How to Train Your Dragon (2010)

How to Train Your Dragon is a computer animated comedy adventure movie loosely based on the book by Cressida Cowell of the same name. The film was directed and written by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois and stars Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Gerard Butler, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Craig Ferguson.

Plot
How to Train Your Dragon is centered around a teenaged Viking named Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III  (voiced by Jay Baruchel) who lives on the island of Berk with the rest of his tribe. Over the course of seven generations, Berk has been continuously raided by dragons of all different species, prompting a war between them and the tribe. Like every other young Viking on Berk, Hiccup is expected to fight and kill a dragon in order to be considered a true Viking. However, he is very small for a Viking his age, can hardly lift and use traditional Viking weapons, and has a tendency to cause accidents. His father Stoick the Vast, who is also Chief of the tribe, tries to keep Hiccup indoors as often as possible. During one particular attack on the village while working his post in Gobber the Belch's smithy, Hiccup decides to prove himself as a Viking and capture a dragon using his own methods rather than standard Viking brutality. Using a bola shot from a cannon he designed and built himself, Hiccup is overjoyed when he hits a dragon in mid-air, thinking that it is the rare and dangerous Night Fury. Having not been paid attention to in the chaos, no one else in the village believes him because no one has ever even seen a Night Fury, yet alone brought one down. Hiccup decides to go to the forest at Raven's Point to bring back the dragon's heart as proof to Stoick. Meanwhile, Stoick and Gobber discuss Hiccup's behavior, after a meeting is held in the main hall, and how to make him into a proper Viking. Although initially hesitant, Stoick agrees to enlist his son into Dragon Training in the hope it will toughen him up and give him survival skills before preparing to lead an expedition to take out the Dragon's Nest.

Despite being told to go home, Hiccup disobeys his father and heads out to the forest. He searches for some time but cannot seem to find where the dragon went down. Luckily, Hiccup manages to find a broken tree and churned up ground, leading him to the downed dragon which is tied up in the bola shot. He psychs himself up in preparation to cut out the dragon's heart with his belt knife, but after seeing the fear in the helpless dragon's eyes as it looks back at him, he can't bring himself to kill it. After cutting it free from the ropes, the Night Fury pounces on him and the situation is now reversed: Hiccup is clearly afraid and the dragon stares intently into his eyes for several moments. When it rears up, Hiccup cringes as he thinks it's going to kill him, but it instead roars angrily in his face before attempting to fly off into the trees. Hiccup attempts to walk away, but faints from the encounter.

On the first day of Dragon Training, the other students, Snotlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut and Tuffnut make fun of Hiccup after being nearly killed by a Gronckle, but is saved in the nick of time by Gobber. As Gobber stows the beast away, he mentions that a dragon "always goes in for the kill". Hiccup then returns to where he found the Night Fury, wondering why it didn't do the same to him. Following the path the dragon flew off to, Hiccup notices that half of the Night Fury's tail fin was torn off in it's crash and cannot exit the small cove which it has become trapped in. Attempting to finally record some actual information about Night Furies, Hiccup drops his pencil and alerts the dragon to his presence, but the Night Fury only stares at him. Later that night, Hiccup reads the Dragon Manual in hopes to learn more about the creature, but it only says that the Night Fury is extremely dangerous.

After barely surviving a Deadly Nadder in Dragon Training shortly afterwards, Hiccup attempts to get closer to the Night Fury by offering a fish. The dragon's attitude, on guard after spotting his belt knife, greatly improves after Hiccup tosses it away in the cove pool to prove his intentions. It cautiously takes the offering of fish using its retractable teeth and then regurgitates some of it to share with Hiccup. To stay on good terms, Hiccup takes a bite of the raw fish (now covered with dragon drool), and is forced to swallow with some disgust as the dragon is watching expectanly, and is surprised to see the dragon attempt to imitate a smile. However, his attempts to touch the Night Fury cause it to fly off to the other side of the cove. Later that same day while attempting to sleep, the Night Fury is curious that Hiccup hasn't left and walks over to see the boy drawing an outline of the dragon's head in the dirt. Curious about the drawing, the dragon snaps off a large tree branch and attempts to do the same, making deep impressions in the ground of random scribbles to try and draw Hiccup's head. Hiccup is amazed by it and when the dragon growls when he steps on it, takes care not to stand on the drawing before finally getting close enough to the Night Fury to touch it. It still does not allow him to do so, but when he only holds his hand out, palm open and leaves it to the dragon to decide, it presses it's nose into it.

Hiccup continues Dragon Training along and continues to prove he is unable to accomplish even the most simple tasks necessary to fight dragons. One night after such a battle, Hiccup learns from Gobber that a dragon without it's wings cannot fly, explaining why the Night Fury can't leave the cove. Hiccup attempts to get the Night Fury, which he names "Toothless" after the dragon's retractable teeth, to fly again through the use of an artificial tail fin. It soon becomes clear after a test run that the design needs improvements and that Toothless cannot fly on his own. Through testing new versions of the fin, Hiccup begins to learn things about dragons from experiences with Toothless. He ends up pushing a Hideous Zippleback back into it's cage through learning the dragon's distaste for eel, incapacitates a Gronckle using knowledge of Toothless' love of garlic grass, leads a Terrible Terror by having it chase a beam of light like a cat, and incapacitates a Deadly Nadder by scratching it below the chin. The other Vikings teens continue to watch in awe as Hiccup continues to improve his skills, but Astrid's rivalry turns into extreme jealousy. Shortly after, Hiccup perfects his design of the prosthetic fin and helps Toothless take a successful flight around the island. After taking a lunch break with several wild Terrible Terrors, Hiccup realizes that everything the vikings know about dragons is wrong.

As Hiccup starts to become very popular with his technique of incapacitating dragons rather than killing them, Astrid notices his strange behavior of leaving after every session. After losing out on the right to kill their first dragon in a final test, an angry Astrid follows Hiccup to the small cove where he is planning to leave Berk with Toothless to avoid taking part in his final exam. Toothless, thinking that Astrid is a threat, attempts to attack her and subsequently exposes Hiccup's relationship with the dragon. In an attempt to keep Toothless a secret, Toothless pulls Astrid onto the top of a tree and Hiccup offers her a ride on the dragon's back to show her that he means no harm. Astrid reluctantly accepts Hiccup's offer, but a cautious and annoyed Toothless fakes extreme attempts to throw her off. After Astrid admits she's sorry for what she tried to do, Toothless stops his acrobatics and takes them on a calming romantic flight above the clouds. Astrid's view on dragons is changed and she comes to think that Toothless is amazing.

Hiccup and Astrid are both surprised when Toothless suddenly changes course and begin to fly alongside other dragons that are carrying food to their Nest. Toothless follows them and hides as Hiccup and Astrid discover that the dragons are not eating their kill themselves. Instead, they are feeding it to the Red Death, a gigantic Seadragonus Giganticus Maximus. The dragons are forced to feed the Red Death with what they steal from Berk or else they will be eaten by it instead, as proven with an unlucky Gronckle and a Hideous Zippleback.

After they escape the Nest and return home, Astrid wants to tell Stoick and the village about the Nest, but Hiccup is adamant that she not do so, otherwise they would kill Toothless. Shocked, she asks in disbelief if he would go that far to "protect [his] pet dragon". Unlike the uncertain and hesitant Hiccup she's always known, Hiccup looks right at her and unwaveringly tells her "yes", causing her to see him in an entirely new light. Astrid promises to keep Toothless a secret and punches Hiccup in the shoulder for "kidnapping" her before kissing him on the cheek for "everything else".

Stoick returns from his unsuccessful attempt to find the Dragon Nest and is surprised to hear how well Hiccup is doing in Dragon Training. His son is placed into his final test to become a Viking: kill a Monstrous Nightmare in the battle arena. Instead of killing it however, Hiccup tries to tame it to prove that the dragons are not dangerous creatures. His father's insistence of killing the dragon scares the Monstrous Nightmare into attacking Hiccup. Toothless hears his human friend's cries of fear from the cove and rushes to save him, managing to climb out of the cove by himself and run through the forest. Astrid enters the battle arena in an attempt to save Hiccup, but fails to fight off the Monstrous Nightmare. Stoick helps Astrid to get out of the arena but Hiccup is stopped short when the dragon blocks him from escaping. Toothless arrives in the nick of time and saves Hiccup by fighting away the Monstrous Nightmare. The other Vikings are in awe at the Night Fury and jump into the arena to capture him. In defense, Toothless begins to attack the Vikings, including Stoick, to stop them from harming his human friend. Hiccup tries to order Toothless to leave before he is captured, but Toothless' strong devotion to protecting Hiccup causes him to stay put. Hiccup barely manages to stop Toothless from using his fire on Stoick before the Vikings eventually overwhelm him.

Hiccup tries to explain to his father that dragons are nowhere near as harmful as they think they are, but Stoick refuses to listen, outraged that his son has befriended his enemy. During his attempt to explain, Hiccup accidentally mentions the Dragon's Nest and says only a dragon can enter the Nest, giving Stoick the idea to use Toothless as the ticket to get there. Hiccup tries to explain again to his father why the dragons were so fierce when they took the Viking's livestock, attempting to mention the Red Death and it's treatment of the dragons. Stoick refuses to listen and simply says to Hiccup that he is no longer considered his son.

The Vikings prepare themselves and leave to fight the dragons, keeping Toothless chained up aboard one of their ships. Hiccup watches them leave from the village's harbor as Astrid encourages him to do something. Asking why Hiccup didn't kill Toothless, Hiccup explains that he saw Toothless was just as afraid as he was and realizes the mess he's caused from being the first Viking in 300 years who wouldn't kill a dragon. Astrid's words convince him to take action and get back Toothless. He teaches the other Vikings to ride the other types of dragon in the arena before they then follow the others to the Dragon's Nest.

''"You've thrown your lot in with them. You're not a viking. You're not my son." - Stoick to Hiccup''

The Vikings reach the Nest using a shackled Toothless as a guide and use catapults to blow a hole in the Nest's lower base. Upon doing so, the dragons flee from the enraged Red Death, causing it to break through the walls and attack the Vikings, setting all of the longboats on fire including the one Toothless is chained up on, leaving them with no escape. Stoick realizes the scale of the fight that Hiccup was trying to tell him and curses himself as a fool. He, along with Gobber, decide to sacrifice themselves to let the others escape. However, both them and the Red Death are halted in their efforts when Hiccup and his friends arrive on dragon back.

After leading it up high enough into the dark clouds, they hide among them and while diving past at high speed, repeatedly blast hole after hole into the Red Death's wing sails. In pain and enraged, the giant blasts a long stream of fire all around it, setting Toothless' prosthetic tail fin alight when the Night Fury can't quite avoid the flames. Knowing they have little time left, Hiccup dives nearly straight down, the Red Death in hot pursuit. When he hears the sound of the Red Death heating its gasses to fry them, he waits for the last possible moment, then shouts to Toothless: Toothless spins around and fires a plasma blast directly into the Red Death's mouth, prematurely igniting the gas and setting its insides on fire. Toothless then twists away and slips past its head, just as it realizes that its about to hit the ground. However, when it spreads it wings to stop itself, all the holes in its wing sails tear into even bigger holes, rendering its wings useless.Whilst the other Viking teens keep the Red Death at bay, Hiccup is dropped of by Astrid and the Deadly Nadder onto the burning ship Toothless is restrained on to free him. However the Red Death's thrashing around strikes the ship and causes the remains to sink, and he almost ends up drowning along with his dragon friend. Stoick, amazed at what Hiccup and his friends have done, dives down and saves them both from the water. After apologizing to his son, he tells him that he doesn't have to face the dragon, but with a smile Hiccup replies that they're vikings: it's an occupational hazard. Telling Hiccup that he's proud to have him as his son, Stoick watches as Hiccup climbs aboard Toothless and angers the Red Death into flying after them.

As the huge dragon crashes at full speed and explodes, Hiccup is knocked off when Toothless is unable to turn away from hitting the Red Death's tail. Seeing Hiccup fall towards the flames beneath, Toothless dives into the inferno of the Red Death's exploding body to save him. After smoke from the battle clears, it is shown that Toothless survived, with his prosthetic fin destroyed and his saddle empty and burned. Everyone believes Hiccup has been killed in the explosion, reducing Stoick to tears. He apologizes, saying how sorry he was for not listening to his son. Toothless sees this and unfurls his wrapped up wings, revealing he has an unconscious Hiccup clutched to his body: his fire-proof dragonhide has saved Hiccup's life.

After an unknown amount of time, Hiccup wakes up in his bed, which has been placed on the main floor at home, surprised that Toothless is in his house to joyfully greet him. As he gets out of bed, after being licked by Toothless, he discovers that he has lost his left foot and lower shin (as Toothless was unable to fully enwrap those parts with his wings), which has been replaced by a prosthetic made by Gobber. After taking a moment for the feelings of sadness and loss to pass by, Toothless helps him walk outside and Hiccup is surprised to see that the Vikings have invited the dragons to live in the village. Hiccup is welcomed back as a hero and Astrid punches him for "scaring [her]" and then gives him a kiss on the lips. After Toothless is fitted with a new fin and saddle that Gobber built, Hiccup, Astrid, and the other Viking teenagers ride their dragons through Berk as the new age of a Viking and Dragon alliance begins.