Yes, I said it. Bold claim, I know. But I can back this up. The How To Train Your Dragon (HTTYD) franchise is one of the best animated franchises of all time. Discounting the books, it spans three movies, five short films, and two tv shows of 10 seasons. It, like most DreamWorks animation, has gone largely underrated by the general public since the first movie dropped in 2010 (yes, 11 years ago. We’re all old). Well, I am here to tell you why the three movies make up, not just the best animated trilogy of all time, but the best overall trilogy of all time, period.
First up, we need to talk about the fact that it is an animated movie trilogy. That, in and of itself, is astounding. Most animated movies barely get sequels, and the ones that do, well you end up wishing they didn’t (yes, I’m talking about Cars 2). All the best animated movies only have one entry: Cinderella, Aladdin, The Lion King (Simba’s pride is direct-to-DVD so it doesn’t count), Up, Megamind, the list goes on. Excellent movies, but only the one installment. It helps that HTTYD is based on a book series so they could properly flesh out a trilogy but still, it is an amazing achievement.
Secondly, every single movie in the trilogy is great. There are few live-action trilogies that you could say that about. The Godfather? I and II were god-tier but the third was crap. Same with Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. Everyone will openly admit that The Dark Knight Rises drops from The Dark Knight, although it’s hard to follow up perfection (There’s a discussion to be had about The Dark Knight Trilogy being more of a solo film and a duology, but that’s for another writing). The only one I can think of is Lord of The Rings, and much like HTTYD, it benefits from being based on a book; plus you could say that LOTR is basically one movie split into three. HTTYD is one of a few trilogies with no entries that are bad or huge drops from their predecessors.
Third, the score. Yes, the score. They are part of the films, and elevate it to new levels. The score for the first movie was nominated of an Oscar (which it should have won. The Social Network? Really?), and the two follow-ups have been similarly amazing. The scores form an integral part of the experience of watching these movies unlike anything I’ve seen, outside maybe Interstellar.
Number four, the movies themselves. The three films create not just an amazing interconnected story, but an incredibly colorful world, and excellent characters with relatable emotional motivations. Hiccup is, in my opinion, one of the best characters ever written. He embodies the eternal question that everyone asks themselves from time to time “who am I and what is my place in the world?” We get to see his relationships with his father, with Toothless (his dragon), and with Astrid grow and mature. We get to see him grow from a scared, wiry teenager to the Chief of Berk. Astrid, for her part, is an amazingly well written female lead. She is strong and independent in her own right, and we also see her grow and evolve throughout the trilogy.
This might just be the ramblings of a guy who really likes these movies and these characters, but it is my honest opinion that the How To Train Your Dragon Trilogy is the best movie trilogy, animated or live-action, ever.
