Well, for about a year now, animators who have been working on this movie have been telling me that this is the best thing they've ever worked on. Of course I remain skeptical, even with Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders' involvement, but the 96% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes helps add credibility to what they've been saying.
Right now, I absolutely hate the character designs. Nicolas Marlet, who did a wonderful job on the characters in Kung Fu Panda, has just designed a bunch of awkward looking dragons (that have got to be the worst I've ever seen) and some generic looking human characters. Its such a shame as Chris Sanders greatest asset is his wonderfully unique art style and characters. Unfortunately, he came into the production too late and while he was able to rewrite the whole script, they made him reuse all the existing character models and celebrity voice actors. He was able to redesign the main dragon, too look similar to Stitch, and that is pretty much the only dragon that doesn't piss me off.
The Monstrous Nightmare and Gronkle enrage me just looking at them. The designs look like some pre-schooler made them. I wish they would've taken the time to let Sanders redesign ALL the characters. Then maybe the quality of the designs could match the quality of the movie (from what I've heard). Right now, I'm really pissed they only let him redesign the main dragon and two main characters (but not by much so they would match the style of the rest of the movie).
The_Iceflash wrote:I'm not impressed with the animation one bit.
How so? The animation looks superb. Just as good as most anything Pixar has put out, and definitely better than any of WDAS attempts at CG.
I'm REALLY excited to see this movie. With people saying it will overtake "Shrek" as "Dreamworks' best film"... I can't wait to see it tonight. This is the first time I've actually been genuinely excited about a Dreamworks movie. No fart jokes, no stupid story ideas. Looks like a great movie.
I have a feeling that a lot of people on here will talk badly about it, which is sad. Because if "Disney" were slapped on it, everyone would be on board.
The_Iceflash wrote:I'm not impressed with the animation one bit.
How so? The animation looks superb. Just as good as most anything Pixar has put out, and definitely better than any of WDAS attempts at CG.
Over the past years, I've learned a lot of films are terrible these days because businessmen actually do change a film to be more marketable. This resulted in how terrible Dreamworks films have been ever since they converted to 3D animation. But I read an article last week about how they only had one year to make this film so maybe the big heads on top couldn't change it to how they want.
Plus, it's only partly about the animation. It's more about the story and characters! Be glad this isn't Dreamworks' usual "realistic to the point where it almost is but it still isn't" animation.
And yes, I am so stoked for this! I usually only get excited for things when they are the week or day of.
Just got back from seeing this and here is my brief spoiler-free review:
DreamWorks finds itself back in Prince of Egypt levels of greatness rather than Madagascar foolishness in this exciting and well-executed 3-D adventure. Not surprisingly, a lot of the credit goes to directors/co-writers Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, the same team-up who brought us the excellent Lilo & Stitch. Once again, they tell a humourous, yet touching story of a young out-cast who meets up with a fellow estranged creature and it works wonders. The relationship between Hiccup and Toothless is the heart of How to Train Your Dragon and while they attempt to give him a love-interest, it's still that amazingly expressive, yet silent dragon that captures our attention. The animation is tremendous, not just due to the beautiful work on the dragons, but also quite possibly the most well-animated humans ever brought to CGI. The 3-D is also pretty solid, but it's the flying scenes that really take off. While the ending enters a generic action film territory, the rest of the film is impressive enough to forgive this. If DreamWorks continues making works of this calibre (or even better), I can definitely see them losing their second-class Pixar knock-off status in the future.
I've bee thinking about seeing this...but right now Im broke....next month i'll go see it in 3D but I have to get a ride and a weekend my dad can drive....but I think as much as I want to see this ASAP i'll wait for 3D and then I might see it again but to save gas I'll see at the local theater....
Want to Hear How I met Roy E. Disney in 2003? Click the link Below
I think the film hitting theaters today gave me good luck. Look at this handsome boy:
I snapped him up a little over an hour ago after someone abandoned him at the shelter of a Pokemon adoptables site I play daily called Global Pokedex Plus. On very rare occasions, you can find a summoning item while browsing the site to summon an egg of this dragon type to taken into your possession. There's been two events that gave out 700-800 eggs of this dragon species to random users since the site started in February last year. According to the site's stats right now, there's 41,000 users and 2,277 of this dragon species in existence. I'm thrilled to finally have one of this elusive species.
On a How to Train Your Dragon-related note, McDonald's is carrying 8 toys of the dragons from March 26 - April 22. If you want any of the toys, you don't have to buy the kid's meals for them. McD's usually sell toys seperately for something between $2-3 apiece.
Just got back from seeing this. And I was pleasantly surprised that it surpassed even my wild expectations for it.
It's SPECTACULAR.
This is what animated film-making is all about. There is more heart in this one movie than in all of Dreamworks other films COMBINED. Toothless is a wonderful character, who will make his way into audiences hearts and stay there for a long time.
It really is worth every penny you're spending to see this movie.
This is all from one of your typical Dreamworks haters. I think mostly everything they put out is crap. Monsters vs. Aliens was a joke. With the exception of Shrek, Madagascar, and Kung Fu Panda, the rest of Dreamworks projects have all been completely unfulfilling.
But How to Train Your Dragon is on a completely different level than than anything Dreamworks has ever done, including those three.
Here's a great article on Jim Hill, which describes EXACTLY how I feel about this movie.
SWillie! wrote:Haha what was the confused face for?
Oh, you posted before me. I was replying to Sky Syndrome.
Edit: I find Over the Hedge a decent film, but what you say is mostly right.
Hahaha gotcha. Now it makes sense lol
And I've actually only seen Over the Hedge once, and it wasn't really in the most memorable of circumstances. I'll have to give it another go one of these days.
SWillie! wrote:
Oh, you posted before me. I was replying to Sky Syndrome.
Hahaha gotcha. Now it makes sense lol
Don't mind my nerdiness. I just had to share because it was a coincidence obtaining a difficult to obtain legendary dragon on the same day a movie about dragons hits theaters. It'll take at least a month of people feeding him berries for him to hit Level 100. I need to give him a name. *brainstorms*
I'm glad to hear how superb HTTYD is! Burton's Alice in Wonderland is at last playing at the one-movie-playing-a-week theater in my town this weekend. My mom and I went to a theater outside of town to see it two weeks ago because we were impatient and didn't know when it'd reach our town. She told me that this weekend we could watch AIW again here in town or go to a theater outside of town that's got How to Train Your Dragon playing or we could trying to fit in going to both theaters and watching both movies. I'd like to see AIW again so I'm going to tell her that I want to see both movies.
I'm interested in seeing it. I loved "Lilo and Sticth" and this is Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders first film since (if you don't count "Bolt" which I don't think was theirs anymore) and I trust their style. But, that said, I also don't feel a pressing need to see it ASAP like I would for PIXAR or Cannon Disney film.
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All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.
I had a lot of reservations about this movie. I never read the books. So this isn't a comparison between the books and movie. I wasn't excited about seeing a movie where the main character/hero is named Hiccup and the dragon looks like a cross between a black cat and Stitch from Lilo and Stitch, if its head was flattened like a pancake. The style of the dragons just didn't impress me.
But as a parent, its my job to endure some movies that insult my own and my daughter's intelligence, because she wants to see them.
I was far more surprised, I was enthralled with the story and characters. Its not a highly original story, but really, nothing is these days. Underdog no one has any faith in finds his own way of helping his people and bringing peace between to peoples/tribes/cities/countries/species/etc, gets the girl, gets the love his his parent(s), the respect of his people, etc etc etc. But regardless, there were some surprises, which kept it fresh.
I got use to the style and some of the expressions looked great. The detail on the dragons, especially Toothless was very nice too. I gotta say, I loved his eyes.
The story and character development was really fantastic too. The strained father/son relationship. Hiccup trying to do what he felt was the only way to get any respect from his tribe, let alone his father, who made it often clear, how disappointed he was. Never in an abusive way, but the disappointment was always made clear. The scene of Hiccup thinking about killing the downed Night Fury was nice. It reminded me a little bit of Cody and Marahute in Rescuers' Down Under, watching him cut the eagle/dragon free. I think they could have touched a bit more on the dragons' plight. I do feel that was too brief. But what they did show was effective. There was a lot of beauty in that movie too. The flight Hiccup and Astrid take was beautiful and perfect. The pace was perfect too, plenty of action, with appropriate humor and drama thrown in there. The humor was up to par with Dreamworks regular fare. A few jokes thrown in there for adults, that pass over the kids heads, but certainly not at much as say Shrek. I kinda like the dry humor of it, it was a bit of a change of pace, the "you useless reptile" was said so great. So was Hiccup's impression of his father. I still think his name is ridiculous though, lol. The movie is more a drama than a comedy, but its not a sad movie in the least. I think it says a lot for how we treat things we misunderstand. From animals to people.
Spoilers about the end of the movie (highlight to read) I was most impressed though with the ending. Stories like Pinocchio, Finding Nemo, Ugly Duckling, etc, where the main character has a disability. Is different from the others because he looks different from the others and then overcomes his disability are always crowd-pleasers. But the reversal there, leaving Hiccup with a disability says a lot for the story and the character. The execution of showing it was well done too, I was completely caught by surprise when he got out of bed. But how he looked at Toothless and how the dragon helped him go outside, seeing Toothless missing half-tail and Hiccup limping, it really was a beautiful moment in the movie. That they persevered over their disabilities, are heroes, not because of their disabilities but because of their hearts. They made sacrifices for their people and eachother and didn't let that stop them. It's what really made that movie great.
It figures, the first animated movie Dreamworks have ever put out that I actually want to see and my local theatre doesn't get it because Alice in Wonderland is still selling out theatres and they don't want to risk bringing in a new 3D movie and losing revenuse because dragon has a "far more limited audience" than Alice does. So then I asked why not just get it in 2D and he said "Diary of a Wimpy Kid is still selling well in the Children's market, so there is no need for a second child film to be playing right now".
I don't understand my theatre, but then again this is the same place that put Revenge of the Sith and The Dark Knight both in the smallest auditorium on opening weekend, but put The Love Guru and Remember Me in the 400 Seater.
