What is How to Train Your Dragon Training Us For?
Posted by Sarah McCann on Tuesday, April 6, 2010 Under: Entertainment
I saw How to Train Your Dragon in 3-D. I enjoyed it, I don't get to the movies often, had been hankering to see something, and after the recommendation of both friends and my brother, I decided to see Dragon. The movie tells the story of a young Viking named Hiccup who, regardless of how hard he tries cannot seem to live up to the Viking ways of being a big, strong, dragon slayer. People keep telling him he needs to change all of "this" and he responds with, "You just gestured to all of me!" In one regard the movie is a cliched story about how it is all right to be different and that in following your heart you will do great things. I love movies like this, I think that they are great and was totally caught up in the relationship that ensues when Hiccup finally does down a dragon, but sees himself in the creature and decides not to kill it. Hiccup and Toothless (as Hiccup calls the dragon) become fast friends, in fact become more than friends, as Toothless is injured when Hiccup shoots him down and then needs Hiccup to control his man-made tail fin in order to fly. Hiccup learns much from his friendship with Toothless and realizes that the dragons are not maliciously stealing the Vikings livestock and will not kill them unless adequately provoked, he also discovers that the dragons are being oppressed by a huge monster dragon. He uses this knowledge to progress in the Viking dragon slaying training, but still cannot slay a dragon. Of course Hiccup ends up at odds with the entire Viking society and tries to show them that dragons are not what they think they are. The elders do not listen and use Toothless to try to destroy the dragons. Hiccup and the other young Vikings join forces with the dragons to kill the giant dragon that oppresses the others and prove to their elders that peace is possible. In the final scene the dragons are living peacefully with the Vikings as their pets. I am a fan of stories of people challenging societal norms, but also think that there is an underlying imperialist theme in Dragons. The Vikings free the dragons and then take them home as domesticated pets. The dragons, instead of being an intelligent society of its own are portrayed like dogs. Do the dragons and Vikings become co-dependent? Hiccup and Toothless do. Is that such a happy ending? Or are Hiccup and Toothless and the Dragons and Vikings really making each other better, supporting and making it so that they can do fantastic things. This could have been the end of the movie had the VIking society changed to incorporate the dragons, which maybe it did, but I am not sure that we really see how. That would have made the movie for me. If the Vikings also changed to live with the dragons so that they created a new model of society, instead of just incorporating the dragons into their own as pets. This country is involved in too many wars, where we play the part of the Vikings, except instead of dragons we say we slay terrorists and instead of bringing the freed people of other countries home as pets, we force our way of life onto them in their homes and countries. I do think that their is a great moral to be had in watching Dragons, our children do need to see and understand that it is ok to think for themselves and do things differently, but the movie does not challenge the way a powerful nation forces its ideals and customs onto others.
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