Cold and heartless Viking fare is a tough enough sale without the added burden of telling a story through the eyes of a wimpy teenager. On the surface Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon looks like an exercise in turning the brutality of Viking life into a goofy adolescent adventure, not quite what prior films with “dragon” in the title have strived to be. Filmmakers Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois have a few tricks up their sleeve in this critically acclaimed film and successfully surprise with an unexpected hit.
Thematically, How to Train Your Dragon is a cut off the old father-and-son block. A young insightful boy named Hiccup (Jay Baruchel, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice) cannot meet his father’s (Gerard Butler) Viking expectations so he befriends a wounded dragon, Toothless, to learn about the hated enemy rather than return home with the dragon as a trophy for all to see. Their bonding scenes through physical and facial expressive communication are the emotional hook you won’t see coming and cannot escape.
As with James Cameron’s Avatar, How to Train Your Dragon’s remaining story is as formulaic as it comes but the delivery is nothing short of exceptional. Hiccup’s seaside world of Berk, continually threatened by all sizes and colors of dragons, is breathtaking in scope and realized with incredibly lush detail. Comic relief provided by Hiccup’s fellow students, all tasked to learn how to take down various types of dragons to earn their right of passage, is simultaneously funny and perilous while keeping overly juvenile antics at arm’s length. The action is intense, and the tender moments are the kind you expect to see coming from Pixar rather than the studio behind Shrek and its sequels.
Is this the year Pixar is toppled at the Academy Awards? Probably not; but for the first time in a long time, their Awards reign could be seriously challenged. How to Train Your Dragon is more than deserving of the Oscar should it manage to top Toy Story 3 for Best Animated Picture.
High-Def Presentation
Dreamworks’ stunningly detailed animation and bombastic sounds in How to Train Your Dragon are, in a word, “perfect” on Blu-ray Disc. You can practically count the hairs on every Viking, scale on every dragon, imperfection on every rock or threads on a hanging tapestry. Whether night or day, the dragon fire not only looks incredible but is fired and impacts with the type of low-end resonance bass in 5.1 Dolby TrueHD that audiophile junkies dream of. Voices are always clear and strong regardless of any accompanying action scenes, and surrounds are never neglected in the calmest or wildest moments. One could write a thesis on the high definition splendor How to Train Your Dragon on Blu-ray doles out for every second of its run time. This is a reference quality presentation of the highest order.
Missing from this release of How to Train Your Dragon on Blu-ray is the 3D presentation. There is a Blu-ray 3D version of How to Train Your Dragon but it is currently exclusive to Samsung. A standalone release is expected sometime in 2011.
Beyond the Feature
Dreamworks has packed a lot onto the single How to Train Your Dragon Blu-ray Disc (the DVD is also included in this combo pack release) and offers even more content via BD-Live. For starters, there are three ways to watch the movie: with a very informative and honest Filmmakers Commentary by directors/co-writers Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois and producer Bonnie Arnold; with the Picture-in-Picture Animator’s Corner feature that shares behind-the-scenes footage synched to scenes in the film; and for the kids with a Trivia Track to test their dragon knowledge.
Continuing the theme of content design for kids is Legend of the BoneKnapper Dragon (16:33, HD), an all-new animated extended short presented in 7.1 audio. This short story is intertwined with a flashback narrative in anime-style ala the opening to Kung Fu Panda. In other words kids should really dig it. Kids will also enjoy Racing for the Gold, five little mini scenes with Hiccup partaking in Winter Olympic type events; How to Draw a Dragon (10:52, HD) with supervising animator Gabe Hordos; Your Viking Profile which offers a questionnaire to become a Viking; and Keep Out, an Easter Egg option on the main menu with video game, musical (Shrek) and DVD trailers.
Adults will want to skip to Viking Sized Cast (11:44, HD) where the core cast all talk about voicing their characters; Technical Artistry of Dragon (10:13, HD) with the magicians behind the film’s animation talking about the challenges they faced; a trio of Deleted Scenes (7:41, HD); and Story Behind the Story (7:40, HD) where the filmmakers and crew gush about falling in love with the story.
Trumping all of those supplements and available exclusively via BD-Live is Finding the Story.This raw documentary (unfortunately not in HD) goes behind-the-scenes to showcase the grunt work of piecing together and massaging the story into a final script without glorification or fluffy marketing speak. For example, Dreamworks’ brass fires back after a test screening with their recommendations on changes they need to see made before the film can move forward. You also get to see how a test screening reaction reaffirmed a creative decision in the closing scenes that was recommended by Steven Spielberg. This documentary is worth every second it takes you to download it.
How to Train Your Dragon may not have the Pixar name behind it but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay it no attention. The film is remarkably well made, is reference quality across the board on Blu-ray, and boasts a making-of supplement that truly digs deep into how the film was made. Unless you’ve already boarded the Blu-ray 3D train and are holding out, you really cannot go wrong with a blind buy of How to Train Your Dragon on Blu-ray.
– Dan Bradley
Shop for How to Train Your Dragon on Blu-ray for a discounted price at Amazon.com.
