Went to see this for the third time, this time for Mother's Day with my mom, my maternal grandmother, my sister, and two cousins. My mom and grandma loved it, my mom a LOT. Obviously I love it, or I wouldn't have suggested seeing it (for the third time).
So why do I love it?
The plot is fairly typical: a father/son bonding tale with a focus on the son reaching social acceptance through rebellion in the form of befriending a dragon, Toothless. This is an act of rebellion due to Hiccup's tribe's war with the dragons. It's your typical bildungsroman. So despite the wonderful addition of dragons vs. vikings, with a well-handled romance sub-plot, the story is not really anything special.
So why do I love it? It's got some plot holes. The explanation of "hive queen" does not adequately describe the "Green Death," the giant dragon at the end. Toothless seems to have too much autonomy to be a drone. But he is still forced to reveal the location of the nest due to an apparent instinctual response to navigate to the nest. I have no explanation for this. I like to consider the Green Death to be a tyrant and not a hive queen, but it's still not a great fill for that plot hole. I dislike the depiction of the dragons as pets. Toothless seems to be incredibly intelligent and able to make moral decisions. In the books, the dragons had a language--why not make the dragons as intelligent as humans?
So why do I love it? Because the animation is superb. Everything is believable. The characters are engaging and fully formed and their relationships feel real.
Toothless is my cat Asterisk in dragon form. Toothless is ADORABLE. The flight depicted in the film is SPECTACULAR. I got so jealous of Hiccup and Toothless.
A particular detail of the film deals with the end. This sealed the deal in my love for this film. You see, early on in the film, Hiccup caused Toothless to lose half of a tail fin necessary for Toothless to fly successfully. He disabled, crippled Toothless to the extent that Toothless cannot fly without a pilot, a rider, to aid him. In the midst of the epic battle with the giant dragon the Green Death, Hiccup ends up losing his own leg, from below the knee. So these filmmakers crippled a child at the end of the film. They decided to forgo the requisite happy ending of the film for a more poetic, bittersweet one. They crippled Hiccup, in a similar way to his crippling of Toothless. He cannot walk without a prosthetic, and Toothless cannot fly without a prosthetic. They showed us, the spectators, that yes, there may be sacrifices in the battles we choose to fight. There may be consequences, repercussions. And maybe they'll be worth it.
That is what made me love this film.
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