S02E16 — How To Train Your Dragon

SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for How To Train Your Dragon.

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Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, and T. Josiah Haynes.

Turns out, the How to Train Your Dragon book and movie are about as similar as a Viking and a housecat. We dove into the wildly different plots, questionable dragon names, and yes, the infamous “breast hat” made a comeback. The live action remake gave us feelings, but the animated original still holds the dragon crown.

Final Verdicts

If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)

In the book, Hiccup tames a chatty, obnoxious dragon and saves the day with brains, not brawn. In the films, he skips the talking, makes besties with a sleek cat-lizard, and unites an entire village—no yelling required.

Tim: The movie was better.
– Book Score: 6.5/10
– Movie Score: 9.5/10

Donna: The movie was better.
– Book Score: 7/10
– Book Score: 9/10

Rebekah: The movie was better.
– Book Score: 8/10
– Movie Score: 9/10

Josiah: The movie was better.
– Book Score: 6.5/10
– Movie Score 9.5/10

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Full Episode Transcript

[00:01:37] Rebekah: HI. We are a family of four and we do review book to film adaptations. Mm-hmm. We did actually review Harry Potter. Go back and listen to those episodes. But this is not that.

This is us reviewing how to train your Dragon. Uh, spoiler alert. We are gonna spoil the both animated and live action versions of how to Train Your Dragon. Not hard ’cause they’re. It’s almost exactly the same. Um, we’re also gonna spoil the first book from the How to Train Your Dragon Series.

[00:02:14] Donna: Wildly different, 

[00:02:15] Rebekah: wildly different.

And we will probably spoil a few little things from later books and films in the franchise. So if you are like itching to watch all of these films or read the whole 20 something book series. Yeah. Um, you know, I guess you could do that before listening to this, but we think you should just like listen anyway, so who care.

I think call lotion also 

[00:02:38] Donna: helps with itching. 

[00:02:39] Rebekah: Just, yeah, calamine lotion is probably a better, yeah, that’s good solution. Oh, so as you introduce yourself, family today, our fun fact is with which dragon from this story do you identify with and why? I am Rebecca. I am the daughter slash sister of the tribe.

Look at me. I’m using fun words for that. 

Yes. 

[00:03:02] Rebekah: I think that I identify most with the monstrous nightmare. It’s the one that sets himself on fire all the time. And that’s because when I get angry, which I would not consider myself an angry person, but when I do get angry, I tend to be a little overboard. And I think that I then get angry and then light my insides on fire, getting more angry about things.

And Josh has to like throw a bucket of water on me. You know what I mean? Like that’s how it feels. So that’s the one I identify with the most. 

Hmm. 

[00:03:33] TIM: That’s interesting. Well, I am Tim. I am the husband and dad of this tribe of interesting vikings. And let’s see, I think the dragon, the two-headed dragon, that that breathes out the gas and then the other head ignites it.

I think I’m sometimes my own worst enemy. Hmm. So 

I like the hideous zip back. That’s me. 

[00:03:59] TIM: Zippel back the hideous zip back zippel 

[00:04:03] TJ: back. Yeah. She wasn’t just adding hideous. Yeah. I wasn’t calling you hideous. Right, right, right. Dad, 

[00:04:09] Donna: the hideous, um, my name is Donna and I’m the wife and mom of our clan of Vikings.

And um, this was a good, this is a good question. My first go-to was the poor fat boy in his fat dragon, bro. But Donal, but he knew bro, uncle, oh, sorry, Broel. Mm-hmm. 

With a G as in, as in good. 

[00:04:40] Donna: His name starts with a continent that I’m not yet, yet set. So he, um. The difference being like he was fun. And I love to bring laughter into something.

I wanna lighten a mood. And sometimes when my two-headed husband does get frustrated, I will try to make him laugh. And sometimes that doesn’t really help. He doesn’t wanna laugh right at that moment. And then he gets better and things are fine. So I kind wanna say gruel. But the big difference there would be he knew all the stats about all the dragons.

Well that was the kid. So I’m talking about the 

[00:05:15] Rebekah: dragon. You identify with Dragon. Dragon, she can identify with the dragon. Dragon you can identify with. The kid thought it was person. Oh 

it says dragon. I’m much more like Astrid. So, 

[00:05:29] Donna: so I, so I would say I would definitely, I would definitely go with his dragon.

Wait, do you still like better than 

[00:05:35] TIM: my question and now the Viking land? No, I love it. No one knows what on, he likes the other question. No, 

[00:05:42] Donna: I literally just, I didn’t read, I did not focused Lee. Sure it’s a word read through it. And so I was thinking above person, but I like dragon actually better because I would definitely identify with his dragon.

Yeah, it was kind of everywhere and flying around in circles and I feel like around iest 

[00:06:03] Rebekah: wings. Yeah. That’s so cute. Yes. And if Josiah does not give the answer that I think he should give, I will correct his answer. Okay. Go ahead. It’s your turn. No pressure. You’ll correct 

[00:06:11] TIM: his wrong answer. Hi, 

[00:06:12] TJ: I am Josiah.

I’m the brother, son of this Viking long ship full of crazies. 

And 

[00:06:21] TJ: um, the dragon that I most identify with is definitely Gerard Butler. He’s a dragon, right? 

No, 

[00:06:31] TJ: I, I’m gonna go with Knight Fury. Maybe I have delusions of grandeur, but. You know, it’s unseen in the background doing what he needs to do. He’s cool.

Shoots purple flames out of his mouth. Like me. 

[00:06:45] Rebekah: Here’s my, here are my reasons that Josiah is a night fury. Like Toothless. It’s because you’re very cat-Like sometimes you like affection and sometimes you want people to leave you alone and you don’t explain. And it can happen at any moment. 

[00:07:01] TJ: Yeah. No, that’s everyone.

Everyone relates to Toothless more than anyone in the movie, right? 

Ooh, 

[00:07:08] TJ: everyone 

[00:07:08] Rebekah: does that. Um, yeah. Alright, let’s get into the plot of how to Train Your Dragon. 

[00:07:17] TJ: Oh, I wanna do it. I wanna, that makes sense. Okay. I wanna do the plot. 

[00:07:20] TIM: I wanna do the whole plot. All right. 

[00:07:21] Rebekah: Of the, but you have to do it. Give me a minute.

You have to only do it in the way that it’s, it’s exactly what’s in the book and in the film. Nothing else. Okay, 

[00:07:30] TIM: so only the parts that match. Correct. So, okay. There is a boy named Hiccup who lives on the ancient Viking island of Burke. His father, stoic, the Vast, has long been disappointed with him. Hiccup finds a dragon named Toothless, and together they d, they defeated Dragon far beyond their own size.

[00:07:50] Rebekah: Oh, that sounds, end of story, but what Hap But what happens? 

[00:07:53] TIM: That is what happens. 

[00:07:54] Rebekah: But what happens? Wow. We 

[00:07:55] TJ: really jumped from the first page to the last chapter. 

[00:07:59] TIM: Yeah. Well, you ask for things that were the same. Okay. Okay. From book to films, let’s start 

[00:08:04] Rebekah: with a film recap of the plot, and then we’ll go into the book.

How’s that? 

[00:08:08] TJ: Okay. Okay. So the film Classic, it has hiccup. He is a scrawny excuse for a Viking. He’s only ever wanted one thing to make his father proud. Stoic is not an easy man to please. However, he, he only cares for one thing, killing dragons. And you know why? Dragons killed his wife. 

[00:08:29] Rebekah: They took her off the island, flew away with her.

[00:08:31] TJ: Hiccup, has his own way of trying to accomplish this feat of killing dragons as more of an engineer than a ruthless and powerful sword. Slinger, you know, a classic Viking. However, he, when he does manage to take a dragon down, first of all, no one believes him. Second of all, he discovers that the dragons aren’t simply mindless killing machines, but far more like.

Himself than he realized. He hides his new dragon’s existence throughout his training in Dragon Slaying, but when he is forced to engage with the reward of killing his first dragon in front of the tribe, he can’t bring himself to do it. Toothless Hiccups. Pet hears his cries of terror from afar and comes to his rescue.

Only to be kidnapped and tied to a boat so that stoic may discover the dragons nest. The kids from Dragon Training all join Hiccup in becoming partners with dragons on their island and come to rescue the rest of their tribe, culminating in an epic scene of Hiccup and Toothless, taking down a massive dragon who had been forcing the others to serve her by stealing food from the surrounding villages.

Oh, 

[00:09:47] TIM: how different from the book could that 

be? Well, let me share. That sounds like a full story. 

[00:09:53] Donna: Mm-hmm. I would love to tell you Hiccup joins nine other boys for Dragon training on Burke, but he finds the instruction of Yell at it to be a bit lackluster. Unbeknownst to the others, he learns Dragones. A forbidden language.

Dun dun. Mm-hmm. To learn more of what his dragon wants in order to get toothless. The dragon, he’s, he’s found to follow his instructions at the initiation ceremony where each boy from his tribe and 10 boys from the nearby meathead tribe must prove they can control their dragon hiccups. Failure to succeed gets all 20 of them banished by his father stoic.

But on the first night of their banishment, they notice not just one, but two massive sea dragons on the beach with a little ingenuity and some help from the reluctant toothless hiccup. And friends managed to take them both down as they attempt to fight each other, allowing all of the boys to return to their tribes and hiccup to live as the hero of Burke.

[00:10:59] Rebekah: So this was a confusing process. I, I in no way ever expected the books to be quite this different. Mm-hmm. We are gonna go through some kind of similarities and changes as normal, but, uh, I think that one of the other interesting parts of this, uh, before we get into all of that, is that there is an animated and live action version of this film, both of which tell the same story.

So neither of these reflect the book’s plot. Uh, director Dean Deloy is actually the first to have written screenplays for both iterations of the same work from an animated and a live action film adaptation. So I thought that was really interesting. But, 

[00:11:41] TIM: and, and because he directed both of them as well, he also has that as that he directed both of those.

Mm-hmm. Nice. He wrote, directed, wrote, and directed. Yeah. 

[00:11:50] Donna: And interestingly, they, they brought back the same composer for the music as well, which 

[00:11:55] Rebekah: was a good call because the music of this movie is amazing. So, okay. We did all see the live action film. It just came out this weekend as of the time of this recording.

And, uh, so what did you guys think of the live action? Are you glad it was made? How do you think it compares to the animated? 

[00:12:10] Donna: So, I’ll go first. Mine’s short. I am not sad that they did it, uh, as live action. I have read a lot of reviews saying, why, why did they do this? But, you know, they could spend the money.

Probably a huge marketing thing for Universal. Universal for sure. But one thing I think we got out of all of it was you can actually do a live action remake of, of an animated film that was good or, or well loved. You can still do that and it actually be good. Now whether that’s all because they followed the same plot or the same script or whatever, but you can actually make something live action that’s just not that a lot of people look at and like, oh my God, what a joke of, of the first one that was, you know, so much better.

So I’m not sorry. I enjoyed it. I’ll watch it again. Um, so that’s me. 

[00:13:05] TIM: Okay. I’ll, I’ll go next. I thought it was very well done. I think probably the reason that it was made was because animated films have a limited audience because a, there are quite a number of people, they’re like, oh, it’s animated, so it’s for kids.

And that’s just still the way we think. Even though we’ve gone through The Simpsons and all sorts of other shows now, it’s not actually true. It’s not actually true. We still treat it that way. Yeah, we still have a limit to it. So I think it was to broaden the audience, uh, for this beloved classic. It is 15 years old, which means that teenagers have only watched it, you know, on Blu-ray or streaming.

They never went to the theater to see it. And so if you happen to be. 10 or 12 when you saw the animated version, you know, now you’re an adult. And going back to see the, uh, live action makes sense. I think they were able to broaden the scope of, um, of some of the action. I think that some of the action couldn’t be done quite the same because in the animated film, you know, some of the, the bad things that happen during training and things like that, um, can’t happen because if you’re talking about real people, uh, they would suffer, they would suffer more harm.

So I think there’s there those changes, but those are just small things. I think they tried to, um, to increase some of the humanness of the characters in the, in the new live action film. So I think it was, I think it was good. Why, to broaden the audience, make a little more money. Did it need to be done? I haven’t watched the original in years, so maybe it did.

Maybe it’s a, you know, it’s a reminder. It’s like, hey, this was beloved and now it’s old enough that if we make a new one, people are like, oh yeah, I love that. So 

[00:14:54] Rebekah: yeah, I think we’re, at this point, we’re at a kind of a weird point ’cause like a lot of films that are, were classics in their day or you know, were really popular at the time, but obviously over time people just wanna look for the new thing.

A lot of those for a time you could remaster them and you’d make them like HD put it in 4K, like you can remaster them and have something that’s like a worthwhile reason to re-release it. Like for a limited theater run or whatever. This is not that, like the 2010 version. I just watched it, uh, you know, this week and it’s absolutely like beautiful and it’s in full 4K and it’s not like, there was no need to do anything with that.

So I’m like on the fence here because. In one way, this was like a perfect experience for me. I went into a movie that I know the ending. I don’t have to be sad about any of the terrible things that happen or seem like they’re happening because I can just like experience the whole story. I know that it ends up good.

So I’m not like concerned about that. I love, this is like one of my top five movies, so when I give people like a list of movies, I break it down by like, you know, genre or like I have animated is kind of on it and like this and Inside Out are like two of the like my favorite animated movies of all time.

So I have watched this movie several times over, but to be totally fair, I haven’t watched it in like five or six years either. So that’s probably very fair. I, I loved the theater experience. Like I said, it was such a good. I don’t know. The music is so beautiful. The story is so touching. We went to see it with Nathan and he’s like, I’m gonna cry.

Like I love this too. The only like, just to clarify, for those of those, those of you listening that are curious, the movie is not exactly shot for shot remake, but it is basically seen for scene. There are. Probably about 85% of the dialogue and stuff is all the same. They add a few extra lines. I think they add like one, the only brief scene I noticed they added was to, to explain and, we’ll I mentioned this later, but is to explain why the Vikings do not all look like Vikings.

And a lot of them are like, um, black or Asian characters. And so there’s a little bit of that where they kind of diversify the cast. That was not in the, um, animated film that way. And then there’s a little bit more from Astrid, which I also have mentioned in the notes later. And then they did take out the one scene where on Hiccups first, like successful Ride on Toothless, uh, toothless, like blows some fire and uh, hiccup rides through it.

And he’s got all the soot on his face and he lands on this little island. And it’s the scene where he figures out the little, uh, annoying dragon is trying to steal food from Toothless and Toothless, like breathes fire into his mouth. And I think Hiccup says like, oh, you’re not so fireproof on the inside, are you?

So that’s like really the only major difference there. Like, you know, you’ve mentioned like there’s a couple of things that also had to be changed just because they’re doing live action, but I like, it was hard, like it was such a good experience, but if I’m being honest, I think that they’re just doing it because.

They release a or they opened a new theme park with a How to Train Your Dragon area. It’s 15 years after the first movie was released and it’s like, okay, cool. Dragons are cool. How do you get more people interested in the theme park? Well, you release more movies and, you know, I, I don’t know, it’s just hard ’cause there’s, you could do so much interesting work with this universe, but at the same time, toothless and hiccup are what people love about it.

So I’m very on the fence. I enjoyed it. It was really well done. You could absolutely tell that they weren’t trying to botch the source material from the animated film. Um, and I liked it, but. It was definitely like such a, I like, I don’t know, it feels a little like a cash grab and that part kind of bugs me a little.

So. 

[00:18:31] Donna: So a hundred where I’m a $50 million marketing campaign. 

[00:18:34] Rebekah: Yeah, I mean like you really wanted people to come to the theme park. You know, there’s also a new Mario and Donkey Kong world and there’s a new Donkey Kong game coming out, and I would bet you that there’s gonna be more Mario stuff coming out because of the success of Super Mario Brothers.

I wouldn’t be surprised for the next, I think you better be 

[00:18:51] TJ: coming out before holiday. 

[00:18:53] Rebekah: I hope so. I don’t know. Has it been announced? Yeah, when you come in July, I’ll have to show you guys the script too. Honestly. One 

[00:18:58] TJ: came out the first year of the switch. 

[00:18:59] Rebekah: Holy cannoli. 

[00:19:01] TJ: Yeah. Dang. 

[00:19:01] Rebekah: Alright, so, so what did you think thought on 

[00:19:04] TJ: the live action film?

Yeah, it was a cash grab. The dragons were still cartoons. Like they weren’t much less cartoonish than in the cartoon that, you know, after seeing Game of Thrones, making dragons look like they belonged in our physical world. You know, and I know it, it was expensive, but to see these dragons that didn’t feel like they followed our real world physics mm-hmm.

With their body shapes and, and, and movements. 

[00:19:32] Rebekah: But they did have skin texture. Yeah. Look at their eyes. 

[00:19:34] TJ: The eyes are the portal through which the audience experiences character arcs and therefore story. And if the eyes are cartoonish, the character’s cartoonish. So yeah, it was beautiful. I cried. I, yeah, they, we as a people are not punishing studios for.

Practicing these cash grabs, so they’re gonna keep doing them. And so it’s hard for me to complain, but it’s hard for me to not complain. 

[00:20:01] Donna: Isn’t it funny how we all know what happened? We all realize what’s going on, but we all still had a positive feeling about the film. Like it’s like, you wanna go in and go, why are you doing this?

You’re just getting blob. You know? But I think 

[00:20:14] TIM: one of the positive things though, about this film, especially as opposed to other animated things that have been made into live action, this one was very faithful to the original that was so well loved. The original they didn’t the The original book. Yeah.

The original animated movie, which was what fans, fans were mostly concerned about, right. And it was so faithful to that, that, that honored that fan base. Yeah. Uh, several other things recently have not. They’ve said, Hey, let’s make something completely different. ’cause I mean, that was garbage, right?

Everybody loved it. But, you know, 

[00:20:53] Rebekah: I’m grateful for that. I just don’t really understand, I guess this is kind of my closing thought here. I don’t really get the point of why we are doing these live action things. Mm-hmm. Like, other than the cash grab thing, it’s, why is this interesting? Like, animation is so much even more creative and better than it ever could have been.

I’m excited about Elio Capitalism. 

[00:21:11] TJ: Maybe 

[00:21:12] Rebekah: Elio looks like it’s gonna be really fun. So like, I’m excited about that. 

[00:21:16] Donna: I will also say this, I think the four of us, I’m, I don’t wanna speak for you. If I say this and you disagree, tell me. I think the four of us probably also liked it more, even knowing what it is because the, one of the.

See themes all the way through was the importance of a father in a child’s life. Yeah. And how these fathers like snot loud and hiccups fathers both had issues with their sons. Somehow this story, Dean Deloy, go for him doing this ’cause it’s not, this isn’t easy. They showed a father recognizing they need to be proud of who their son is.

You know, for who he is, not for who he wants him to be, but they didn’t make the dad look stupid. Yeah. The dads came out looking like, okay, I need to think differently about this. Like, they didn’t 

[00:22:07] Rebekah: make every decision perfectly right. But they weren’t just morons, but they 

[00:22:10] TIM: didn’t make them morons. Well, real people aren’t perfect.

Right. They’re not just stupid. Yeah. It’s not 

[00:22:16] Donna: the, I would call it the Nickelodeon or Disney, unfortunately, their brand of parenting parents are just stupid and children just have to children know best. Yeah. Navigate around them. And this didn’t do that. And so I, I kind of think that’s another reason we probably all felt positive about it.

So it’s just a thought. I, 

[00:22:34] TIM: I think it probably has the same general theme as what you were talking about, Rebecca, when, when they remaster another one and release it for a short bit in the, in the theater, it’s really to get. That IP in front of people’s faces. Again, 

[00:22:48] Rebekah: I do wanna watch the other animated films now.

[00:22:51] TIM: Yeah, like, I wanna 

[00:22:51] Rebekah: go back and watch those this week. So, 

[00:22:53] Donna: hey. Um, okay. As we get into differences, I just wanna point out this a uh, this last Thursday, two days ago of the time of this recording, at 2:47 PM we got a group text from Rebecca and she said, is anyone else deeply confused by the plot of how to train your dragon?

Also, did everyone get your tickets? You know, are we prepared? And TJ’s like, uh, the book is quite different than I expected. We, I said so different. We’re seeing it tomorrow. We all, I think we must have all done, uh, had that same thing in tandem because I kept reading the book going, maybe I need to read the, it was like a align.

Should I watch? Did I really forget this much of it? What? 

[00:23:33] Rebekah: Yeah, it’ll align. Well, the funny thing is I watched the, uh, animated film like halfway through my read of the book. I watched the animated film on Monday and I was like almost halfway through the book and I kept thinking maybe it’ll align somewhere.

And when I texted you guys, I was like on the last like 20 minutes of the audio book and I was so confused. So we’re gonna talk about setting characters and plot timeline, uh, differences. But just keep in mind like these, a lot of these are probably like not gonna be big discussion points ’cause they’re so different.

So. Why don’t we get started with setting changes first? 

[00:24:07] TJ: Well, you know, hiccup, he mentions in the film that dragons are constantly destroying the village buildings. They must be rebuilt in the book. Dragons are present as pets to be yelled at, but also a distant danger, if not domesticated, but it doesn’t seem like they’re attacking the village.

[00:24:23] Rebekah: Yeah. That was the first thing that threw me off. So at the very beginning of the book, I was like, all right, this is different. 

[00:24:27] TIM: Yes. Well, in the book and both films, the Aisle of Burke is a Viking island where dragons play a major part. However, things diverge from here. The animated film mentions that it’s freezing and raining.

Most of the time. The book seems to have a more temperate climate perhaps, and in the live action film, the weather seems to be quite mild. 

[00:24:46] Rebekah: Yeah, I also thought that was interesting ’cause in the film he literally mentions in the animated film, I think that it’s. Freezing all the time, and then it isn’t freezing all the time.

So that is one of the slight inconsistencies in that. 

[00:24:58] TIM: I thought that in the book there was, there was a little more of that there seasons when it’s cold and then it’s colder kind of thing. 

[00:25:05] Rebekah: Yeah. Well I may have been wrong there then. Uh, the live action film portrays the Islanders as groups from various tribes throughout the world, rather than simply the tribe of Burke itself.

This seems to be why the live action characters span across many cultural heritages. They aren’t actually all from this place. And like Stoic the vast mentions this and talks to kind of the sub leaders of these different tribes. Um, and in the book of an animated film, they’re basically all the same.

They look the same, et cetera. Okay, so let’s talk about differences in characters from book to film specifically, we’re kind of getting into characters in the mm-hmm. Live action. So what about the things that changed from book to film? 

[00:25:45] TJ: Craziest change for me. Dragons talk in the book. 

[00:25:51] Rebekah: Yeah. 

[00:25:52] TJ: Quite a lot.

That was, I had not seen the animated film, although I love the animated film. I had not seen it for many years, so it was actually probably the best way to go into the book. 

Yeah. Is 

[00:26:04] TJ: so, so you’re not, you don’t have too many preconceived notions. 

Yeah. Mm-hmm. 

[00:26:09] TJ: But then a few chapters in, whenever he finds Toothless and Toothless starts talking, I was shook.

Oh 

[00:26:16] Rebekah: mm. Okay. If I ever have a bone to pick with David Teon, it’s the horrible voice he chose for Toothless. Toothless is like literally one of the best characters in the whole book. It’s written that way. Well, at least in the film. Mm-hmm. I don’t know in the book, but his voice for him was like this, it was very stupid.

Like it was, I can’t do it, but like it just made him sound stupid and. Annoying. Annoying. Like I, I, every time he talked I was like, please stop talking. Please stop talking. Please stop talking, talking. It was so weird. 

[00:26:48] TJ: But yeah, Jenny Nicholson talks about in Land before Time, she reviewed the whole series.

She talks about this trope that she hates of kid characters in kid media. They’re often portrayed as especially annoying with a big baby voice. Mm-hmm. And she hates that trope. And I, I was getting a little bit of that from all kind of all the dragons. But you know, toothless is the main dragon who speaks throughout the book.

[00:27:15] Rebekah: It is very interesting ’cause he talks to them in dragon knees. And so it’s not like the other people are able to understand what’s happening. But he learns that like hiccup learns that Toothless enjoys jokes more than anything else. And he like is gonna tell him jokes, whatever, it doesn’t even matter.

Mm-hmm. But it was completely like weird. ’cause he also talks to the really big dragon at the, like, one of the dragons at the end of the story that’s like gonna kill him. And it, that it just, it was weird. 

[00:27:43] TJ: Yeah. It, I think that more than anything else that changed the entire concept and tone of the story.

Uh, as opposed to where the, in the movie, I don’t know when to talk about it besides now, but the movie, I think one of the best parts of the film is how much show don’t tell. There is 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The 

[00:28:03] TJ: dragons don’t speak. You have to interpret Hick, uh, uh, toothless as character based on toothless expressions and actions and, and just as words.

Yes. Right. 

[00:28:14] Donna: And all of them then as, as the teens had to interact with them. I agree with you. The, the lack of speech I was, I a hundred percent thought I liked it better that they had to figure those things out without 

[00:28:28] TIM: speech. Like Narnia and the Lord of the Rings. You have to decide if you want animals to talk and how realistic you think that can be or how fantastical and mm-hmm.

Childish it sounds. Mm-hmm. Um, I disagree, I disagree with Rebecca. I, I don’t like Toothless in the book. I think he’s just rotten. I, I think he has, is what I, I’m saying no redeeming character. He is wonderful in the, he was brave at the end. He’s wonderful in the films, in the book. I think he’s just annoying.

He’s a huge let down the book 90% of the time. He’s just not, I, I 

[00:29:05] Rebekah: think I was trying to say he’s meant to be one of the best characters in the book. I don’t actually think that he is. 

[00:29:11] TIM: That’s what, that’s what I wonder though. The book seems like Hiccup is the primary character, and Toothless is also there in the films.

Toothless becomes a primary character, right. Along with Hiccup. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I, I think that’s a, a big change from the book to, I mean, toothless 

[00:29:29] Donna: changes his life, right? Like he, he changes who he is and who he thinks about himself and all that. 

[00:29:34] TIM: Yeah. In the books, it’s, it’s not that consequential till the very end, but 

[00:29:39] TJ: I think, I mean, I, I guess I shouldn’t spoil it, but I think the film is better, but the book, I, I don’t hate that the Dragons talk.

Mm-hmm. It would have made the film worse, but for a different story. This is the, the book is like middle grade. It’s meant for a younger audience than definitely a film. Yeah. In my app it says juvenile. Yeah. And there were like, there was potty humor. I was like, yeah, this is funny. This is like middle grade, good humor.

It’s just not as effective as the film was. 

[00:30:07] Rebekah: I think it’s interesting ’cause we’ve now covered two other middle grades, which are Wild Robot and, um, and Narnia. Like, we’re working on Narnia as our next set of episode. We did Artis 

[00:30:16] TJ: Fowl too. 

[00:30:17] Rebekah: Oh, we did Artemis Foul and I think in all cases, but this one, the, they’ve been middle grade that like an adult could enjoy.

It’s just mm-hmm. A little less complex. Mm-hmm. And like very simple pros and stuff. This is the first one I’ve read that I’m like, what’s the level under middle grade where it’s like a little younger? It’s a little less. Like enjoyable for adults. ’cause I would not read. It’s, you know what I mean? It’s, it’s 

[00:30:37] TIM: not early reader, but, but yeah, it’s not quite, 

[00:30:39] Rebekah: there’s like a weird middle ground here that I think it fits into.

So, but you could get, still get away with Breast Hat? No. In the movie. You got away with that. 

[00:30:47] Donna: I don’t think it would’ve fit in the book. I No, I agree with, I agree with you. Yeah. I was thinking of the movie. Yeah. Um, so the movies show us mixed genders in Hiccups class of, you know, burgeoning Dragon Slayers.

Whereas the book mentions 10 boys, which would be more in line with a Viking timeline. Ooh. 

[00:31:11] TJ: Yeah. Girl Power, please. Yeah. Uh, I was, I only go see movies. I was 

[00:31:16] Donna: okay. I was okay with the, with the mixed genders because while they didn’t make the girls super girly and silly, they made them tough. I still felt like the girls and the boys reacted well with each other.

I didn’t feel like it was some contrived, weird thing. A little bit of trivia here, how To Train Your Dragon was the first Dreamworks feature film that featured a teenage protagonist. It was like 

[00:31:46] TJ: 15 years of making animated films. Mm-hmm. And never once had, they had also a protagonist that was probably the age of their intended viewers.

[00:31:55] Donna: Uh, this is also, and, uh, I’ll take a little trivia from our, our last section. This is also Dreamworks first live action remake an adaptation from a feature. No. It’s the first one they’ve done. More people 

[00:32:10] TJ: are, yeah, it’s, they’re being inspired by the wrong things. Uh, 

[00:32:15] Donna: maybe, but maybe they’re saying, could we do this better?

I don’t know. That’s, that’s hopeful 

[00:32:20] TIM: isn’t, it’s, we, Nick tj, can we do that and make more money? That’s, that’s the bottom one. Cynical 

[00:32:27] TJ: is 

[00:32:27] TIM: Josiah. Yes. No, 

[00:32:28] TJ: no, no, no, no, no, no. That’s just the real, that is what every single person at Dreamworks, and it is capital, every company. I don’t doubting it’s capital. I doubt that you’re completely, they have to think 

[00:32:39] TIM: or else they don’t exist.

No, I get it. Well, their job is based on, you know, how much money we can make, not. How beautiful a job we can do that nobody watches, you know? Yeah. 

[00:32:48] TJ: I think it was Michael Eisner in the eighties. He was in charge of Disney for a few decades. Mm-hmm. And he, it was, I think Lindsay Ellis said it was the most eighties thing she’d ever read.

Like we, uh, we are not in the movie business to make good movies. We’re in it to make a profit, but in the quest to make a profit, we will coincidentally also have to make good movies. Wow. Mm-hmm. 

[00:33:12] TIM: Interesting 

[00:33:13] TJ: motivations. 

[00:33:14] TIM: Well, in the films, fish Legs is the more nerdy of the class and loves to quote Dragon Statistics.

I have a little bit more on that in a moment. Uh, this is also true in the books, but he’s also close friends with Hiccup in the books. There’s no real indication in the movie that he considers himself more of a friend to Hiccup than anyone else. The things that he quotes sound like Dungeons and Dragons.

[00:33:38] Rebekah: They’re definitely like d and d or video game stats, which I loved 

[00:33:42] TIM: it. It really sounds like that, you know? ’cause it’s a power. This power of 10, this, there’s so much of that in there. It had to be written by someone that is into d and d, and this was a tongue in cheek reference to all of that. 

[00:33:57] Rebekah: As someone who’s a big fan of the lit RPG genre, that does like interest me.

I think that’s a lot of fun. And 2010 

[00:34:04] TJ: was before d and d had a resurgence. Mm-hmm. Popularity. Yeah. 

[00:34:09] Rebekah: It also, you could also call it like video game stats and stuff. It definitely also has that feel of like RPG video games. I think, uh, another one of the students Snot Loud is Hiccups cousin in the book, and he’s also a lot ruler to Hiccup in the book than we see him be in the movie.

In the film he’s kind of rude and then like as soon as Hiccup starts doing a good job, he comes around the snot loud of the book is like just a jerk. The whole time in the animated film, he obviously has like a thing for Astrid and tries to woo her in the live action. That is also true, but the biggest thing that differentiates him is that he also has this very, very minor subplot where he keeps trying to impress his.

Father and his father like finally worries about him near the end, like big fighting scene with the big dragon. And so like you see him really want, he’s like, dad, I’ll get your bag for you. He was like, dad, where’d you go dad? It’s kind of silly. At the end he said, don’t talk to me in public end. Yeah. He don’t talk to me in public.

And then at the end, his dad is like worried that he’s gonna be in danger and he’s proud of him for helping save the tribe. So he does get a little subplot 

[00:35:08] Donna: when he looks up and sees him on the dragon in the air. I burst in, I just melted into a big puddle of tears. Beautiful. I thought that was. It was amazing.

And kudos to him because I’m so used to seeing him in goofy British stuff. Like, um, tj, what’s the police, dumb police movie that we’ve watched, uh, with him and Simon Pegs in it and Thin Blue Lines. That’s the movie. The movie What? I get what you’re meant. Hot fuzz. Hot Fuz. I love it. Yeah. When I see these guys and then I see them in a serious role and they pull it off, I’m like, oh, am I serious?

Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. Okay. So 

[00:35:48] TJ: the actor who played snot Lau’s dad, I love this guy. He’s in the most random crap. He’s the voice. Yes. He’s the voice of Darth Mall. 

What? 

[00:35:59] TJ: Really? That is 

[00:36:00] Donna: so random. It’s so random. He and Gabber both do a lot of secondary Yeah. Characters in all was the cross, right? All kinds of stuff.

Yes. Yes. So then we move on to our female little, um, semi love triangle, uh, character, calling it the triangle’s. 

[00:36:19] Rebekah: Very generous. Uh, to snot, loud 

[00:36:22] Donna: snot. He tries so hard. She realizes he exists, 

but that’s not it. 

[00:36:25] Donna: He tries so hard. Astrid who is hiccups love interest in the films is not in the. In the book, in their class.

The, the class is all boys. Like we said before. She also has a tad more screen time in the live action film and she expresses more of her desire to one day become Chief of Burke or Chiefess. The love story angle between her and Hiccup is also more pronounced from the first scene in the live action film than in the animated version.

At first I looked at her and thought, did they scrunch up Zeniah’s face and make this the same person? 

[00:37:04] TJ: Okay. I didn’t wanna mention it, but she is, and she did a great job. Oh my gosh. And she’s gonna be a successful actress, but she is currently discount Zenday. 

[00:37:13] Rebekah: Oh, I hate that she did. So it, because 

[00:37:16] TJ: I think, I think she’s gonna be a good actor in her own right.

But I do think that for. As of right now, she’s discount Zendaya. 

[00:37:24] TIM: Well, there was a whole thing I was gonna say about the Ty Titanic. The reason that the actress that played the lead, the lead female. Mm-hmm. The reason that she didn’t get an award, uh, or even nominated for one, they, or. ’cause a lot of people said any one of a number of different young actresses could have played that role Well and then she, their whole, their whole thing went on to become insanely Well, the whole thing was it was a successful Yeah, yeah.

But they were, they were saying, you know, she’s just one of a dozen, you know, interchangeable female. The nineties is crazy. So the nineties is a crazy time. 

[00:37:59] Rebekah: I don’t know if this is a hot take, but one of the things that I thought about watching this, the live action yesterday, was that Astrid. Is not the like classically beautiful kind of person that you would just look at and be like, oh, she’s meant to be the main love interest.

Mm-hmm. And I loved her. Like I loved that she looked, I’m not gonna say like a normal person, obviously she was dressed like a Viking. Her hair was really cool and all that. And also 

[00:38:22] TJ: all actresses are beautiful, right? 

[00:38:24] Rebekah: And so she is beautiful. But I appreciated that they didn’t just pick somebody who was like, like, do you know what I mean?

Like somebody that’s not just like on a magazine, the magazine cover, like bathing suit model. She looked like a beautiful, I think without the Viking interesting person hair and 

[00:38:39] TJ: costume. Yeah, she probably would be on a magazine cover. But yes, they. They wanted to make her look tough, which I appreciate.

[00:38:45] Rebekah: But she also had a couple of extra lines that I thought were interesting. They really made the love interesting happen more quickly, because in the first scene there’s something that’s said that’s not in the animated and the lines right before Hiccup goes out where he’s supposed to quote unquote, kill his dragon.

Instead of him saying like, protect hiccup or something, he says something different. And then she’s like, I’m, I’m gonna stand by you, or something like that, and like basically commits herself to be there for him. Yeah. Which I thought was also an interesting change 

[00:39:13] Donna: since we’re talking, since I mentioned that lookalike uh, comparison with, um, her and Zendaya hiccup looks exactly like.

Helen Hunt, the actress. What? He looked so much like Helen Hunt. Hold on. I went and looked up weather the first tornado. I went and looked up the first tornado movie, twist, some weather disaster twist. I, I went and looked up to make sure he was not her son and he’s not. 

[00:39:40] TJ: Oh yeah, her. He was not. Yeah, he was not sure.

Helen wasn’t hunt playing. No. Or make sure it wasn’t her son 

[00:39:47] Donna: playing the part, but he’s not. And I was like, God, you look so much like Helen Hunt. And I just, it was fine. It didn’t take me out of the suspension of disbelief. But, uh, that’s, I think halfway through, I looked halfway through the movie. I looked at your dad and goes, Helen Hunt.

It’s hell. He looks like hell. Sorry. 

[00:40:06] TIM: And then, and then there was a closeup of him and he was speaking and as his lips moved, I thought Tim was like, oh, that, that’s Helen Hunt’s lips. I mean he, there is a lot of similarity there. We need to ask Dumb has nothing. I need to ask his dad 

[00:40:18] Donna: if there 

[00:40:19] Rebekah: might have been, I can see, oh, she’s a great aunt or something.

I dunno. I can see the reflection Josiah’s glasses as he’s feverishly searching for pictures and things of them. 

[00:40:28] TJ: Uh, by the way, Mason Thas hiccups actor is currently 17. 

[00:40:34] Rebekah: Oh wow. I love that. They don’t go with like an adult, adult and then just try, try to de-age ’em. 

[00:40:39] TIM: He’s 28 and I feel like 

[00:40:41] TJ: they usually do, let’s play 16-year-old.

Yeah, yeah. Like, uh, like Astros Actors 20, which I feel like is, is Normaler. 

[00:40:48] TIM: Yeah. Well, in the book there are no twins in the class named Rough Nut and Tough Nut. Oh. Uh, however, tough Nut Jr. Is a minor character with no lines in the book as part of the class of novice Vikings. Wow. So shout out, what did you think about the, the twins?

In the live action version. I 

[00:41:11] Rebekah: thought this was fun. I thought that this was one of the things I really liked about the live action probably, was that she got a little more personality, rough nut and tough nut in the animated film, or just kind of like copies of one another. One’s just a girl in the B in the movie, like the I saw yesterday.

I thought that was really interesting that they tried to give her a little bit more of like, I’m a girl who wants to be accepted. First of all, it was hilarious in the live action where they were like, they have failed this class five times or whatever, and they were like a little older. And then Rough Nut is constantly going around trying to make Astrid her bestie and like Astrid could not care less because all she wants to do is win.

Like the ability to kill the dragon. It’s just so funny. But I thought that was really cute. Okay. 

[00:41:51] TJ: It was a joke that they had failed the class like four or five times. Mm-hmm. Or whatever. Mm-hmm. And I thought that was funny. But then I had that in the back of my mind whenever they were revealing, what’s it called?

The, the final exam, whatever. The final exam is it called initially That’s in the book. They’re just like one. One person gets to do it every year out of like, what, five season? I don’t think that means that’s the, the only person who 

[00:42:11] Rebekah: passes every year. Like I think it’s just like the person who kind of wins.

Oh. Like top the class. 

[00:42:17] TJ: So the award, it’s dic. I like Does only one person get passed? I think it would be normal to fail five times before you get accepted. 

[00:42:25] Rebekah: We’ve got three quick, uh, lightning round character things. 

[00:42:28] TJ: Gober for whom Hiccup was an apprentice in the film is only their teacher in the book, 

[00:42:33] Rebekah: in the films as a franchise.

Hiccups. Mother Ulca has been presumed dead for a long time. In the first film, STO a can’s hiccup, a hat made from half her breast plate, which is the infamous breast hat, one of the best lines. In the second film, we learned that she’s actually alive and living in secret. She was carried off the island but not killed in the book.

This threw me off. Whoa. I know. Sorry. I told you there’d be spoilers in the book. Hiccups Mother, this time named Val is just his mother. She lives there at the house. She’s present in several of the books in the series and nothing particularly interesting has happened to her. 

[00:43:12] TJ: What did she play? Fez in that seventies show.

Oh, look up his name. 

[00:43:17] Donna: I specifically remember last night. In the live action I specifically remember, thought about when Stoic said they took away your mother. He does not say they killed her. Mm-hmm. Setting up for a second. And I, in, you know, in my head I just had thought, oh yeah, gonna make the second 

one.

Uh, 

[00:43:37] Donna: let’s don’t, don’t jump to trivia just yet, sir. Well, something else that I found funny, uh, both films. Have an elder shaman type figure in the book. It’s the sooth saying Elder old wrinkly In the film, it’s an elder named GHI who communicates only in Jesters and the use of the abacus, which I found kind of interesting.

And until her like third showing in the film, I thought she was Don French. And then it was like, oh, that’s eh, that’s not down. Don French Elder Old Wrinkley is also a book. I thought she was kind of prebook Be, 

[00:44:14] Rebekah: you know, a boy. He’s a man. He’s an old man. Mm. But elder 

[00:44:18] Donna: old boy, wrinkley Betty Boy, dog. Yeah.

Got it. 

[00:44:22] Rebekah: Also, I, that reminds me, but like in the book, the, like, the following and like the religion around Thor is a lot more pronounced. Like they, it’s a kind of a side thing that’s mentioned on occasion in the movies, but I did think it was interesting ’cause they like, Thor like, you know, speaks to them from like lightning and thunder a little bit from afar.

Like it was a little bit more. Of a focus just a tad. 

[00:44:45] Donna: And my, and my episode name does reflect that Reina priestess of thunder. So I’m just wanting to throw that out. Mm-hmm. There were just a couple of mentions out there, thank Thor. But I did think today that our names are especially cool. So let me just read them to you.

Uh, Rebecca is, pick up the best. Aw, Tim is Rock Pit. Dragon Dock. Oh, Josiah is sneeze. The useful phantom of the opera. The best.

And I’m, and you Butler was fan 

[00:45:18] TJ: of the opera. 

[00:45:18] Donna: Yes. And I’m Sena Priestess of Thunder. Thought that was pretty cool. All right. What’s our last little change here in characterization? 

[00:45:26] TJ: You know, in the film, toothless is a Night Fury, one of the most. Mysterious Dragons who has never been seen by anyone who lived to tell about it.

This defines much of his role when he is exposed as hiccups. Pet in the book, toothless is a common or, or garden dragon, one of the most typical of species in, uh, later books though. Here’s a spoiler alert for the book series. He is actually found to be a Young Sea Dragons j. Ganus Maximus, like the huge ones.

He and hiccup defeat in book one. 

[00:46:02] Rebekah: I did think that was very annoying. Like in the book, I was like, okay, so he’s not special, so he’s just the lamest version. Like they were like, oh, he’s so tiny when we, he’s about the least special possible. And then I was like, oh, he’s, he’s literally just boring. So I did at least appreciate that it was a setup for later, but 

[00:46:21] TIM: yeah.

Mm. Well, there are some changes in the plot and timeline as well. The major conceit of the film is that Hiccups father leads their Viking tribe in avoiding and fighting the dragons that surround their island, and hiccup with his dragon Toothless reveals that all dragons actually aren’t that bad. In the book, the story focuses on how the young Viking students must first capture and train their own dragon to be considered members of the tribe.

If they fail to do so, they will be exiled. These are the Harry Hooligan, novice Vikings. 

[00:46:54] Rebekah: I think it’s probably because I didn’t read the book first. Obviously I watched the movie like way long ago when it first came out. I really like the way that the movie set this up. Like I felt like it was just a stronger story that they hated the dragons, that they were trying to kill the dragons, all the stuff, and then the dragons were good in the book.

It felt like it was a halfway story. It’s like we train them and they’re, they’re like, mean and hurt us sometimes, but we don’t like hate them. We just yell at them like it just felt halfway. It was a lot less balanced. 

[00:47:28] TJ: Yeah. In the movie, I think maybe I’m, maybe what you’re thinking about is how the Dragons and the Vikings hurt one another, whereas in the book it was, oh, the Vikings have enslaved an intelligent species.

Mm-hmm. It’s very much like, oh, okay, so instead of like both sides are wrong and they can get along. It’s like, no, the Vikings are wrong and the dragons are the underdog. 

[00:47:53] Donna: Yeah, and I think the conflict of them having to kill the dragons in the film, I thought that was smart of dub delo to change it up like that because there was a little more, um, a little more, a little more seriousness of the conflict than just more consequence.

You need to train them, you need to train one and you need to learn whatever. There’s more consequence. And also I did think it was a great line between Stoic and Hiccup when he said they’ve killed hundreds of the US and Hiccup said, we’ve killed thousands of them. And so I felt like the, the using that, building that conflict and then finding that there was a, a place where they could come together, I thought was, was pretty cool.

’cause there still was ultimately a horrible dragon that they needed to defeat. So it’s not just saying, oh, we’re just the bad humans and they’re the good dragons. They recognize that they could come to a, a. A community that line of, 

[00:48:51] Rebekah: like we’ve killed thousands of them was also, I think, delivered better in the live action than the cartoon in the animated.

He’s like, and we’ve killed thousands of them. And in the, um, in the live action he like, and we’ve killed thousands of like, he like loses it at this point and it’s like this big emotional outburst. Mm-hmm. And I thought it was a really powerful moment. It is powerful. Like more so the, so in the book, after the students capture their sleeping dragons, which is like the first part of their dragon training, the dragons fall back asleep because they’re in the middle of a hibernation cycle.

That’s why they were able to steal them basically from the nest, which is also interesting ’cause they find, they know where the nest is. It’s, that’s like not a thing in the book. The students then have four months to train their dragons for initiation day, showing that they’ve trained them to catch fish and follow their commands.

If they, 

[00:49:36] TJ: is that Thor Thursday? Yes. Thursday, Thursday. Yeah, 

[00:49:40] Rebekah: Thursday. Thursday. If they can pass that initiation, they become full hooligans of Burke. The film shows the students adopting dragons in a way, but only in like the emergency. As the warriors of the tribe led by stoic all leave to face their doom to face that huge queen dragon and only, um, hiccup and Astrid know what a dangerous situation it is.

And they, you know, they have to kind of do this at the last minute. And there’s more of that where they get to know their dragons and things in subsequent, uh, movies. They’re more concerned during regular training with knowing how to defeat dragons. They’re not trying to train them in that way. The funniest part is that, so they have, the books title is more accurate to the book plot.

Using the same title for the movie actually makes it slightly more inaccurate. 

[00:50:21] Donna: Yeah. And so at the end, what you’re saying is they had a big dragon queen show. Wow. Sorry. I could not say, say that. I’m sorry. Dragon Queen Dragons. Dragon. Dragon. I did it just, you know, flew out of me. But we’re gonna go on now quickly.

The book repeatedly ponders whether or not hiccup will be suited to take on his mantle of leading the tribe as an adult. And it does. Yes, it’s a constant theme through there as the son of the Chief, he’s in line to be the next chief. This isn’t really featured in the original animated film at all, although there’s a, a small amount of dialogue in the live action version suggesting that hiccup is the assumed next chief.

Though Hiccup could care less about carrying on the title. Yeah. I think it was more of you’re the chief son and you get preference more than you heard the, you’re gonna, you’re gonna be the next chief. You’re not gonna be my chief. That kind of thing. 

[00:51:19] TJ: Astrid, I thought it was interesting also when she said, I’ve got my eyes on your dad’s house, as if it were mm-hmm.

The Chief’s house and not their personal property and Hiccup says, sure. Have it. You’d be great at it. And that’s one of Astrid’s first. Yeah. Changes in her character of like, oh, he’s not, he is not my competitor towards being chief. Well, you know How To Train Your Dragon is actually a book featured within the book.

That we read. Is it? Yes. Yes. Well, to call it a book is probably a little overstating it. I did Me Too. Laugh at this part. This is one of my favorite parts of the book. Yeah. The book, how to Train Your Dragon is a single page with a single sentence. Yell at it. Yell at it. The The film also features a book, but in this case it’s the Book of Dragons and Details.

All of the d and d stats and attacks and powers of the dragons that the people of Burke have amassed. It’s kind of a plot point. Mm-hmm. That there’s nothing on The Night Fury, which is toothless as Race. The Dragon Manual is the similar work mentioned later in the book series, and it does seem as though Fish Legs has read it when he quotes stats and facts.

[00:52:29] TIM: There are also massive dragons in both the book and film, but the book features two real sea dragons, which everyone knows to be formidable eaters of men and describes them as the size of mountains. So, I mean, we’re, we’re talking big, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The film reveals its huge dragon as the hidden reason why all of the other small dragons keep attacking the town and stealing their food.

She’s a queen who requires payment for from her worker dragons or their own life, and she’ll take either, 

[00:53:03] Donna: uh, in the book competition, the boys must prove themselves as successful dragon trainers. In some ways, this is similar to the big event in the movie where hiccup must kill a captured dragon film.

Novices do learn how to avoid confuse and attack dragons in training, and then later they end up learning how to train and. Which is kind of nifty. Um. I like that he didn’t have to show every one of them getting on their dragon. Yeah. I thought that was a cool, you know, show and not tell you see him help, help the last one and then you see them all sitting there.

I thought some of those were intelligent. Yeah. Uh, smart Decisions, um, to, you know, they did add a half hour to the book or to the, to the, uh, animated film rather. So I thought that that was a, a thing they could have drug out but didn’t need to. So 

[00:54:02] Rebekah: as we like wrap up the book plot in both the book and film.

Face off against a massive dragon or the students I guess in the film’s case. But the similarities even here, are super limited in the book. It’s just like two massive dragons fighting each other. Um, hiccup talks to one and he’s going to kill him. And there’s this whole ordeal going on here basically hiccup and toothless, like figure out how to defeat the big dragons because they’re fighting each other, yada yada.

And Toothless has one brief but brave moment in which he ends up saving hiccup. So that part that is kind of like a very small similarity. The film has an extended scene where Brave Toothless, who is pretty much always brave and hiccup, come to the rescue of the entire tribe with the help of the other students.

So again, I’m trying, I was trying to pull like what is actually similar between both, but that was as similar as they could have gotten with that based on the plot. 

[00:54:53] TJ: I think it’s interesting that both book and film kind of have the big dragon, final boss. Internally combust on his own mm-hmm. In, uh, combusted gases.

Hmm. So, in the book, I believe that he internally combusts because Hiccup has plugged his fire starters. Whereas in the movie, toothless shoots a fireball into. The big dragon’s mouth whenever he’s filling it with the fire gas. So I thought it was interesting that they did both internally combust for different reasons.

I wonder if they like tried to, funnily enough, the live action takes out the lines 

[00:55:36] Rebekah: about them not being fireproof on the inside and in the live action. I felt like it was less about them internally combusting and more, it felt a little more about, this is like basically just one of the distractions as we’re gonna make you crash into your face.

Like, ’cause it wasn’t, it wasn’t mentioned about the whole, not fireproof on the inside. I don’t know. That was just me. But, 

[00:55:58] Donna: so I hope that one thing we, we established in this was the book and the films are very, we’re very different. Um, and, and, uh, if we didn’t, we might clarify some more of that as we get toward our final verdicts.

So I’ll give you some, uh, by the numbers trivia, uh, the book released. The first, like we said, it’s the first of like 12 books in a Dragon series on March 13th, 2003. The, uh, movie release, the animated film was released March 21st, 2010 at the Gibson Amphitheater in Universal City, California. And the theatrical release, uh, in the US was on March 26th, 2010.

So a week later, uh, this, the first release date was originally set for November of 20. 2009, November T of 2009. But the producers pushed it back to avoid competition with other family films released that November. You guys know some of those were, 

[00:57:05] TJ: there are a, there are a lot. I’ve been looking at it.

There are a lot of iconic films from November 20th, 2009, I assume. Fantastic. Mr. Fox and Planet 51 are the two main ones that they were avoiding. Yeah. I feel like Fantastic. Mr. Fox also features animal main characters, planet 51 and 

[00:57:23] TIM: lots of famous actors. Mm. Voicing those roles. 

[00:57:27] TJ: It is Wes Anderson. So it was weird, but uh, but it wasn’t as success.

Pretend like I didn’t just say that and that I was actually guessing. Yeah. Were they trying to avoid competition from Precious? You know, I think that’s a little based novel. Bit of different audience. Sapphire, but also Blind Side and Twilight. Oh God also came out that way. New Moon in 2012, the first Twilight.

[00:57:49] Donna: In 2009, Uhhuh 

[00:57:51] TJ: New Moon. Oh, sorry. Which would be another kid’s name? A Christmas Carol Disney’s a Christmas Carol. I’m looking at Twilight Mojo Original as Twilight. So New Moon, it was oh eight, wasn’t it?

[00:58:00] Rebekah: So I, that’s my guess. 

[00:58:02] TJ: Okay, good. 

[00:58:03] Donna: So that was, that was the animated releases for the film, uh, for live action.

It released, uh, a premier on April 2nd, 2025 at CinemaCon in the Coum at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. Then on June 13th, couple weeks, uh, let’s see, what is that, five weeks later, exactly 11 years from the release of the How to Train Your Dragon. Two in Interesting 2014. Was, uh, the theatrical release for this one, and then between the Las Vegas Premier and the June 13th opening.

The film was also showcased at the Sydney Film Festival, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles and the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. So it’s gotten press from all over the place, so apparently. Who thinks this is gonna be a massive, again, somebody, they must be really banking on this being a huge thing.

I don’t know if it’s just after the disaster of Snow White or whatever, you’d almost think people will be afraid of it. But this is a lot of premieres before the, the main worldwide release. I thought that was interesting. Normally it’s like maybe at a film festival or a special place that’s related to the film or something like that, but, um, kinda like the Lord of the Rings in New Zealand.

But that was one release. And then so I found that kind of interesting to the, to the, uh, money talk that we’ve had earlier. Um, the book rating on Good reads was 3.92 out of five, and that was like 6,900. Ratings, which I thought there would be more. It’s, it’s, it’s, uh, you know, 20 years old. But, um, still 3.92, uh, movie ratings for the animated film.

Rotten Tomatoes 99, still holding that, which is pretty cool. IMDB 8.1 out of 10 and Flixter 91 Live Action Rotten Tomatoes so far, and we’re of course just getting started, but 78, um, IMDB also 8.1. I thought that was kind of interesting that those matched up at this point, which is still early. The Flixter audience scores 98.

Um, so then let’s look at the dollars. Uh, animated. The production cost was 165 million compared to the live action production cost 150 million, which is interesting. I thought the CG might be of the live action might. It is actually crazy. Ramp up the production cost 

[01:00:38] Rebekah: 15 years later with the insane inflation that they spent less raw dollars on the live action.

My brain does not comprehend how that is possible. 

[01:00:49] Donna: Yeah, yeah. 

[01:00:50] TIM: Well, maybe I look at sources fact that 

[01:00:52] Donna: they didn’t have to write a a full new script. Oh, that makes sense. You save money on certain things when you’re just recreating something. 

Yeah. 

[01:01:00] TIM: Mm. The dragons were all created from the first one too. I mean, true.

They’re basically not a lot different. So you’ve got a lot of design things you don’t have to pay for. Again, 

[01:01:11] TJ: a lot of pre-production, like storyboarding that. Mm-hmm. Um, you can do a lot of copy paste. I guess 

[01:01:17] Donna: opening weekend for the animated film in the US uh, was 43.7 million. Compare that to the live action opening weekend projection of 82.7.

That’s what it’s made in two days. Interesting. Thursday and Friday. ’cause that can’t include Saturday 

[01:01:33] Rebekah: or Sunday numbers ’cause we’re recording this early on Saturday, so it’ll probably, that’s only the first two days of its release. Yeah. And, um, 

[01:01:40] Donna: it, it would also Oh, true, true. Would also pull in some of those premieres as well.

But those are still just a one theater premier thing, so who knows how, you know, what a big difference that would make. But the USA Canada gross for the animated film was 217.6 million. International for animated was 2 77 0.2 million, making a total worldwide gross for the animated production. 494.9 million bucks.

[01:02:10] Rebekah: I think I saw that the trilogy has grossed around $1.7 billion globally, like before this movie came out. So it did, definitely did well. 

[01:02:21] Donna: Yeah. And so, you know, the Live Action International so far is 6.4 million. So with the USA Canada gross of 82.7 as of now. I remember, like she said, we’re recording on just the third day this is out, so these are new numbers that will grow.

Um, but that brings a, a total worldwide at this point, at 89.1 million. Mm-hmm. It’s fascinating. I mean, they’re gonna, they’ll make their money. Back besides what they’re going forward with, with the, the theme park and all that. So, you know, it’s just the beginning for them, which is kind of cool. It, it’s, it’s great.

It’s all for entertainment, right? Uh, it’s, uh, rated PG and it’s filmed in Belfast, Northern Ireland from January 15th to May 16th, 2024. Yeah. 

[01:03:08] Rebekah: Josh, Josh comment that it was a, the live action. Thank you. Beautiful location. Like it was so gorgeous to watch. 

Mm-hmm. 

[01:03:16] TIM: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

Mm-hmm. 

[01:03:18] TIM: Definitely. And you, you strange that it was filmed in Belfast because when I was a, a teenager in the seventies, Belfast was a place nobody wanted to go in the world.

Gosh. Because it was so violent. Mm-hmm. And there were bombs going off all the time. The, the terrorism was just such a horrible thing. So 

[01:03:40] TJ: well in the famous scene where Hiccup touches Toothless snout, toothless Hesitation was originally just an error during the animation process, but it looked so perfect that the animators left it in the that scene and 

[01:03:56] TIM: made me cry.

Yes. And that’s one of the, yes, that’s one of the one for one shot for, for the live action for, but it was so good. It’s exactly the same. 

[01:04:03] Donna: I think the music might’ve been just a little more dramatic in the live action. I think the music part, uh, I think they did ramp that up just a tiny bit in the live action, but it’s, it’s just craziness.

Yeah. 

[01:04:16] Rebekah: So at first in the animation, the Night Fury dragon species was planned to look like a wolf. So it was a wolf like dragon design. Yeah. But the film’s creators were inspired by a screensaver of a black leopard on a dreamwork Dreamworks employees computer, and chose to make the dragon more feline rather than wolfish.

Yes, they do. I mean, let’s be honest, a tooth is a freaking cat. Like everything about his personality is very cat-like. I thought that they did. He’s a pet. Well, I, I definitely see more Cat, cat in that dog because it’s like he’s okay being touched and then suddenly he’s not okay being touched. And he loves fish specifically, and like the way he pounces on things is very like cat-like, I think it’s adorable, 

[01:05:01] TIM: not eels.

[01:05:02] Rebekah: But 

[01:05:02] Donna: then 

[01:05:03] Rebekah: he, then he spit the fish back to share with. So that was nasty. Great. Yeah. Is that what dog had? Is that what cats are doing? That was fun 

[01:05:11] TIM: when they spit up all that stuff here. Owners leave the rats on your rug part for, 

[01:05:16] Donna: but I did think it was, I did think even that part that was, was gross, but for kids thinking of, oh, that was perfect.

Yeah. Yeah. For kid, kid humor, I thought it was spot on. 

[01:05:27] TIM: Well, for those of you looking really closely, a drawing that very closely resembles the flux capacitor from the back to the future movies can be seen on hiccups Design board. I did not notice that somebody has tighter, tighter, uh, vision than I do so.

[01:05:48] Donna: Mason Thas who played Hiccup is the only American actor in the film. The rest of the cast is comprised of British, Irish, Scottish, and Kiwi actors. 

[01:05:59] TIM: Thought it was interesting though, that his name is very British. Mm-hmm. Because unless it’s pronounced fans. Yeah. Rebecca, 

[01:06:06] TJ: you know this, you know why it’s British 

[01:06:08] TIM: unless it’s pronounced Thanks.

The river Thas Tims is correct, 

[01:06:11] TJ: but you know, I knew a thing that’s very British. Yes. The river Thas. Yeah. 

[01:06:15] Rebekah: I knew a thing. Yeah, I know. Knew 

[01:06:18] TJ: it. Proud. You know all of this. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I, I thought it was funny. I didn’t realize Gerard Butler, first of all, it took me a minute to recognize him, but he played stoic in both the live action and the animated film.

[01:06:29] TIM: Was he the only actor to play in? Both 

[01:06:32] TJ: kind of feels that way, but I have not checked. We know Hiccup was different. We know Toothless was different. Well, toothless could have been exactly the same, exactly the same cat that provided the voice. 

[01:06:44] Donna: I did read several things as like reviews and, and comparisons and stuff, and there were several people that were like, we were really afraid they were gonna go with that iconic hiccup voice, and we’re so glad, you know, this was fine that they didn’t, and it was, you know, okay.

That they didn’t try to repeat. Yeah. ’cause the guys ca the cadence of the, of the voice actor for for made a film, it was very, yeah. He’s a little 

[01:07:09] TIM: whiny. 

[01:07:10] Donna: It’s a very, it’s very unique. Yeah, it’s distinct. It definitely unique, a distinctive voice. And so to not do that I thought was a good choice. Not to try to mimic that somehow.

But he, I definitely think Tims put this like own touch on 

[01:07:22] Rebekah: it. I appreciated that he didn’t try to deliver every line identically, but that a lot of the lines even being similar, like he did put his own spin and I thought that that was not bad 

[01:07:32] TIM: because he did not have a, a British or English accent. Do you think that helped convey the fact that he was a round, did any of the square hole kind of thing, did any of the kids have accent?

Yeah, he was fish outta water. Fish outta water. 

[01:07:47] Rebekah: I think they all spoke with like more Americanized accents. I don’t know, maybe. But then the adults. Well, I know that the rest of the cast, the rest isn’t of the cast, isn’t American. But, but I’m saying in the movie, didn’t they all use more American accents and then the adults were the ones that spoke that sounded very like Irish, right?

[01:08:04] TIM: Hmm. I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not 

[01:08:05] TJ: genuine. Genuinely can’t remember. Yeah, I’d have to look at, it would’ve feel like it would’ve been weird to me if only Hiccup had an American accent, but I, I guess it’s possible. 

[01:08:14] TIM: I was just wondering if they did that to further the, the feeling that he’s. Different. 

[01:08:21] Rebekah: Well, speaking of cash grabs, plans for a sequel release were announced at CinemaCon in April.

Uh, the current release date for the second film is June 11th, 2027. So basically two years from the first release. Um, so I think that they just want to continue building on Epic universe, which is in wildly successful. I’ve seen a lot of reviews, by the way, this is a side note, but I’ve seen a lot of reviews of that section of the theme park and I’ve seen a ton of videos of the actors that play all of the characters from the movie like that you go around and talk to while you’re at the park.

And honestly, even with an additional Harry Potter world and a Mario World with a, a Donkey Kong world, which are like massively popular franchises, obviously I have seen a lot that the How to Train Your Dragon section is exceptional in the actors and the rides are like amazing. Like I saw one thing that said the How to Train Your Dragon, um, rollercoaster.

That’s like a dueling dragons ride is potentially the best rollercoaster in the park, which I thought was interesting, like in all three parks. 

[01:09:21] TIM: That is awesome. Well, remember when, when we went to Universal in 2001, the most popular thing? Mm-hmm. We loved it too, was the Spider-Man ride. Well, Spider-Man had been out for quite a while that that wasn’t a first movie.

And then this thing, this was the three movies were already out and all that stuff. So 

[01:09:41] Rebekah: they only have the comic book rights. And it’s really interesting because Disney has the Marvel movie rights. So there are Disney Marvel rides, but those are based only on the movies. And the ones that Universal are only based on the comics by the way that Spider-Man Ride is there.

And it’s been updated so many times with newer technology, but it’s still like one of the popular rides. So now that we’ve kind of compared the book and we’ve talked about both movies, uh, why don’t we do our final verdicts? 

[01:10:09] TJ: I think that the book had a lot of value. It was very weird. I’m glad that I read it before I rewatched the movie or watched the new live action movie.

It allowed me to go in with a little bit of fresh eyes. Crazy, the Dragons talk crazy. I think that in both book and film. Hiccup shows he is different through his compassion. It’s a little different. In the book, he is showing compassion. To his pet, uh, making it more like a friend, a companion. Whereas in the movie, he’s showing compassion and not murdering.

So, but I think in both Hiccup has a very similar character arc, which is funny with all the changes. I think that the, the book basically works for the Grade. It was written for plenty of potty humor. Love a fart joke here. A snot joke there, but uh, I mean, one of their names is Snot Loud, so the film is just iconic.

I think that one of the strengths of it is that it shows and doesn’t tell, it shows you through Hiccup. No. It shows you toothless as character instead of having him tell you through dialogue. Or thoughts that, oh, you can interpret the dragon’s thoughts or something that would be magical. No, they don’t do that.

Um, but also there are a lot of things that just aren’t set out loud. And it would take me a second to think of examples like, whenever Astrid goes on the flight with Toothless, she doesn’t have to say, oh my goodness, I get it now because I went on a magical flight with Toothless to realize that dragons don’t just wanna kill humans.

That it can not only not be a murderous relationship, but it can be a beautiful relationship. Like you just saw her, you just saw her react and her make different choices after the fact. And you knew that she was changed and you could interpret how she was changed very clearly. Yeah, but she never had to say it, you know, so the, the movies.

Are better. But you know, the books are fine. The books, the books are fine as their own thing. I think should, after we did a whole podcast should of comparing 

[01:12:34] Rebekah: them, I think this is probably would almost be helpful for them 

[01:12:36] TJ: to. No, no, no. I just don’t think there’s any, any point in saying, oh, I like this better in the, you know, you, you can do this if you want.

But for me it’s like the book and movie are so vastly different than you. You might as well just think of them as different works, and the movies happen to be more powerful and more effective in what they’re trying to do than in what the book’s trying to do. Yeah, I’d give the book solid six, six and a half.

And the, uh, the, the films, you know, nine and a half, you could probably go 10. It’s a great, you know, the original animated film has 99% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s one of those where it’s like, people know that this was special for multiple reasons, and I agree that it was a special mm-hmm.

Touchstone of American and worldwide culture. Something that teaches compassion and beauty in nature and love and healing familial relationships. I think there’s just so much beauty and redemption to be found without telling the audience this is about beauty and redemption. It’s like, no, it’s a fun story that happens to also reinforce beliefs about love.

Your father despite your, and love your son despite your differences. Love, nature, uh, as you, as you might be commander over nature. Yeah. You still have to be a good steward over nature. Love, love your people, your friends. Yeah. Even when they disagree with you, you’re mean, they’re mean with you. So I just think it’s beautiful in so many ways and iconic in a lot of other ways.

So definitely the movie will, uh, take the cake on this one between the original animated and the live action. That would be a tougher one because I do think a live action is absolutely stunning. And in a way it’s kind of better than the animated feature, but like, it doesn’t exist without the an, it doesn’t work as a live film without an animated film to be adapted from.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like I think without the animated feature, the dragons interesting. CGI would be bad. Hmm. And then I think if this, if this were an original live film, I think the Dragon CGI would be considered not good. 

[01:14:56] Donna: And would Delo have written the screenplay in the same way today if he hadn’t written the one in 2010?

Like, I don’t know this director. Yeah. I’m not familiar with him, but I’m just thinking as a director and the screenwriter would, would he look at. Look at it a little differently. Mm-hmm. And so I think that’s definitely, yeah, 

[01:15:16] TJ: I think he definitely would. Mm-hmm. 

[01:15:17] Donna: Um, I, I’ve told you many times on this podcast that I’m not.

A sappy love story person. I don’t care for that genre. Uh, there are very few exceptions of things I would watch. And so while this pri was not primarily a love story, there was a love story built into it. And I bring that up because that’s one of the places in the film, in both films that were touching to me, the, the, the little bit of a conflict between he and Astrid and seeing a little bit of, of love, love, uh, loving love conflict in there.

Um, I thought was all right. I think I thought it was done well. It wasn’t overstated and it wasn’t overplayed. The other places where I was emotionally moved were when. Snot LA’s dad looked up at him on the dragon and he had to say, absolutely not a word, but his emotional, his face, all his emotions mm-hmm.

Were displayed in that moment. Definitely. And it was believable and touching. And I, I told you before I fell apart there. And when, uh, when Stoic and Hiccup have their moment in the end of the movie where there’s, uh, a couple of places, but when Stoic goes over to, um, goes over to Toothless on the ground after the battle, and he kneels down and his head’s down his whole, his countenance is right.

And again, seeing him and then him saying that he was proud of him, that is always, when it’s done well, that is always a a point where I’m just torn out of the frame because we need to see this, we need to see more relations between fathers and sons. That are healthy and real. We all make mistakes.

Parents are doing it for the first time. Kids are being kids for the first time. They’re coming together for the first time, and that will never be a picture perfect thing. And so to be able to show that where neither party looks stupid or moronic, but they look like they’re real people going through this, I mean, they captured that for me.

And I think that’s very important in, in this world and in this time of, of world conflict all over the place to see a strong story there. Um, those moved me the book. Uh, I liked the book. All right. I didn’t, I wasn’t captivated like it. We just read The Chronicles of Narnia before this recording. Uh, the last recording was Chronicles and The Line, the Witch and the Wardrobe, along with How to Train Your Dragon.

They’re both a little over three hours read. I couldn’t, I was captivated the whole time in the line of witch in the wardrobe. This one didn’t hold me like that. So that was a little different, especially with something so close to compare it to. Um, differences were stark and that did keep me listening a little more, but it still didn’t grab me.

So I’m gonna say a book rating of, um, I don’t know, seven. I don’t know that I’d go back and read it. I’m so, so impressed with the movie. The movie I would say is, is, uh, a 9, 9, 10. I agree. I. It’s, I don’t like animation, but I loved this animated film and I also enjoyed the live action film to compare those two things.

I think because the casting was good and I think because Gerard Butler effectively pulled off a good solid roll of stoic and didn’t just come across as a big brawny guy, hero guy. And I like him, but a lot of his films are a little more campy. Good guy, bad guy thing, bang, bang, shoot him up things. Um, but for that, I’d say the live action would probably edge out the animation for me.

And, um, I’m glad we did it. I’m so, so glad we chose it. It was, it’s, it’s been a really positive experience. 

[01:19:19] Rebekah: I, like I said, I am obsessed, uh, with the original in terms of, I just, gosh, I feel like no notes. I absolutely loved Sure. Every part of it. It makes, I didn’t cry the last time I watched the animated this week, but it definitely is like very emotional.

I just, I enjoy it immensely. So for me, that’s like a nine and a half out of 10. It’s, it’s like on my top list. Um, I would say the live action, I’m probably gonna put it like an eight out of 10. And honestly, a big part of that is because I, I still don’t get it, like, why are we doing this? But it still was a good experience.

The books for me are like, I don’t know, six outta 10 if you have kids that would enjoy it. So it’s not like six outta 10 just for any. Reader, um, because I think it just, it was, it was fine. It wasn’t bad. I think it probably would be a lot of fun to read with an 8-year-old, you know? Um, but for me it just was like a little on the weaker side.

I do think the film was better than the book, obviously, by my ratings here. And I think that the, the 2010 animated is just. Is it’s special. It is special to me. 

[01:20:29] TIM: So for my wrap up of, of our reviews, I’m surprised that the How to Train Your Dragon movie was ever filmed. Uh, the book was so vastly different.

It’s very similar to the Planet of the Apes, uh, book in films. There was a concept that someone wrote about that was fascinating enough that someone else said, how about if we made that a movie? But very different. And it worked. It worked really, really well. Planet of the Apes was a huge success. Some of ’em were more campy than others, but big success, uh, successful ip.

So I would say the book for me probably lands somewhere between six and seven. I’ll be kind and give it a 6.5. Um, I did not mind the. Tenant, uh, reading for, for me, I didn’t seem to have as much difficulty as you guys did, but I, I didn’t mind that. I thought he did a good job. It was very likable, so I’d give it a 6.5 on that.

I would give the animated film, uh, a 9.5. I think it’s a great film. Um, I think it is very iconic. I’m really, I’m fascinated that they made a live action version and I would probably give it, I would probably give it a 9.4. Just because, um, hiccups voice in the first one is just that, that iconic different kind of voice that, you know, he just got, it’s so distinct and there’s something about Hiccup that is that now it was completely believable.

I think Tim’s did a good job. Um, all those kinds of things. So I would. I would edge it out just a, just a little bit with the, uh, the animated version being a 9.6 and the live action being a 9.5. So, um, I was, I, I liked it. I enjoyed it. It’s a, it’s a great ip even though the book and film are vastly different.

[01:22:30] Rebekah: Well, I loved that, and if you loved that, we would really appreciate a five star rating or review and, uh, it just helps us a ton. Please know it helps us a ton. Uh, we’re live on Patreon, so if you’d like to follow us there, you can follow us, a free subscriber or join a paid tier, um, that is becoming more active these days.

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There is a link in the episode description and you know, all are welcome. All are welcome. And so, uh, until next time when someone is troubling you, yell at it. So that’s my advice to you. Goodbye baby listeners. 

Yes. 

[01:23:30] Rebekah: Bye