How To Train Your Dragon Review

[cybereality]

So I just got back from seeing 'How To Train Your Dragon'. I know, I know. But I go to see every single 3D movie that gets released. Anyway, I thought it was decent. Nothing revolutionary or breathtaking but a decent movie nevertheless. The 3D looked good but, for the most part, it was mild. There weren't any out-of-screen effects but most scenes has a nice depth to them. Especially some of the scenes where they were riding boats on the water I thought there was a nice range of depth. It definitely enhanced the movie but I have seen much better such as at A Christmas Carol. Also Monsters vs Aliens, also by Dreamworks, made better effects as well. Still, not bad by any means. The movie itself was OK, standard kid's flick. I thought the animation and art style were pretty cool but the dialogue was pretty cheesy at times and not very funny either. In terms of art I thought Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was better. Overall an OK film, nothing special.

[Tril]

My local theater finally got equipped with 3D. It's a RealD 3D one. It's nice because the closest 3D theater before was 3 hours away by car.

I went to see the movie. I saw the french version that's titled "Dragons". I liked the movie. I found the 3D well done. I enjoyed the story.

The last kid movie I saw before that was Planet 51 and I did not like it. It was too stupid for my taste.

I want to give some comparison about the 3D with another movie that is also computer generated, Beowolf. When it was in theater, I saw Beowolf in 3D and I did not like it. For some reason, Beowolf did not have much depth, it seemed pretty flat most of the time. It was also pretty dark and it was tiring on the eyes because it was so dark. I saw it on a gigantic screen at Imax3D, maybe that's part of the reason. Maybe the surface textures were not detailed enough or the lighting was incorrectly done.

In How to train your dragon, I really liked the 3D. There was a mix of in and out of the screen depth. You could always see the depth in any scene. When there were closeups on the characters, you could clearly see the shape of their bodies and the detailed texture of their face and clothing.

There's something strange about the movie. Some time ago, I think it was when I went to see Avatar (I only saw it in 2D since the 3D screens were not yet installed here). Before the movie, there was a movie preview for How to train your dragon. In that trailer, the main character found a dragon egg, it hatched and he adopted the dragon. In the movie I saw today, there was never any egg. That's strange. Did they change the story of the movie at the last minute? Did anyone else see that trailer?

[PalmerTech]

I am a huge sucker for dragons, 3D, and kids movies (Some of my favorites were Happy Feet and Lilo and Stitch), and I gotta say, I loved this movie. Our local theater uses RealD, and I thought they did a fantastic job of using 3D for immersion, and not just cheap effects. I would definitely suggest that people go see it.

And also... I am a huge modder/tinkerer, so I really loved how much time they spent showing the trial and error in the wing flap construction, and all the refinements he had to make. Way more realistic than movies like Batman where everything he makes is perfect, first shot. That was one of the reasons I liked Iron Man, too.

And Tril; A LOT of the promotional material does not match the movie, maybe to not give stuff away? For example, official movie art:


Not going to say what is wrong with the tail in that pic, for fear of spoilers, but I am sure you see what the problem with it is compared to the actual story.

[phil]

What were your favourite shots in the 3D in this film?

Mine would be:

• Following the trench in the forest - beautiful!
• Approaching the gap in the rocks leading to the lake
• The first big dive down through the clouds around the coast
• The crane shots of the arena and the harbour (because the FOV was wider? because of the motion? because there's lots of objects creating parallax?)
• The low long shots where the bottom of the frame seems to rest on the ground or the water level (with ocean waves or crowds breaking-up the depth nicely)
• The falling ashes

[cybereality]

My favorite shots where the flying scenes (all of them) and when they were sailing on the boats. Very nice 3D effects on the water/rocks/boats.

[PalmerTech]

I liked the flying scenes the best, as well, some really great CGI work.

I would like to add that I actually really liked the scene where it has Hiccup and Astrid on the cliff trying to figure out what to do after the boats leave port. There was enormous contrast of plane between the sky and their figures, and it REALLY underlined what a great job they did in letting you focus on the complicated details of the character models. A lot of 3D movies, the details are lost in translation, especially because they have to try to shift your view to just one focus plane. Because of the very high depth contrast, and because the point of focus is so clear (their faces/bodies), that scene really felt immersive to me.

I cannot wait till this next wave of 3D displays comes out, because I cannot wait to ride it, and play back this movie with the settings cranked up to 100% real life eye distance and get some really nice pop-out. There are a lot of scenes that would look fantastic.

Also, I really enjoyed the soundtrack. It never took center stage like a lot of movies, and it did not TRY to do that like Avatar did (They kept trying to repeat that one musical sequence that they played during the initial shuttle landing over Pandora, in different ways, in like EVERY "intense" or "dramatic" scene, and it was just not memorable enough for it to work), it just blended into the background, but never so much that you did not know it was there.

[phil]

I cannot wait till this next wave of 3D displays comes out, because I cannot wait to ride it, and play back this movie with the settings cranked up to 100% real life eye distance and get some really nice pop-out. There are a lot of scenes that would look fantastic.

On that subject, I've been wondering:

• Do the new 3D TVs/disc players/TV receivers allow you to control the horizontal image separation?

• Is there going to be any standard for "assumed screen width" in 3D recordings and broadcasts for the home? (I'm guessing there must already be one for cinema?)

I think we need both of these to be 'yes' in order for home 3D to work smoothly.