How To Train Your Dragon 2

        Yesterday, I went to see HTTYD 2 with one of my co-workers. Gah, where do I even start? Well, I suppose I could start with my feelings/opinion about the first one. I saw it a few years ago when we had free Netflix for a month, and I've seen it perhaps a half-dozen times since. We've gotten it from the library several times, and I watched it with my little cousins once. You might deduce simply from the fact I've watched it kind of a lot (and the fact that I went to see the second one in theaters, which I never do with movies) that I like it muchly. Is it a bad thing that I don't quite know why? Okay, I can think of a few reasons why I like it, but that's not really all of it. There is something more, something special about the story of the first movie that just grabbed me. These are the only things I could come up with for why I like it so:

1. Vikings. I like vikings.
2. Toothless. He is the most adorable dragon in the world.
3. The music. It's SPECTACULAR.
4. Gerard Butler's voice. 'Nuff said.

        See, that's all. I can't really explain why I like it so much without this post turning into a big gushing run-on sentence about HTTYD 1. We're supposed to be talking about 2 here! WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS AHEAD!! AND I WON'T BE ANNOUNCING THEM AS THEY COME!

*deep breath*

        Berk seemed somehow more colorful than it was five years ago. There are dragons everywhere, and brightly hued paint all over. Perhaps it was just for the games - I don't know. My first thoughts were, as I watched the opening scene, Wow, that animation is amazing! and Wow, so much movement and dragons and flying sheep and omigoodness I can't even process all of this. Yeah, the first scene was a little to busy for my taste. I loved when it switched over to Hiccup and Toothless, though; that had more of what I loved so much about the first movie. Simple and free, slow-paced and flowing. Oh, and *this*? Awesome.

         Toothless flew away with my heart once again.This movie was most definitely darker than the first. From the burned forest to the massively destructive icy blasts, there was a much stronger sense of danger and peril than in the first. They needed to survive. This scene however...

        Toothless, I love you. 

        Obviously, most of the characters were the same - Stoick, Gobber, Fishlegs, Snotlout, Astrid, and the twins, Ruffnut and Tuffnut (lovely names, right?). I most definitely could have gone without the whole thing about Fishlegs and Snotlout liking Ruffnut and Ruffnut herself liking Eret - it was only worth an almost amused snort from me. I started out hating Eret, but by the end of the film I didn't mind him so much. I think the character development was quite good.

        Next new character: Valka. She's Hiccup's mother (which we knew from the trailer), and she's stayed away from Berk for 20 years, rescuing dragons and bringing them back to her home. And as a side note, I spent the entire film wondering where I had hear her voice before - then I saw the credits. It's Galadriel, peoples! I loved how Stoic came and they still loved each other and the song and the whole family being together and it was just so sweet and... I liked it. Could you tell? The first scene we see her in, when she and Hiccup are flying just above the clouds, was amazing. It was so eerie and mystical. 

        And the bewilderbeast? Pretty neat as well.

         Next new character: Drago Bludvist. I did not like him one single bit. I tend to like the villains in movies - not like what they do, of course - but how their minds work often interests me. Not so with Drago. He was plain out evil; cruel and hardhearted with a thirst for power. He is, yes, a madman.

        Now we come to the part that I've been needing to gush over to someone ever since I watched this. So Drago has a Bewilderbeast who defeats Valka's and takes control over all of the dragons. He stares at them, I suppose it's rather like hypnosis, and then they have to do whatever he says. Mind-control, basically. Drago's Bewilderbeast hypnotizes Toothless, and commands him to kill Hiccup. While the battles between the other dragons rages on around them, Hiccup tries desperately to bring Toothless out from under the controlling power of the Alpha Bewilderbeast. Toothless no longer sees Hiccup as a friend, though, but as an enemy, and backs him up against a boulder, growling and threatening to kill him. Just as he is about to kill a heartbroken and terrified Hiccup, Stoick rushes over and throws himself in between the two, taking the blast himself. Toothless killed Stoick. And if that wasn't heart wrenching enough watching this perfectly tame and friendly animal destroy his best friend's father, we now have to see Hiccup's pain and sorrow over his father, and his rejection of Toothless. I admit I cried at this point (although that's not saying too much for me). Just a lot of tears running down my cheeks. It was like after all that we dreamed and worked for in the first movie - coming to the realization that dragons are amazing and gentle creatures that can work with the vikings - had now come crashing down in pieces. It was as if all of the work was for nothing. I cried for Toothless. And I cried for Hiccup. I have now decided that this movie shall henceforth be called by me 'Sad Dragon Story'. *SOB*
      

        Where they had the boat that everyone shot flaming arrows into as it sailed of to see didn't help with the feels at all either. Not one bit.
        The rest of the movie consisted of the defeat of Drago after he came to Berk, and of Hiccup and Toothless being reunited. I loved the part where Hiccup called him out of the hypnosis. You could see his eyes, which were just little slits, struggle back into their normal position, and then fall back, come out of the mind control, and then fall back. The whole time I was saying Come on Toothless, come on! And then he did, and then he defeated Drago and the Bewilderbeast, and Hiccup was made chief of Berk. And it all ended happily, except there was no more Stoic. But there was Valka, reunited again with the son she left so many years ago.
        Now I'm just going to put a bunch of nice pictures from Google and Pinterest (I don't own any of them).

        So yes, I liked 'Sad Dragon Story'. I'll definitely be watching it again when I can, and getting the soundtrack as well. It didn't have the thrill that the first one had - after I watch HTTYD 1 I have this thrilling feeling the music and the ending that I can't explain - but it is still very good, and worth a watch.

Blessings,

Reyna