#2LR - How to Train Your Dragon 3 - The End Credits

Hello again all!

I'm going to be resurrecting the #2LR Too Late Reviews for at least a little while -- I miss writing them and the main conceit of the concept (writing reviews "too late" to warn you) actually will be going by the wayside because I now have a reliable source for free movie watching.  I do apologize for the hiatus and I hope that you all don't mind.

When you want to go to a place to sit, relax, and drink coffee you can choose national chain stores or also the little cafe nooks that people sometimes tip you off to when taking time to actually meet up with a friend.  The national chains bring a certain level of quality.  Those lucky few have found a nice place that makes even better coffee and is far preferable to visit.

This movie series has always reminded me of the coffee place that's about fifty miles out of your way that your friend brought you to sometime.  The first cup of coffee you got here turned out surprisingly good and hopefully you'll get another cup just as delicious.  You wouldn't be there unless you're in town for some sort of other errand.  It's not your preferred home place that makes the best brew that you can count on, but it's at least better than the BarStucks. 

There will be copious amounts of spoiler space from this part, so feel free to jump ahead to the closing bracket for a few comments about the movie if you want to watch this yet also want to be surprised.

The town of Berk has undergone some major changes since the opening credits of "How to Train Your Dragon" lo these many years ago.  It's so lousy with dragons that it looks like your grandmother's dirty finch cage.  Seriously, at least fifteen percent of the human population has to pick up dragon guano on a minute-by-minute basis.  While they are near the ocean, water-dumping that amount of dragon dung would have killed all the fish in a fifty-mile radius.

As with How to Train Your Dragon 2, the dragons are back under attack.  In this movie though the denizens of Berk seem to be on the offensive first, as they are shown liberating a series of dragons from a veritable flotilla of ships.  The Vikings who had their ships raided (oh the irony!) appeal to a master dragon hunter for their aid in... well, capturing them all back?  They really did not go into a ton of reason WHY the dragons were needed really, and the dragon hunter is absolutely clear that he just wants to kill the main dragon of the series Toothless.  And yes, unclear motivations for the antagonists is a bit of a pet peeve of mine, almost as large as New Zealand being left off of world maps.

In order to avoid the dragon hunter the citizens and dragons all find an island elsewhere to live on that isn't as well-known as their previous location.  The main characters also presumably stop freeing dragons to try to keep their location hidden.  The dragon hunter has another plan though, which is to entrap Toothless with another (the only?) of his type for him to become enamored with.  The plan works and through various circumstances Toothless is ensnared.  After plenty of action sequences though, the movie along with the trilogy ends with a finality reminiscent of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

**spoiler space over**

Seriously, this movie felt as if they recycled large amounts of How to Train Your Dragon 2.  The conflicts of both movies feel exceptionally close to each other.  You have a main protagonist who is bent on subjugation of others for nefarious ends.  Both movies featured plans straight out of the Underwear Gnomes' playbook.  The question marks in these plans was hiding quite a bit of stuff.

It seemed that there wasn't even a world beyond the universe of Berk, Dragons, and Bad Dudes.  The Bad Dudes are more often than not on boats... we never even see another *town* in this movie series.  What does this world consist of, one town of dragon-loving Vikings and effectively Waterworld throughout the rest of the world?  What are the dragons going to be used for?  Where are the stakes here?  The first movie in the set didn't really need to introduce more of the world than just the town of Berk because the conflict was so very localized, but once the movie series started importing antagonists from abroad the antagonists seemed to forget to import the rest of their world.

How to Train Your Dragon 3 was different in one major way though.  This movie was designed to be the last in the series and the writers placed certain plot points as barricades for anyone else ever resurrecting the main storyline of the movie.  I did not put this under "spoiler space" because the director has been saying for multiple years that they had designed the trilogy to be shut after three movies.  Crazily enough it was reported that they would be happy to allow spin-off stories in the same universe but I honestly don't see how they can do that because this universe is just so tiny.

Which is why your fifty-mile-away coffee shop is good really only for those times you are in the area.  The coffee there is pretty decent, it's worth going to when you're a few blocks away, but to intentionally drive for an hour and thirty minutes there-and-back for a cup of coffee?  Why?  To sit for an hour and a half through the third installment of this series... if you have a good reason for it, by all means.

And without further ado, feel free to watch this movie IF:

1. You enjoy watching stilted cougar-chasing straight out of the Stiffler's Mom playbook.  Seriously, it was even more delusional in this movie than it sounds as I type it.  I am totally not lying about this either.

2. Being better together rather than apart is a perfectly fine message for you and you're not species-ist... both main protags got their brides but can only ever visit each other from now on.

3. You have some pressing need for closure of the "How to Train Your Dragon" universe and have zero interest in thinking about how the village goes on living afterward... being without their primary antagonist/allies for the last 300 years.

4. Rewatching How to Train Your Dragon 2 isn't possible because you've worn through your DVD rewatching it already and you want something just slightly newer.

5. You still don't really mind that they gave characterization to effectively two characters in the whole series, three maybe if you could Hiccup's Dad who was killed in #2 but still manages to have a sizable supporting role in this movie as well.

(special points to Hollywood in this day and age, with the #MeToo movement and everything, giving about as much depth of writing to Hiccup's love interest over three movies as they gave to the girl-dragon they hooked Toothless up to in only one movie)

I have a four-point scale that I usually grade movies on, it's pretty simple really...

0 - totally unredeemable
1 - I might watch parts of it on TV, depending on the scene.
2 - I might watch the rest of it on TV if halfway through but not intentionally cue it up.
3 - I would get a copy and watch it occasionally.
4 - I would get a copy and watch it often.

This movie is pretty close to a 1, if only because I'd probably sit down for the last scene.  The battle scenes are meh, the message is internally inconsistent, and the universe itself hobbled.  Epilogue is fine though.  I would imagine that fans of the series would probably place this into a three trending to four, but unless you're a fan I wouldn't really bother.

(Crossposted at www.rebornknights.com)