just how much higher and bigger the stakes are, and they nailed it.
***
So those are the high points, and they're all fantastic. But as I've rewatched and thought more and more about the second movie, I've identified several points that left me less than satisfied. As always, I use this blog to attempt to clarify issues that are on my mind so I can be sure I understand what I'm thinking. Accordingly, here's my top five list of things I think Dreamworks could have done better in HTTYD 2.
The not as excellent
1. The ending part 1: Solved by the power of friendship!
If this movie has a downfall, it's the ending. Whereas the first movie is an arc of Hiccup and Toothless learning to trust each other and fly together, and then requires them to solve a climactic problem (bigass dragon) using their flying skills and cooperation and some cleverly telegraphed Chekhov Guns (not so fireproof on the inside/always go for the wings, a downed dragon is a dead dragon) ... the second movie is an arc of Hiccup learning about conflict resolution and leadership, which then ends with him using none of those skills to protect Berk from Drago and the dark bewilderbeast. Instead, he solves the problem by appealing to the power of friendship, and then Toothless handles the rest by himself.
I have a couple issues with this:
- First off, I have trouble with Drago being all 'sure, hover right in front of me without interference while you try to wrest control of your dragon back from me.' Even if he is that confident in his alpha's mind control - and I talk below about my issues with that mechanic - giving your enemy time to test himself against it, entirely exposed, and not crushing his skull like an origami bug, all in order to rub in your superiority? That's cartoon villainy at its worst. Seriously, Drago, I get that he seems difficult to get rid of, but that's only because you're too busy gloating to actually expend the half-assed effort it would require to kill him and confirm that he was dead. I recognize that Dreamworks isn't actually trying to make him a sympathetic bad guy - the minimalist backstory he shares explains why he does what he does without justifying or glossing over the very bad stuff he does in the process - but I have trouble anyone that buffoonishly overconfident could ever have survived long enough to put together an organization as powerful as Drago clearly has.
- Second, it's a clear violation of Sanderson's First Law. The two climactic moments in the movie are when Hiccup breaks the alpha's hold over Toothless and when Toothless gets blue and goes mano-a-mano with the dark BWB. I talk about my issues with the latter below, but the former - which I would argue is actually the primary climactic moment, inasmuch as it's the only one the main character actually has anything to do with - comes down to an opposition of intangibles; my mind control vs. your friendship. How do we quantify these things? We can't. The respective strength of these two forces is entirely arbitrary, meaning that it's hard to take a lot of narrative satisfaction from the discovery that Hiccup's amorphous intangible is just barely more powerful than the dark BWB's amorphous intangible. By using supernatural powers that the viewer doesn't understand (which I talk about at length below, and yes, when used to oppose one supernatural power, friendship is also presented as a supernatural power) to solve the plot, the movie robs the audience of the chance to emphasize with and cheer on the actions of the hero that lead to their victory. As Sanderson puts it:
"If the reader understands how the magic works, then you can use the magic (or, rather, the characters using the magic) to solve problems. In this case, it’s not the magic mystically making everything better. Instead, it’s the characters’ wit and experience that solves the problems. Magic becomes another tool—and, like any other tool, its careful application can enhance the character and the plot."
- Third, it lacks the same cleverness (both of characters and writing) that marked the end of the first movie. To defeat the Red Death, Hiccup needs to synthesize the numerous aforementioned Chekhov's Guns on the fly and using them to execute a difficult and insanely risky strategy to overcome the climactic challenge. While there are some flashes of this cleverness in the second movie ('they're babies, they never listen to anyone,' and the trick where he blindfolds Toothless in the air), neither is used to overcome a central challenge. Flying on the baby dragons is simply used as transportation to the final battle, not for any actual purpose in the battle itself, and while blindfolding Toothless to protect him from the Alpha's mind control is clever, they only use it to make one pass at the dark BWB (in execution of Hiccup's cunning plan, 'if I knock you off your dragon, surely you are defeated and there's nothing else you or it could do against me!'), after which the blindfold comes off and Toothless does not appear to need it to resist future mind-control attempts.
- Fourth, while the actual climactic showdown between Toothless and the dark BWB is cool, Hiccup has nothing to do with it. I adore Toothless, but he isn't a protagonist. This is why it doesn't bother me so much that Valka has nothing to do in the climax - it is a problem, but at least Hiccup's keeping her good company in that respect.
- And fifth, even if we could somehow quantify friendship power, I'm not a fan of the 'overcome by the power of friendship' mechanic, period. It's not that I'm opposed to friendship being a central theme or being critical to the resolution of the story, but not as a magic talisman. Friendship isn't a magic power; it is a motivator, or to put it in the language of gaming, a force-multiplier, a factor that directs a character's actions and responses without ever actually manifesting as a separate force. Let's imagine a different climax: suppose that during the dragon sanctuary scene, Valka mentions some quirk - not even a weakness, necessarily - of the bewilderbeast; maybe it's prone to getting seaweed trapped under its tusks and tolerates the babies being all in its face because they help him work that stuff out. Or SOMETHING. Then, when they chase the dark BWB to Berk, Hiccup tries to break Toothless free of the mind control by brute force friendshipness ... and fails. And so, as his last-resort attempt to break through to Toothless, Hiccup implements some ridiculously suicidal plan to in some way take advantage of that aformentioned quirk to in some way disable or disaccomodate the dark BWB (ideally involving Astrid doing something badass; again, see below for more on that little issue), knowing that Toothless is watching. And so he makes the attempt, and fails, and is about to plunge to his death ... and that's what breaks the mind control effect on Toothless. It's not just being told 'I'm yo fwiend' that makes a difference; it's the substance of that friendship, of seeing and knowing that his friend is in trouble and needs him, that provides the impetus to shake of the dark BWB's control, just as it drove Toothless to hurl himself into the arena to protect Hiccup in the first movie, and drove Hiccup to nearly drown himself freeing Toothless from the burning ships. This isn't a perfect solution - it would take longer to show, and I get a definite sense that the writers were cutting down to save time however they could; there may be some sort of research-supported benchmark for how much movie children or teens will sit through that they were trying to hit - and it doesn't entirely solve the Sanderson's law complaint. Still, it would be showing us the power of friendship rather than simply telling us about it, and that would be no small improvement all by itself.
There's no way around it; Toothless' super saiyan transformation at the end is a Deus Ex Machina of the first degree. Absolutely nothing so far in the series has suggested that his already impressive repertoire of abilities extends to emitting an omnidirectional explosion, firing supercharged blue blasts (as I assume they must be, to knock an entire tusk off that monster), or generally glowing like a plasma reactor in the final stages of meltdown. I've already mentioned above that I think Toothless handles too much of the climax on his own, and it bothers me even more that in order to let him do this, the storytellers granted him some extra magic powers that only work during final boss battles.
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| And just think; if Valka hadn't shown me how to pop my dorsal ridge out, we wouldn't be able to see how blue it is! |
And it would have been so easy to make this work, too! Suppose that, during the scene in which Valka shows Toothless how to pop out the spines on his back (his reaction is beyond adorable), she comments to Hiccup that Night Furies are so rare, not even she knows the full range of what they're capable of, but that as young as he is, there's surely more to learn. Hell, she's already said that Toothless may be the last of his kind (which is a very interesting thing to say without giving any context, especially given that Drago appears to be wearing a Night Fury-hide cloak); play it up, talk about the mysterious totems and legends of outlandish powers attributed to Night Furies. As simply as that, they telegraph that they're going to introduce some future Toothless powers at a plot-critical juncture and provide a reasonable explanation for why nobody knows about it in advance. Again, it would take a bit longer, but even half a dozen lines would be a major improvement. If it's necessary for him to have neon highlights, by all means, do so, but don't just pull the power out of thin air without doing your prep work.
(It also has occurred to me that perhaps there are hints or even outright demonstrations of this power in the TV show that takes place between the films. If so, that would be at least a partial improvement, but it's never really a good idea to make consumers of your primary media also consume your off-shoot media if they want to follow the full story, since many of them invariably won't, and in any case, I've not been able to find any mention of such a preview anywhere on the interwebs, and Toothless detonating the ice attack and turning blue is definitely telegraphed as a big surprise, so I doubt this is the case.)
3. Alphaness - seriously, how does this work?
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| Angry eyes are angry |
The last method we've seen is that of the dark bewilderbeast, and here's where it gets tricky. In pack animals, when a dominant pack leader (the alpha) is challenged and defeated by another, that challenger becomes the new alpha, to whom the rest of the pack submits on pain of violence. By killing the white bewilderbeast, the dark one asserts dominance over the pack, and the pack (and it definitely seems that most of Valka's dragons are at least 2/3 wild) grants him obeisance. All of which seems clear enough. Except then we get weird, because Drago suddenly asserts that the alpha has mind-control powers and has it literally hijack Toothless' personality for long enough to kill Hiccup/Stoick. This power is not explained NEARLY enough (see Sanderson's first law, above), especially given that Toothless later becomes an alpha himself ... somehow. Does he get this same power?
The way I see it, there are a couple possibilities: A) mind-control is a power of all bewilderbeasts, which the white one declined to use because he was a kind and benevolent monarch; B) mind-control is a power of all bewilderbeasts, which the white one DID use to maintain the peace and happiness of the sanctuary, sort of the 1984 version of dragon utopia; C) mind-control is a power of bewilderbeasts acknowledged as alpha, which means that as soon as dark BWB killed white BWB, all dragons nearby who witnessed this became subject to his mind control (I find it really sketchy that such a game-changing ability would work or not work based on social standing, although it seems to be supported by the other teens' mounts flying away after the BWB battle); D) mind-control is a power specifically of the dark BWB due to whatever nasty things Drago has done to it; or E) mind-control is a power of all dragons acknowledged as alpha (as suggested by Drago's taunt, "no dragon can resist the alpha!" indicating that alphaness is the key ingredient for mind control powers) in which case, Toothless can now mind-control any of the other dragons (and the Red Death really should have been doing a little bit of it himself ...). If E, that's, um, ethically problematic, and it would raise major storytelling issues in the third movie; but if A-D, that raises the critical question of how Toothless becomes alpha at all. If either mind-control or being a bewilderbeast (which, as Valka says, is "the alpha species") is a part of the alpha job description, than a non-bewilderbeast simply winning a fight against an alpha should not be enough to transfer that status to oneself. And he definitely does; the track that plays while Toothless is accepting the genuflection of the other dragons at the end is called "Two New Alphas", so it's clearly not just that Toothless has earned the others' respect and is some sort of sub-alpha first-among equals. So yeah. There's some definite fuzziness about where this mind-control trick is coming from.
And even if we could figure out who exactly gets mind-control powers, it's not at all clear how they work. I've already mentioned my problems with the friendship is magic mechanic above, but at least that suggests that it IS possible to break free of said mind control if sufficiently motivated; they also imply that distraction is a factor, implying that a certain degree of active attention is required from the BWB to maintain control. Does that mean control lapses when the BWB sleeps? Is mind control more or less efficient as a way to control large masses of dragons than simple fear of being eaten? Is mind control even being used on any dragons other than Toothless? I suspect so - otherwise, that would suggest that the bond between the other teens and their dragons is less powerful than the normal non-magic pack alpha bond, which rather undermines the whole 'power of friendship' dynamic they're going for - but if so, which dragons exactly are MCed and which are just cowed into submission? And I'm sure there are other important questions that I can't even think of off the top of my head.
This isn't just idle speculation. The questions of what an Alpha can do, and how one becomes an Alpha, are critically important to the climax of the movie. As such, it is critically important that the audience have at least a working knowledge of how these powers work so we can judge and be impressed by the character's use of the tools at their disposal. Without it, the best we can do is shrug and say, 'Well, I guess that happened. Nice animation, though.' I know Dreamworks is hoping for a better response to the conclusion of their story than that.
(Edit 7/8/14: I found some new information that helps clarify alpha-ness. The Dreamworks website for the Dragons franchise includes a Dragonpedia that gives more detail on some of the dragons seen in the franchise, including both BWBs and the Red Death.
According to the Red Death's page, it DID have a means of controlling other dragons (other than the threat of eating them); a subvocal call that acted like a summoning beacon, forcing the other dragons to come to its lair, whereupon the wise dragons would have food to offer and the less wise would be eaten. After I read this, I went back and rewatched the part of the first movie where, at the end of their romantic flight, Hiccup and Astrid are suddenly dragged off to the dragon's cave, and there is in fact a noise that seems to trigger Toothless' course change (along with a noticeable narrowing of his pupils, although not to the point of BWB-control in the second movie). I had previously assumed that this noise was from one of the other dragons approaching the cave, and Toothless had joined the flight so as not to attract attention from the dragons all around them in the mist. If, however, this noise was from RD, then he would be following that compulsion whether or not he actually wanted to go there. Later, when Hiccup tells him 'come on, we have to get out of here' and he does a violent little headshake; I had assumed that this was him disagreeing and saying 'no, you need to see this' (which would suggest an impressive degree of planning and abstract thinking for a creature that, while very smart, does seem to think in much more immediate and tangible terms); instead, this may well be where he shakes off the RD's control, although again, he can't just peel off because all the other dragons will notice him leaving. Clearly he is free of any compulsion by the time they get to the caldera, or else he probably would have done a barrel roll and fed Astrid to the beast.
The white BWB's page in one sentence calls the bewilderbeast (species or specimen, not sure) the 'alpha dragon to which all others bow' and in the next says that alpha status is earned, not automatic. While this still isn't nearly as informative as it would like to be, it does make clear that passage of alpha status by combat is a thing. The page makes no mention of mind control. The dark BWB's page, on the other hand, mentions its 'alpha ability to bend other dragons to its will. While this would suggest that the power comes from alphaness, the RD's page describes the summoning/crooning power as 'similar to the bewilderbeast's ability to bend other dragons to its will.' From this, I conclude that mind control is either a power of all bewilderbeasts or just of bewilderbeasts acknowledged as alpha (betting on the latter, since it only starts MCing dragons after the white BWB is dead), and the RD (which was queen of its nest, a status Valka suggests is subordinate to an actual alpha) has an entirely separate mechanic for controlling dragons, whereas Toothless, alpha or not, will have neither.
This at least partially addresses my concerns described above. I think they could have been much more clear about the Red Death's summoning mechanic in the first movie (although apparently the RD in the books was all about crooning and singing, so they may have taken a certain degree of recognition for granted), but it does actually clear up some minor plot inconsistencies in the first film. It also seems ... cluttered, somehow, for Dreamworks to have two entirely separate forms of dragon leadership with two entirely separate forms of mind control. I think they could and should have done a much better job explaining the mechanics at play, or at least have had characters note the seeming discrepancies if they want to save the explanations for another movie, but I am content at least that there is a logical explanation that will not need to be retconned in the sequels. So that's better.)
4. What's Astrid up to?
I really like Astrid. She's a fun foil for Hiccup in the first movie, she's got great character designs in both movies, she's a certified badass viking warrior chick. Unfortunately, it's clear that Dreamworks doesn't really know what to do with her. In the climax of the first movie, all of the teens play some role in distracting/disrupting/engaging the final boss dragon ... except for Astrid. Her role is to 1) give Hiccup a ride, 2) give a few orders as his second in command while he's busy, and 3) get almost eaten and require rescue from him. I don't mind that it was Hiccup who saved the day - heavens knows he earned it - but it's a little unfortunate that the only noteable female character (counting the twins as a unisex single entity) has less to do than even the ensemble cast members. And while any story is going to have less for some characters to do than others, this is sadly starting to be a pattern. In the second movie, her contributions are to 1) countermand Stoick's directions to return to Berk with the teens and instead go hunting Drago themselves, thus getting them all captured; 2) while captured, try to bluff out Drago and in the process give him critical intelligence, and 3) ... was there a 3)? She doesn't do much to enable her own escape; in fact, she's so busy being nasty to Eret son of Eret that she needs him to rescue her in a flashy and acrobatic manner, during which even Fishlegs contributes more to the action than she does. She doesn't play much of a role in the bewilderbeast battle or the climax; I think she was one of those loading sheep in the catapult, which was a funny gag but hardly had a major tactical impact. She even needs to be plucked from the air after falling off her dragon for the second straight movie.
Despite the fact that we've been shown repeatedly that of all the teens, she is the best warrior, and now the second-best dragon rider, she is given no opportunity to use these skills when it actually counts. Instead, whenever the plot gives her a chance to make a choice, it invariably turns out to have been the wrong one (although I will concede that at least they don't have her making blatantly stupid decisions; given what she'd seen of Drago, that was not an unreasonable bluff to attempt. However, making all her debatably reasonable decisions the wrong one is, if anything, worse; her problem is not that she's making stupid choices and just needs to think things through a bit more; it's that she's the agent through which the plot makes things go wrong, and there's nothing she can do about it.) If I could get a single wish for the third movie, it would be that Astrid (and Valka, for whom some of the same issues apply) are allowed to make positive and successful contributions to the plot using their unique skills and personalities. Cause so far, that isn't happening.
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| This bit was pretty good, though. |
5. The idiot ball - can nobody communicate clearly in this universe?
It seems to be a pattern that nobody - but especially Stoick or Hiccup - is good at conveying information in crisis situations in Berk. Consider in the first movie, where Hiccup could have drastically changed the course of events by telling his father 'I spared a dragon's life today' instead of the ambiguous 'I can't kill dragons', which of course his father interprets as a lack of confidence in his abilities and all the more reason to get him in training. Later, when Toothless has been captured and Stoick is setting off to attack the dragons' nest, Hiccup tells him 'I promise you, this is a fight you can't win!' You know what would have been a bunch more helpful, Hiccup? Saying 'Dad, there's a dragon the size of the great hall who eats other dragons the way we eat chicken wings!' Would it have shaken Stoick's resolve to attack the nest? Unlikely. But had he known what he would be facing and made plans accordingly, the vikings might not have been routed as they were, and the undepicted but almost certain injuries and deaths they suffered might have been avoided.
I cut Hiccup a little slack here, because he's 14 and because nobody listens to anything he says, so he has no way of judging what sort of communication is most effective. But it's also clear that this runs in the family, and it bites them hard when Hiccup brings word of Drago Bludvist (which is how it's apparently spelled, which is dumb; just call it Bloodfist already) to Stoick, who proceeds to lose his s*** in an entirely unnecessary and counterproductive burst of idiocy. Let's be clear here: Drago and his army is a threat to Berk. Stoick is right to be alarmed. But even if Drago somehow learned of Berk at the same instant Hiccup had learned of him, it would still take him far longer to assemble, transport, array and deploy an army than it would for Hiccup and Astrid to fly straight home to tell him. This is not an urgent, drop-everything, final-countdown situation. He should have plenty of time to make plans, put them in place, and explain why he's doing so to Hiccup and Co.
What does he do instead? Barrel straight to the stables and order everything sealed shut without a word of explanation. Consider this again from Hiccup's perspective; Stoick learns about a threat and his immediate reaction is to prepare for war. The last time Stoick refused to consider the possibility of a nonviolent solution, it was the first movie, and Hiccup quite rightly disobeyed him in order to save the village from a threat it could not overcome by force. Given that context, it is perfectly reasonable for him to assume that Stoick is thinking with his ax again and to squeeze out before the gates shut in order to save the day again. And it's completely unnecessary! If Stoick had taken 30 seconds and told him the story of the massacre of chiefs that he later tells him on the ship, Hiccup would have had the advantage of knowledge instead of knee-jerk idealism. Would it have stopped him from trying to talk to Drago? Unlikely. But he would have known what he was getting into, and it's even possible that they could have come up with a more, um, elegant plan than 'I'll just fly out to wherever and then you come flying after me.' They could have arranged a proper delegation with support and rescue capabilities. They could have done some proper intelligence-gathering. They could have wound up NOT flying willy-nilly all over the archipelago and getting in the way of each others' plans. Wouldn't that have been nice?
This is the most egregious example in movie 2, but it's clear that Hiccup and Valka have the same bug; Valka in how she tells Hiccup that she's his mother and then darts off without answering any questions (which at least delivered the most important info up front), and Hiccup when he was trying to tell Stoick that Valka was alive; all it would have taken would have been to stop in the middle of the hallway and shout 'Dad! Mom is still alive!' I recognize that misunderstanding is a great tool of both dramatic tension and comedy, and I likewise appreciate that this is clearly a family or even cultural trait that Dreamworks has taken pains to build. But when said misunderstandings are both entirely preventable and used to artificially induce conflict into the story, it starts to feel like the characters are being made dumber than they actually are in service of the plot. I hope that in movie 3, they're able to keep the comedic misunderstandings coming without requiring anyone to carry the idiot ball.
And the odds and ends
Whew. So that's my top 5 loves and peeves - I can't say hates, because even in its flaws, this is still a rich and compelling movie that I look forward to watching many times again. Because there were a couple smaller things that I thought worth saying but that didn't seem to deserve the same degree of scrutiny, here are my Honorable Mentions:
- Good: Stoick's funeral dirge. Not only is it a powerful and moving send-off for a flawed and frustrating but deeply human and admirable character, but it's based on the wedding song that Stoick and Valka had just shared. Wonderful, wonderful scene.
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| All the feels |
- Bad: Mood whiplash. The funeral was such a moving, emotional scene, that it makes it all the more jarring that the main characters essentially get over their grief on the spot and move on. The very next scene is the comic slapstick of the heroes flying through the ice canyon on the baby dragons, which is funny and cute and well done and NOT AT ALL the kind of thing that normally happens after a funeral. I think they could have done a very good job with it if they'd shown the backup teens doing the slapstick thing but also show Hiccup still brooding as they fly; unfortunately, he seems as light-hearted as the rest of them. The only later reference to the sad feels that I can recall is when Valka tells Hiccup after the final battle that Stoick would be as proud of Hiccup as she is, which is how you would talk about a spouse who died many years ago when your child was an infant, not one who was murdered in front of you less than 24 hours ago by your son's best friend immediately after you had healed a 20-year estrangement. Can you picture how much more powerful that scene would have been if Valka had started to say her line and then her voice cracks, she has to stop, and then she and Hiccup just embrace and weep quietly together in the midst of the celebration before he wipes his eyes and approaches the elder to be enchiefened? Good lord, I'm choking up more than a little just imagining it.
- EXCELLENT: Valka walking on the wings and clouds. While none of the Hiccup/Toothless flying scenes were quite as powerful to me in this movie as Test Flight in the first one - not the animators' fault; there was just so much riding on that scene that I'm not sure anything could measure up - Hiccup and his mother sharing this incredible first-time-in-his-life bonding experience over their shared love of dragons while she's wing-walking around him on a circle of dragons like an absolute boss is just jaw-droppingly perfect. I think sometimes Hiccup's 'who am I' confusion is rather forced, but he does have grounds for at least some angst, and this is exactly the scene he needed to explain to him who he is and what makes him different from the rest of the Berkians. And also, it's fricken gorgeous. Props again to the art team.
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| And you thought YOU were a badass? Cute. |
- Mildly irritating: The second licking scene. This franchise is very intentional about using repeated lines to comic or emotional effect. Usually it works for them ("that's for ... everything else"), but they do occasionally fall flat. I've already said that I think the final post-boss-battle reunion was a little more light-hearted than it should have been, given Stoick's death and the high likelihood that other Berkians were injured or killed by the dark BWB; having Toothless start slobbering all over him and to have him whine about "you know that doesn't wash out!" (which was only mildly amusing the first time) feels like an artifact from a much less elevated level of animated storytelling. Ha-ha, it's time for our running gag now!
- Good: Hiccup has a peg leg. No big deal. No need to treat him as a different species because of a physical disability. No need to offer him special treatment or handle him with kid gloves. He's just a guy. Who happens to have a peg leg.
- Not quite as good: And I'm glad it shows him living his life unhampered by his disability, but I also think they're probably a little too blasé about the peg leg. No replacement created in a viking forge, however spring-loaded and reversible and snazzy, will entirely match the performance of the foot and ankle it replaced. I feel like there were several moments - chasing his mother through the damp, smooth, angled volcanic rock caves of the dragon sanctuary comes to mind - where they really should have thrown in a few slips or stumbles as his peg fails to give him full traction. Not necessarily debilitating or scene-breaking, but at least a nod of acknowledgement to the ongoing struggles of disabled people withOUT magical viking spring-loaded peg legs. That said, I approach this from the perspective of not being disabled myself, so it might look very different to someone who actually deals with these issues on a daily basis. If that's you, drop me a comment; I'm curious.
- Slightly disconcerting: Given that these movies are about vikings in a Nordic environment, it's no real surprise that the options for character complexions can best be summarized as white, whiter, and ruddy. There's no shame upon the first movie for doing so. It is a little problematic that in the second movie, the first actual villain they introduce in the franchise is also the first character of non-northern-European ethnicity (while his skin tone ranges from light tan to pasty grey depending on the lighting, there's definitely a bit more pigment going on than the Berkians have, and the dreadlocks are a distinctly African or Caribbean hairstyle). His theme music, while appropriately creepy or terrifying depending on the context and instrumentation, is also the first to include some distinctly Arabic-sounding note progressions (I'm sure a music theorist could tell me exactly what intervals Powell uses that sound slightly off to a Western ear, but listen yourself and you'll surely hear it too), which again is problematic, paired as it is with the series' first bad guy. One of my favorite lines in the second movie is "with vikings on the backs of dragons, the world just got a whole lot bigger." Hopefully movie 3 follows up on this by showing at least a glimpse of some non-Nordic and non-villainous peoples and civilizations in the larger world around Berk.
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| Definitely not a contender for Berk's Most Nordic. |
- Not sure of the point: Eret son of Eret isn't a bad character, and Kit Harrington does a perfectly decent job voicing him, but I'm not sure they really needed to add him to the movie. It feels like he has three purposes: to demonstrate that some of the anti-dragon guys can learn the error of their ways and join the good guys, which is, you know, the entire point of the first movie; to prevent Astrid from having to go to the bother of rescuing herself; and to give Ruffnut something to drool over. While I actually think the male-objectification bit going on there is really funny, I'm not sure that alone justifies the investment in screen time Dreamworks makes in him.
Ok. I'm done talking about this movie now. Maybe. I think. We'll see. Let me emphasize again: for all its flaws, this is a fantastic movie, and the only reason you should not go out and see it right now is if you have to watch the first movie first, in which case, do so. And if you disagree with any of my likes or dislikes or can think of other things that could have been done differently to make this fantastic movie even better, by all means, drop a comment. I could and often do argue about this sort of thing all day. And I'll leave you with a bonus essay about Strong Female Characters that I found while writing this. Enjoy.
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