TIME TO GO HOME
THE LONG-AWAITED CONCLUSION TO THE HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON TRILOGY SEES HICCUP AND TOOTHLESS PARTING WAYS (SNIFF). DAVE BRADLEY ENTERS THE HIDDEN WORLD...
There were dragons when I was a boy.” It’s an exciting opening line, but one tinged with nostalgia. cressida cowell clobbers us with this on page one of her 2003 book How To Train Your Dragon. and now it’s the inspiration for the end of the movie trilogy.
dean deblois, writer and director of the big-screen adaptations, cracked the spine on the novel and was hooked. “I read that and thought, ‘ooh, that’s intriguing. what does that mean? where do they go?!’ there’s something wistful about it. It’s both wish-fulfilment and bittersweetness. I responded to that, and to cowell’s grand ambition.” beginning with 2010’s animated blockbuster, deblois always planned for a three-instalment story. delays with the studio bumped this final part all the way from 2016 but next spring we’ll discover what happens to Viking hero hiccup and his scaly sidekick toothless. “the end needs to be about something, and it needs to be connected with hiccup’s growth,” continues deblois. “I love the idea of this epic conclusion to hiccup’s story where we track him through the years, to becoming the hero he’s destined to be. hiccup needs to become a rounded human being in his own right, and not completely codependent on someone else.”
ah. so does this mean that hiccup and toothless are parting ways in 2019’s The Hidden World? “If you think about the central idea,” adds producer brad Lewis, “you realise it’s not sustainable. It’s not hiccup’s destiny only to have a life with a dragon pal! and it’s not toothless’s destiny only to have a life with a nerdy human partner – despite the love they have for one another.”
he continues: “stories have an inevitable truth to them. you have a great relationship between a mythical beast in toothless, who’s been domesticated, and an unassuming and nerdy leader in hiccup. they form a bond. so where do you take that? we’ve introduced a Light Fury, a love interest for toothless. For many of us, when you introduce a love interest, things are never going to be the same again.
In great movies, side by side with emotional sadness is a sense of truth and ultimately joy in somebody making that right decision, despite the fact there might be a separation.”
MAN’S BEST FRIEND
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World sees hiccup (voiced by Jay baruchel) growing into the role of village chief. toothless, his terrifying night Fury, is about to get that shiny girlfriend. they’ll both discover new roles in the world. these rites of passage won’t be easy, though. grimmel the grisly (F Murray abraham) is planning a tour of the Viking shores with dragon-slaying on his to-do list.
“I always felt disappointed that we ended up with such a flat villain in Dragon 2,” admits deblois. “the intention had been to reprise him in Dragon 3 and show another aspect to his personality – a redemption, actually. but somewhat wisely I was advised to dispense with that character and start with a new villain! F Murray abraham came to us; he did a test with the 3d model, and the character just came alive. everyone who saw it laughed and said,
‘That’s an interesting villain.’” as well as a new bad guy, there’s a new location: the hidden world itself, the secret ancestral dragon home.
Lewis again: “dean came up with the hidden world, this brand-new mythology, and a new environment that’s a fantasy home to dragons on earth. what would be the perfect environment for dragons? If they had their own world, what might that look and feel like? rather than a pure fantasy, we thought, ‘If they’re living beneath the ocean in the middle of our world, what are the biological details? how might their scales react to that environment? we try to tether it to some authenticity.”
there are fresh dragon types in this film, and deblois and Lewis went to natural history museums for inspiration. the new crimson goregutter has elk-like features, for instance. “It makes them a little more credible,” says deblois. “and it gives us an anchor point of reference for their behaviour. we also reference scorpion movement with the death grippers.”
what is toothless’s love interest based on? “well, toothless was a combination of canine and feline attributes, because we wanted him to feel like a household pet once you got to know him. whereas a Light Fury is almost
entirely big cat behaviour. this helps us, so we’re not too generic with the movements and personalities.” while the dragon designs always reflected the personality of their riders, now there’s a reversal: we’ll see new armour for the characters “literally based on their dragons, using discarded scales to
fireproof their outfits.”
How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is out on 1 February.