Guess the Plot Problem

[livingdeb]

I'm the fourth person I know who liked "How To Train Your Dragon" but thinks there was a plot problem. Interestingly, we don't all agree on what the plot problem is. (No bad spoilers here, but some may appear in the comments.)

Raaga123 and Loonymarble think the father/son relationship isn't quite right. I found it believable.

Robin thinks that the main character really couldn't have been the catalyst for what happened; surely that would have happened before his time. I don't agree, partly because I think he wasn't the only catalyst.

My problem is that when you have a big culture change, the people who were supremely suited for the old culture are going to have trouble embracing the new culture (see Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart), probably even if the new culture is more fun for everyone.

Overall, I recommend the movie. It has really fine cartooning, especially if you like a certain style of dragon art. Which--who doesn't? And Viking art. And attention to detail - the boats are cute, and the barnacles on the boats are cute. The characters are cute, even the ones with sun-damaged skin. Oddly, the adults all have small feet and the kids all have large feet (that simulate bell-bottoms and thus make me think of hippies).

So yes, it's a special effects movie and sappy kids' movie. It also has a few good lines, such as something like "I'm beginning to think less of your training style" and other deadpan humor. And so pretty in an earth-tones-on-parchment sort of way.

I don't think I see myself watching it over and over, though. But for a kid's movie that you might be forced to sit through over and over--it's not scary at all. There are plenty of interesting details to look at.

Comments

[raaga123.livejournal.com]

Actually, I would say that the father/son problem is a microcosm of the culture problem. It wasn't the initial father/son relationship I had trouble with, it was the father's too-quick turnaround after his initial hide-boundedness.

** major spoiler time **

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Hmm, interesting.

But the quick turnaround actually happened before the culture change and involved his son actually killing a dragon, not a wimpy one and not by accident, but in a way that involved bravery and mutilation and maybe even accuracy (if not strength), so I don't see it as a big stretch for him. Before that he just saw him as a clumsy, perhaps lazy, weakling who never contributed but just created more difficulties.

I don't actually remember seeing the dad after the culture change.

Wait a minute, he does help the kid before the he does any of that when he frees Toothless, but by then he was done with Toothless himself anyway.