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BattleTech
Jun 6, 2010

Is this easy mode?
Fun Shoe
Just saw it, was really underwhelmed by it, especially after Kung Fu Panda 2. Valka is(surprisingly) a fairly boring character. Drago basically growls his vague generic plan to conquer/liberate the world which is much more boring of a villain plan after Shen's fear of having the prophecy of his death coming true. Also we see that he clearly has his own actual people army but he never uses them in the final battle. Trapper dude was crazy bland as a character, so much so that 15 minutes out of the theater I already can't remember his name.

I have some more complaints but they've already been talked about.

BattleTech fucked around with this message at 02:37 on Jun 17, 2014

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X_Toad
Apr 2, 2011

Neo Helbeast posted:


Also we see that he clearly has his own actual people army but he never uses them in the final battle.

I think that was the point of him saying to his men to "join him on Berk" : he went there alone with the Wildebeast and his army of dragons. He never thought he would need the help of his armada now that his Wildebeast was the one undisputed commander of the dragons and that the "other" Dragon Master was without a mount and with a thoroughly crushed spirit.

johntfs
Jun 7, 2013

by Cowcaster
Soiled Meat

X_Toad posted:

I think that was the point of him saying to his men to "join him on Berk" : he went there alone with the Wildebeast and his army of dragons. He never thought he would need the help of his armada now that his Wildebeast was the one undisputed commander of the dragons and that the "other" Dragon Master was without a mount and with a thoroughly crushed spirit.

Given that Drago's death was really obscure (I actually didn't really notice it when he "died") I figure the next movie will center around the search for the "Omega/Emperor dragon" or somesuch.

my cat is norris
Mar 11, 2010

#onecallcat

Someone earlier in the thread asked why Toothless could be broken from the Alpha Dragon's will the second time, but not the first.

I actually thought this made sense -- in the first instance, Hiccup was in the midst of a panic, not sure of what to do in the face of his best friend's betrayal and his failure to convince Drago to stop the war. In the second instance, he approached Toothless from a place of confidence, believing wholeheartedly that his friendship will surmount the Alpha Dragon's influence.

Goes along with one of the touched-on themes of the movie, anyway. v:shobon:v

Magnus Condomus
Apr 23, 2010

johntfs posted:

Given that Drago's death was really obscure (I actually didn't really notice it when he "died") I figure the next movie will center around the search for the "Omega/Emperor dragon" or somesuch.

I don't think it was ever actually meant to be implied that Drago is dead. There's no shot of him falling or anything, just the Alpha dragon swimming away with him. I assume most of Berk believes he survived as well, given that Hiccup uses present tense when talking about those that would attack Berk in the ending monologue.

mareep
Dec 26, 2009

my cat is norris posted:

Someone earlier in the thread asked why Toothless could be broken from the Alpha Dragon's will the second time, but not the first.

I actually thought this made sense -- in the first instance, Hiccup was in the midst of a panic, not sure of what to do in the face of his best friend's betrayal and his failure to convince Drago to stop the war. In the second instance, he approached Toothless from a place of confidence, believing wholeheartedly that his friendship will surmount the Alpha Dragon's influence.

Goes along with one of the touched-on themes of the movie, anyway. v:shobon:v

I really feel like I need to see this movie again to get an accurate idea on how I felt about the themes and how they all fit together. I think there's some unexplored potential here to link up elements of the story relating to persuasion and reason to achieve your goals, while also incorporating the honest reality that there are some (often dangerous) people that you simply cannot reason with.

My takeaway from the ending scene was that as much as Drago believed it, the Alpha did not have magical, insurmountable control over other dragons; this is something that can be contested. The line about 'good people under the influence of bad people will do bad things' is relevant to this reading. I think the final word of the film is to assert that there will be occasions and people that need to be fought back against and defended from and can't be reasoned to a peaceful mindset. On the other hand, many individuals do 'bad things' under circumstantial influences and CAN be reasoned with, and as you can see in the final confrontation, when all the dragons move from Drago's side to the side of Berk and Toothless confronts the Alpha, using reason to persuade these people to, essentially, 'the side of good', results in a cohesive, generally peaceful unit that still has the means to defend itself against those who intend to mindlessly do harm.

e: It's a pretty optimistic message overall, and I think it makes sense with all the cues the film includes about people being able/not being able to change. It's more of a "people can be jerks but they are trying to be good people, and in a lot of cases are influenced, manipulated or otherwise coerced into doing bad things", while acknowledging that 'true bad people' genuinely exist, but are a pretty small minority.

mareep fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Jun 17, 2014

X_Toad
Apr 2, 2011

redcheval posted:

I really feel like I need to see this movie again to get an accurate idea on how I felt about the themes and how they all fit together. I think there's some unexplored potential here to link up elements of the story relating to persuasion and reason to achieve your goals, while also incorporating the honest reality that there are some (often dangerous) people that you simply cannot reason with.

My takeaway from the ending scene was that as much as Drago believed it, the Alpha did not have magical, insurmountable control over other dragons; this is something that can be contested. The line about 'good people under the influence of bad people will do bad things' is relevant to this reading. I think the final word of the film is to assert that there will be occasions and people that need to be fought back against and defended from and can't be reasoned to a peaceful mindset. On the other hand, many individuals do 'bad things' under circumstantial influences and CAN be reasoned with, and as you can see in the final confrontation, when all the dragons move from Drago's side to the side of Berk and Toothless confronts the Alpha, using reason to persuade these people to, essentially, 'the side of good', results in a cohesive, generally peaceful unit that still has the means to defend itself against those who intend to mindlessly do harm.

e: It's a pretty optimistic message overall, and I think it makes sense with all the cues the film includes about people being able/not being able to change. It's more of a "people can be jerks but they are trying to be good people, and in a lot of cases are influenced, manipulated or otherwise coerced into doing bad things", while acknowledging that 'true bad people' genuinely exist, but are a pretty small minority.
I think Drago's biggest misunderstanding was to think that the Wildebeast and the Alpha were always one and the same, but they're actually not. The Alpha is a position granted to a dragon by the other dragons because he/she has proven capable and willing to protect and serve the other dragons. More often than not, that position goes to the biggest and strongest dragon around, like the Wildebeast, the Red Death or some of the biggest dragons in the TV series (the Fireworm Queen and the Screaming Death come to mind), but it can be accorded to another dragon who's proven himself as a leader and protector.

Magnus Condomus
Apr 23, 2010

So, HTTYD2 is getting some ratings creep. RT score has risen from 91 to 94. Usually ratings creep down, so that's interesting.

wdarkk
Oct 26, 2007

Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten
Just checked out Dragon Riders of Berk. The VAs for the TV show are supposed to be the same, but they sound completely different to me.

EDIT: Maybe it's just Hiccup.

wdarkk fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Jun 18, 2014

Magnus Condomus
Apr 23, 2010

wdarkk posted:

Just checked out Dragon Riders of Berk. The VAs for the TV show are supposed to be the same, but they sound completely different to me.

EDIT: Maybe it's just Hiccup.

Most of the kids are the same. Hiccup, Astrid, tuffnut, fishlegs, snotlout. I believe all of those are the same.

Das Boo
Jun 9, 2011

There was a GHOST here.
It's gone now.
I finally got a chance to see it! I've sifted through the spoilers and didn't see anyone mention how incredible the score was. I'm head over heels in love with it. :swoon:

johntfs
Jun 7, 2013

by Cowcaster
Soiled Meat

Magnus Condomus posted:

Most of the kids are the same. Hiccup, Astrid, tuffnut, fishlegs, snotlout. I believe all of those are the same.

Craig Ferguson is still Gobber, too. I noted very little difference with Stoick and actually preferred the voice actors for Snotlout and Ruffnut in the TV series.

Adeline Weishaupt
Oct 16, 2013

by Lowtax
I guess my thoughts for the first act is; "Bioware game side-plot the movie; now with 20% more exposition! and some cool scenes to make you think we're cutting up the tedium"

The second act really hammers home the beautiful visuals, and has some sweet scenes between Stoick and Valka.

The third act just felt like it was going through the motions more than anything else. But in the end I am somewhat glad that the movie didn't decide to go with the more obvious plot threads (i.e. 'we found a girl for Toothless!' and 'Hiccup rebels against being chieftain').

I'd say that it's a solid 7/10 movie, has some great points; unfortunately few of them really make the movie excel on a mechanical level.

Josh Lyman
May 24, 2009


Do the flight sequences make you feel like you're flying? I didn't see the first one in theatres but when I watched it at home, I could see why people said that about it.

Craptacular!
Jul 9, 2001

Fuck the DH

Josh Lyman posted:

Do the flight sequences make you feel like you're flying?
This, but furthermore is the IMAX treatment worth the $25 of travel and ticket expenses to see it in a city that very an hour away than regular 3D in my suburb?

Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 08:30 on Jun 18, 2014

Stormageddon
Jan 16, 2008
I am actually just a sentient program made to shitpost, and am still getting my human speed calibration down.

Pick posted:

I also thought the introductory scene with Astrid was leading up to her becoming chieftan instead, because they're going on about how she's more suited to that lifestyle and those responsibilities, where it would mean Hiccup giving up what he really loves.

This was my immediate thought as well, and I don't feel as crazy now. Between that and turning Mom into a damsel in distress as soon as Dad showed up, and having her saved multiple times, it was kinda a few pegs back in that department.

I have a lot of complaints about the film, but also really enjoyed it, too. Compared to the first it wasn't very good, but as it's own thing it was alright. The biggest disappointment was that Drago never said "I must break you", despite all my expectation he would.

Favorite bits were probably Erik(son of Erik) being objectified and harassed by the girl twin and the mother's scenes before she was revealed as the mother(I really dug the fact she looked like one of Skyrim's Dragon Priests). The latter was interesting to me because it was the first point in 30 minutes of talking to make the world sound bigger that something new and actually different was happening in the film, like the world was bigger than Berk and Vikings. Genuinely surprised that they went with Drago being Drago(and being a swarthy dark haired viking with a eastern european/russian accent), since he wasn't even IN the first ~60 minutes of the movie, and that the mother wasn't the one forming a "dragon army" and had some grudge against humanity. I wanted to see that movie, not the cliche route it went. Least favorite bit: Butler's singing; and that the film obviously took quite a few queues from Brave and continued the celtic viking thing.


Of note: Stoic had a line that was basically "It takes more than a little fire to kill me", so I wouldn't be shocked if they come back to that...

Stormageddon fucked around with this message at 10:29 on Jun 18, 2014

Das Boo
Jun 9, 2011

There was a GHOST here.
It's gone now.

Stormageddon posted:

(I really dug the fact she looked like one of Skyrim's Dragon Priests).

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought of this. The entire time she was masked, I was thinking " This is Miraak. This is totally Miraak." And then Miraak fought Galmar Stone-Fist, which was pretty cool.

I'm still not certain on my feelings of the film in regards to criticisms. I enjoyed it, that much is evident. And I enjoyed it less than the first film; that, too, is evident. I'm not exactly at a place where I can appropriately articulate my issues with this one, though. :shrug:

my cat is norris
Mar 11, 2010

#onecallcat

Das Boo posted:

I finally got a chance to see it! I've sifted through the spoilers and didn't see anyone mention how incredible the score was. I'm head over heels in love with it. :swoon:

A lot of us mentioned that!

Yes, it's beautiful music. :allears: I love it so much.

got any sevens
Feb 9, 2013

by Cyrano4747

Craptacular! posted:

This, but furthermore is the IMAX treatment worth the $25 of travel and ticket expenses to see it in a city that very an hour away than regular 3D in my suburb?

Nope.

johntfs
Jun 7, 2013

by Cowcaster
Soiled Meat

Stormageddon posted:

Least favorite bit: Butler's singing; and that the film obviously took quite a few queues from Brave and continued the celtic viking thing.


Of note: Stoic had a line that was basically "It takes more than a little fire to kill me", so I wouldn't be shocked if they come back to that...

The singing wasn't great, but that was part of the point: that Hiccup's parents weren't great singers just people who loved each other. The singing was the best part of the movie for me.

As for your speculation, I would be really, really disappointed if they went there in the next movie.

Magnus Condomus
Apr 23, 2010

johntfs posted:

The singing wasn't great, but that was part of the point: that Hiccup's parents weren't great singers just people who loved each other. The singing was the best part of the movie for me.

As for your speculation, I would be really, really disappointed if they went there in the next movie.

Spoilers maybe?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_D74FztSZ8&hd=1

I love how raw the singing is and that they didn't redub his voice to be an actual singer.

Das Boo
Jun 9, 2011

There was a GHOST here.
It's gone now.

my cat is norris posted:

A lot of us mentioned that!

Yes, it's beautiful music. :allears: I love it so much.

Welp, I'm lame.

Stormageddon
Jan 16, 2008
I am actually just a sentient program made to shitpost, and am still getting my human speed calibration down.

johntfs posted:

As for your speculation, I would be really, really disappointed if they went there in the next movie.

I wouldn't like it either, but then you wouldn't expect them to make a character in a movie about Dragons that the name was one letter off. I hope it was more a reference to what did happen than what will happen later.

Magnus Condomus
Apr 23, 2010

That's pretty non sequitur. Next to names like Snotlout, Hiccup, or Fishlegs, Drago isn't that strange.

Bringing back a character who had a thematically agent death sounds like something they wouldn't do. Or do you expect them to bring back Hiccup's foot too?

johntfs
Jun 7, 2013

by Cowcaster
Soiled Meat

Magnus Condomus posted:

That's pretty non sequitur. Next to names like Snotlout, Hiccup, or Fishlegs, Drago isn't that strange.

Bringing back a character who had a thematically agent death sounds like something they wouldn't do. Or do you expect them to bring back Hiccup's foot too?

I got a little non sequitured as well. For a second I thought he was talking about Eragon. For my part I took Drago to be a Colchian (a literal Black Russian) who would reasonably have a name like Drago.

X_Toad
Apr 2, 2011
Count me on the sides of the people who are a bit miffed that Astrid didn't get to be the one to kick butt in the few human-on-human action scenes.

wdarkk posted:

Just checked out Dragon Riders of Berk. The VAs for the TV show are supposed to be the same, but they sound completely different to me.

EDIT: Maybe it's just Hiccup.
Hiccup, Astrid, Tuffnut, Fishlegs and Spitelout (David Tennant) kept their VAs from the movie. Snotlout, Ruffnut, Stoick and Gobber were replaced. Mark Hammil and David Faustino are bad guys.

VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE
Aug 1, 2004

whoa, what just happened here?







College Slice
Wait, BUD BUNDY?

X_Toad
Apr 2, 2011

api call girl posted:

Wait, BUD BUNDY?
Also Mako from The Legend Of Korra. Which is of course all kinds of hilarious when you consider the kind of guy his character in Riders is.

sexpig by night
Sep 8, 2011

by Azathoth

api call girl posted:

Wait, BUD BUNDY?

Bud Bundy is a goddamn inspiration, he went from being one of the biggest butts of the jokes as a kid/young adult to voicing cool dudes and doing movies and poo poo. God bless Bud Bundy.

wdarkk
Oct 26, 2007

Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten

X_Toad posted:

Hiccup, Astrid, Tuffnut, Fishlegs and Spitelout (David Tennant) kept their VAs from the movie. Snotlout, Ruffnut, Stoick and Gobber were replaced. Mark Hammil and David Faustino are bad guys.

Maybe it was youtube being a piece of poo poo, maybe he was sick for that episode, but to me Hiccup sounded like he was 40.

X_Toad
Apr 2, 2011

wdarkk posted:

Maybe it was youtube being a piece of poo poo, maybe he was sick for that episode, but to me Hiccup sounded like he was 40.
That my be the dialog more than the voice, because it is the same.

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend

Stormageddon posted:

Genuinely surprised that they went with Drago being Drago(and being a swarthy dark haired viking with a eastern european/russian accent), since he wasn't even IN the first ~60 minutes of the movie, and that the mother wasn't the one forming a "dragon army" and had some grudge against humanity. I wanted to see that movie, not the cliche route it went.

I thought for a second that this might turn out to be the case as well, and it would have definitely been a lot more interesting. Agreed that Drago was a pretty weak character. They seemed to go to a lot of effort establishing parallels between he and Hiccup- dragon trainer, wears a cloak made of night fury skin, missing limb- the typical villain as a shadow of the protagonist you know, but it doesn't really go anywhere. There's no nuance to him, nothing sympathetic about him, he has only the vaguest of motivations.

The movie really feels like some really good scenes in search of a story. As I think several have already pointed out. Stoic's death only somewhat successfully distracts from how scant the whole thing is. Hiccup's arc is ostensibly about learning to lead, but nothing is really required of him in the third act that we haven't seen from him before.

edit: Count me among those who interpreted Gobber's comment about having never married to mean he'd lost his dick. Obviously there's nothing to support this theory over others, but it was definitely my first thought.

General Dog fucked around with this message at 05:55 on Jun 21, 2014

Magnus Condomus
Apr 23, 2010

So the second one had a lower budget than the first one at 145 mill compared to 165 mill. I guess that means animation has gotten cheaper and their improved pipeline is paying off?

johntfs
Jun 7, 2013

by Cowcaster
Soiled Meat

Frackie Robinson posted:

I thought for a second that this might turn out to be the case as well, and it would have definitely been a lot more interesting. Agreed that Drago was a pretty weak character. They seemed to go to a lot of effort establishing parallels between he and Hiccup- dragon trainer, wears a cloak made of night fury skin, missing limb- the typical villain as a shadow of the protagonist you know, but it doesn't really go anywhere. There's no nuance to him, nothing sympathetic about him, he has only the vaguest of motivations.

Drago's motivations seem very clear to me. He wants to get revenge on dragons for maiming him and destroying his village by enslaving them. Then he wants to use his enslaved dragons to seize control of human civilization (or at least a good portion of the Northern location of human civilization). While Drago isn't sympathetic in the traditional sense, there's very much an air of "there but for the grace of Odin go I" to him.

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend

johntfs posted:

Drago's motivations seem very clear to me. He wants to get revenge on dragons for maiming him and destroying his village by enslaving them. Then he wants to use his enslaved dragons to seize control of human civilization (or at least a good portion of the Northern location of human civilization). While Drago isn't sympathetic in the traditional sense, there's very much an air of "there but for the grace of Odin go I" to him.

I guess when I said his ambitions were vague, I really meant they were broad. Taking over the world is pretty broad.

Like I said, the movie goes to great lengths to compare him to Hiccup, but we know that Hiccup has none of that kind of ambition or anger in him, just as Drago has none of Hiccup's goodness or humility. The comparison is superficial; it doesn't make us look at either character in a different light.

fralbjabar
Jan 26, 2007
I am a meat popscicle.
Just saw this Friday night, and overall I liked it quite a lot. My biggest positive comment has to be how it looked though, holy crap was that one beautiful loving movie. Whatever Dreamworks is doing with their new animation pipeline is definitely working out well for them. Really regret not seeing it in 3D with those visuals, going to have to remedy that some time before it's out of theaters.

Story wise I felt it was a good, well written, movie; but I was left feeling like it was lacking something at the end. It just somehow felt incomplete to me compared to the first one which left me very satisfied leaving the theater. I feel that this may have been from being the middle act of a planned trilogy, but because of the target demographic it had to have a victorious ending. If they had gone the full ESB route and ended the movie on Stoick's funeral and used the runtime to expand the earlier parts of the movie and give some more time to some of the characters who seemed neglected it would have felt a lot more "complete" of a movie, though I fully understand why they wouldn't go that route in this case (wow that would be a dark ending for a family film). Alternatively, if Stoick's death had been closer to the middle of the movie rather than at the 80% mark it would have made the whole ending feel a lot less forced and rushed.

On a related note, the movie seemed to jump around tonally pretty badly at times. One point that REALLY stands out is the sudden shift from the dead serious viking funeral for Stoick straight to slapstick humor as they try riding the baby dragons. A little breathing room between emotional extremes please?

Something I really appreciated though: there were a ton of new dragons in this movie, but they didn't name or explain any of them. I like that, they're dragons: they fly and breathe fire, we don't need a dossier of each dragon's individual quirks. It was awesome seeing a lot more variety in the dragons without a lot of exposition to introduce them.

don't know if this is spoiler worthy, but just in case:
I noticed Guillermo Del Toro in the special thanks for this, did he do any concept art / design work on this? I remember feeling that some of the new designs in the movie felt like Del Toro's designs, especially Valka's dragon rider armor.

CRINDY
Sep 23, 2010

forget about ur worries and ur strife

fralbjabar posted:

I noticed Guillermo Del Toro in the special thanks for this, did he do any concept art / design work on this? I remember feeling that some of the new designs in the movie felt like Del Toro's designs, especially Valka's dragon rider armor.

In short: The first draft of the script would have seen Gobber die instead of Stoick. Del Toro recommended that it should be Stoick, which was definitely a better narrative move.
http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/06/16/how-to-train-your-dragon-2-guillermo-del-toro/

BrianWilly
Apr 24, 2007

There is no homosexual terrorist Johnny Silverhand
I didn't really consider that scene to be comic relief as much as I thought it was meant to be something uplifting and triumphant after the whole truckton of sadness that the movie just hit all the youngin's with.

got any sevens
Feb 9, 2013

by Cyrano4747
The thing is, it's not even that sad compared to many other "kid" movies. I guess it wasn't telegraphed (which is somewhat unusual) because I wasn't expecting anyone to die due to the tone of the first movie and first half of this one, so when Stoic ran in front I was like "oh.". Then they moved on like 1 minute later so we couldn't even dwell on the emotion. Compare that with how long Vader's death (and funeral) takes and the emotional impact.

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Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost

fralbjabar posted:


Story wise I felt it was a good, well written, movie; but I was left feeling like it was lacking something at the end. It just somehow felt incomplete to me compared to the first one which left me very satisfied leaving the theater. I feel that this may have been from being the middle act of a planned trilogy, but because of the target demographic it had to have a victorious ending. If they had gone the full ESB route and ended the movie on Stoick's funeral and used the runtime to expand the earlier parts of the movie and give some more time to some of the characters who seemed neglected it would have felt a lot more "complete" of a movie, though I fully understand why they wouldn't go that route in this case (wow that would be a dark ending for a family film). Alternatively, if Stoick's death had been closer to the middle of the movie rather than at the 80% mark it would have made the whole ending feel a lot less forced and rushed.


One of my biggest gripes about children's films generally is they never let this happen. They throw in a fart or something as soon as anyone (usually parents honestly) would have to start thinking about what's going on. This is why I like films like Coraline and Brave Little Toaster, who will commit to one tone for entire minutes at a time.

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