RJ Writing Ink

How to Train Your Dragon (2025) Review

Would DreamWorks and Universal please take a bow for How to Train Your Dragon? Not only did they manage to do the original film justice, they managed to utterly embarrass Disney in the process. The House of Mouse is going to be smarting from this for a while!

As a teenager, I never saw the original How to Train Your Dragon in theaters. I would see bits and pieces of it and its sequels, spin-offs, and specials over the years, though, so it’s safe to say I’m a casual fan. However, when I heard that DreamWorks and Universal were doing a live-action remake, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. I was never on board with these remakes to begin with, and years of hits and misses by Disney haven’t helped matters. It doesn’t matter if they have nostalgia bait or try to add something new to the story. At the end of the day, if people dont think that a remake measures up to the original, then what was the point of making it? If the recent failure of Disney’s Snow White is anything to go by, more and more people are starting to realize this. That movie is so bad, it usurped Dragonball Evolution as the worst-rated movie on IMDb.

So, with people turning on live-action remakes, how does the one for How to Train Your Dragon prove itself? How does it justify its reason for existing? The short answer: it doesn’t…because it knows it doesn’t need to.

How to Train Your Dragon had nothing to prove…

Loosely based on a book series of the same name, How to Train Your Dragon could be considered a timeless animated film. It centered around Hiccup, a scrawny outcast in a village of brawny Vikings who spend their time fighting dragons. In a society of jocks, he’s the lone nerd who wants to win everyone’s respect. Yet when he gets the chance to kill a dragon no one’s gotten close to, he realizes he can’t do it! That act of kindness leads Hiccup to discover that everything his people thought they knew about dragons was wrong, leading to a great change in how they view the world.

The reason why How to Train Your Dragon could be considered a timeless film is because, at its core, its a coming of age story. Hiccup is an awkward teen outcast who can’t fit into his people’s norms even when he tries. When you’re a teen trying to find your place in the world, that can be the scariest thing. It’s only when he chooses to accept himself for who he is and quits trying to be something he isn’t that he becomes the badass he was meant to be. It’s a well-written, well-executed story!

So if it ain’t broke, dont fix it.

…And DreamWorks and Universal knew that.

Someone at DreamWorks or Universal must have been taking notes on everything that Disney was doing wrong, because they avoided the Mouse’s pitfalls. It didn’t try to add any overly preachy, woke messages like Snow White. It used CGI only when necessary for the dragons. And best of all, the characters and their motivations more or less remained the same. While they did tone down Hiccup’s sarcasm to play up his angst and insecurity, it never reached insufferable levels. If anything, Mason Thames’ earnest performance endears him to me all the more. Everyone seemed to bring their A-game.

It also helped that the director of the original film came back for the remake. That meant that they knew what they were doing.

Remaking a film can often be like walking on a tightrope. You have to balance between being faithful to the original and trying to improve on it. How to Train Your Dragon, though, didn’t need to change much. It already knew that it had a winning story that people would love. It knew it had nothing to prove, and that allowed it to soar to new heights. It’s likely the first big hit of the summer, and I might end up seeing it a second time.

As for Disney, maybe getting embarrassed by their rivals will be the wake-up call they need. We dont want another Snow White incident!

I Give “How to Train Your Dragon” a 4.5/5

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a huge fan of Dinosaurs. I used to go gaga over them at museums, and I watched every Dinosaur documentary I could find. To this day, Walking With Dinosaurs is one of my favorite documentaries. Ironically, I never got into the Jurassic Park franchise until the soft reboot, Jurassic World.

With the third Jurassic World movie coming out in the near future, Universal’s gearing up its viral marketing campaign to get people’s interest. Yesterday, they dropped a new short film bridging the gap between Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and the unnamed sequel. Dubbed “Battle at Big Rock”, it’s trending at #11 on YouTube at the time of this writing. So I’d thought I’d give my personal thoughts on this look at a world where Dinosaurs freely exist on Earth. Or at least the Americas.

Oh, and spoilers for Fallen Kingdom are ahead.

Jurassic World (For Real)

At the end of Fallen Kingdom, all the surviving dinosaurs rescued from Isla Nublar’s destruction were set free on the Continental United States. Needless to say, this has caused a lot of problems for humanity, as even the herbivores are potentially dangerous. The film shows a family camping one night at the Big Rock National Park that gets intruded upon by a family of Triceratops’. They end up drawing an Allosaurus, which then tries to eat the family. Then we get the traditional terrified struggle until one of the kids drives it off with a crossbow.

I Don’t Humanity’s Screwed

So, my thoughts. I think this short seemingly confirms what I already knew: bringing back Dinosaurs into modern world will cause a lot of problems. Humans would have to deal with species of animals that existed millions of years before we did. Dinosaurs would be in a world different from what their genetics know. As this short film show, there would be a lot of confusion and potential death.

Despite Dr. Malcolm’s fears in Jurassic World, though, I can’t feasibly see dinosaurs as the big threat to humanity the franchise makes them out to be. As the girl in the short reminds us, humans have weapons that range from swords and spears to tanks. HISHE even points out this fact in their episode of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

At best, I think Battle at Big Rock demonstrates that Dinosaurs are simply a safety hazard. Unless they multiply exponentially, they won’t be as big a threat as they’re made out to be. I’m more concerned that they could drive many species of animals into extinction by eating all their food. Or that someone gets killed trying to domesticate them.

I have to give the short credit, though, for it does a good job of getting us hyped for Jurassic World. Now I can’t wait to see if Universal does more short films like this!