How to Train Your Dragon LIVE
I WENT TO SEE THE LIVE VERSION OF HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON ON SATURDAY AND IT WAS AWESOME.
Here are some pictures and ramblings about it. Spoilers for the plot, some swearing, lots of fangirling. 23 (mostly blurry) pictures.
If you didn't see it in my last (and VERY long) post, my sister gave me and Nur tickets to see the live How to Train Your Dragon show in San Jose (about an hour south of my apartment). I started out being sort of, "oh, neat" and by the time the day of the show arrived I was foaming at the mouth in anticipation. I even made a Toothless hoodie to wear! But, tragedy struck. There was a mechanical malfunction in the show before ours and they ended up deciding to cancel the show as we were waiting in line to get in. Much sadness all around. My sister got her money back, I got my parking fee back, and that was that. Or it would have been, except the show offered everyone whose performance was cancelled tickets for half-off at the next location they were performing. (Our original tickets were for the last show in San Jose.) And that was just AWESOME, so my sister got us new tickets, this time for a performance in Sacramento. It was twice as far as San Jose, BUT WE WERE GONNA SEE DRAGONS.
Sorry about the low quality of some of these, it was hard to take steady pictures when I was a dark area and when I was so giddy with excitement!
RWAR I'M A DRAGON!!! We took this after our San Jose show was cancelled. I got Nur to take pictures of my shadow because I THOUGHT IT WAS COOL. I'm wearing my Toothless hoodie, though it doesn't really look like it aside from the tail.
In our seats at the Sacramento show. You can see all the doors in the wall/scrim on the stage. They were used to really good effect.
Hiccup opens the show with a small Monstrous Nightmare and a small Deadly Nadder.
At first, there were some groan-worthy moments. Just… dumb little kid sorts of jokes that make you laugh, but groan-laugh. And weird stuff was changed. Like Fishlegs's personality, and making both the twins male (as far as I could tell). But it wasn't big stuff. There is only one set piece that is actually on the stage; a circular platform. I thought that might make it hard for some of the scenes, but they were really clever with their layout! During the scene at the beginning when Berk is being attacked, Hiccup runs through the village, but since there are no set piece, he actually gets attached to a wire and RUNS UP THE SCRIM. They projected a bird's-eye view of the village on it and he'd run through it. At some points, the image would rotate to become a completely new area and it's really hard to explain, but it was SO COOL! And when the village first gets attacked, FIRE SHOOTS OUT OF AREAS OF THE STAGE. Fire is always a cool effect.
Hiccup meets Toothless. Toothless had two rigs, this ground rig and a flying rig. Both of them had really awesome facial expressions and would growl and then get all happy and oh gosh, I want one so badly!
To describe some of the dragons during Gobber's dragon training, they used shadow puppets. They did some really clever things with them.
Hiccup and Toothless start to trust each other.
Aaaannnnnd the flying rig! They had this big track put in on the ceiling that allowed them to fly in a circle around the stage, but then they could go up and down and Flying!Toothless was attached to a section that could turn 180(?) degrees, so it really felt like he could fly anywhere on that stage. It was really well done.
Let's meet some of the other dragons!! There are some clips here showing the dragons and how they move.
The Deadly Nadder! I love you Toothless, but Nadders are probably the prettiest HtTYD dragons in my opinion. *_* You can see there are a good number more vikings in dragon training than there was in the movie. I got all excited at one point when Gobber said something like, "Now go, Camicazi!" And a girl leapt forward to try to attack. Camicazi is from the books and I really like her, so I was all giddy. But looking at the cast, there is no Camicazi listed. Nur thinks Gobber was just trying to get someone to do a kamikaze attack. Hm. =T
And of course my only somewhat good shot of the Nadder has her head facing the other way. You can see Gobber on this big ol' chair in the lower right corner.
This is when Hiccup is supposed to kill the Monstrous Nightmare. The Nightmare has a different design from the movie, and I didn't like that it was different at first, but this version is just so lovely too that I fell in love. He came up and roared and blew smoke at each side of the stage.
Hello, you pretty thing you! Let me take you home and take care of you!
Hiccup says, "Stand back, you losers, watch this."
Awwww shit son, Hiccup is petting a dragon. He's petting a goddamn dragon! BADASS. Then of course the moment is ruined by Stoick and the other vikings and the Monstrous Nightmare tries to eat Hiccup.
BUT TOOTHLESS WILL HAVE NONE OF THAT AND THEY BATTLE! Toothless sends the Monstrous Nightmare running, but gets captured by the vikings because at this point they've all contracted a case of the stupids.
The adult vikings take Toothless into their ships and sail towards the dragon's nest. And why did I start telling the story all of a sudden? Oh well. So yeah, they're sailing to the next because as vikings age they develop crazy hearing issues where it's hard for them to listen to reason.
Surprising no one, THERE IS A GIANT DRAGON AT THE NEST. If only Hiccup had said somethi- OH WAIT HE DID. HUH. But look at Red Death! ♥ Biiiiig dragon!!
One more of Red Death because WHY NOT.
Red Death went back in, the younger vikings come to save the day, Hiccup dives in the water to save Toothless, Stoick dives in to save both of them and things are looking up! (The water effect was cool, with neat lighting, sound, and bubbles!) But then the lights went down and an announcement came on saying that there was a problem and the show would restart shortly. So Hiccup went backstage and Flying!Toothless just sorta sat out there and the lights came up.
At first, Toothless just sat there, but as time went by, he would look around and blink and it seemed like he was starting to get restless because he would move more and more as time went by. Before too long the lights went back down and the show continued!
Nur and I think the scrim broke, because the Red Death never came out again. The fight scene with it somehow worked anyway (they projected the body onto the wall/scrim and it looked like the head was just sorta… out of frame).
Fly, Toothless! Fly!!!
You can see all the fire on the wall from the Red Death on the right.
BUT THEN RED DEATH WAS DEFEATED AND THINGS WERE GOOD AND IT ONLY COST THE VIKINGS THEIR PRIDE AND HICCUP'S LOWER LEFT LEG. YAY!
Yay, they won! They won! I honestly have no idea how they got Ground!Toothless out if the scrim was broken, but no point in thinking about it!
Stoick went back stage and I guess he was supposed to get on the Gronckle (sorry, I didn't take any clear enough shots of her) and maybe ride out, but since the scrim never opened, he just sat behind it and you could see him, but he was… stuck back there, giving his lines. "Look, son, I'm riding a Gronckle!! …………It's a shy Gonckle, but I'm riding it!"
Good job, Hiccup and Toothless, you have changed the world! Now please let me have a dragon.
But the show was over and I wasn't getting a big dragon to take home. I did however, fail to resist the temptation of the merch stand. And despite telling myself and Nur over and over that I WOULD NOT buy a Toothless plush, I already had a super cute one at home, I bought a new Toothless plush. Her name is Sumi and she is ALWAYS HAPPY. (Those are my paws spread out on her sides, she doesn't have weird-looking wings or anything.) I also got an "Official Dragon Trainer" shirt which looks AWESOME and I have already worn with pride.
Before leaving, Nur kindly took a picture of me with the Riders of Berk poster.
If you have a chance, I recommend trying to go see the show. I loved it, I was very inspired by it (gonna make me some DRAGONS), and it was lots of fun. The dragons in the show are incredible, and the clever things they do with the scrim/wall, lights, and effects are very cool.
♥♥♥♥DRAGONSSSSSS!!!!!♥♥♥♥
Here are some pictures and ramblings about it. Spoilers for the plot, some swearing, lots of fangirling. 23 (mostly blurry) pictures.
If you didn't see it in my last (and VERY long) post, my sister gave me and Nur tickets to see the live How to Train Your Dragon show in San Jose (about an hour south of my apartment). I started out being sort of, "oh, neat" and by the time the day of the show arrived I was foaming at the mouth in anticipation. I even made a Toothless hoodie to wear! But, tragedy struck. There was a mechanical malfunction in the show before ours and they ended up deciding to cancel the show as we were waiting in line to get in. Much sadness all around. My sister got her money back, I got my parking fee back, and that was that. Or it would have been, except the show offered everyone whose performance was cancelled tickets for half-off at the next location they were performing. (Our original tickets were for the last show in San Jose.) And that was just AWESOME, so my sister got us new tickets, this time for a performance in Sacramento. It was twice as far as San Jose, BUT WE WERE GONNA SEE DRAGONS.
Sorry about the low quality of some of these, it was hard to take steady pictures when I was a dark area and when I was so giddy with excitement!
RWAR I'M A DRAGON!!! We took this after our San Jose show was cancelled. I got Nur to take pictures of my shadow because I THOUGHT IT WAS COOL. I'm wearing my Toothless hoodie, though it doesn't really look like it aside from the tail.
In our seats at the Sacramento show. You can see all the doors in the wall/scrim on the stage. They were used to really good effect.
Hiccup opens the show with a small Monstrous Nightmare and a small Deadly Nadder.
At first, there were some groan-worthy moments. Just… dumb little kid sorts of jokes that make you laugh, but groan-laugh. And weird stuff was changed. Like Fishlegs's personality, and making both the twins male (as far as I could tell). But it wasn't big stuff. There is only one set piece that is actually on the stage; a circular platform. I thought that might make it hard for some of the scenes, but they were really clever with their layout! During the scene at the beginning when Berk is being attacked, Hiccup runs through the village, but since there are no set piece, he actually gets attached to a wire and RUNS UP THE SCRIM. They projected a bird's-eye view of the village on it and he'd run through it. At some points, the image would rotate to become a completely new area and it's really hard to explain, but it was SO COOL! And when the village first gets attacked, FIRE SHOOTS OUT OF AREAS OF THE STAGE. Fire is always a cool effect.
Hiccup meets Toothless. Toothless had two rigs, this ground rig and a flying rig. Both of them had really awesome facial expressions and would growl and then get all happy and oh gosh, I want one so badly!
To describe some of the dragons during Gobber's dragon training, they used shadow puppets. They did some really clever things with them.
Hiccup and Toothless start to trust each other.
Aaaannnnnd the flying rig! They had this big track put in on the ceiling that allowed them to fly in a circle around the stage, but then they could go up and down and Flying!Toothless was attached to a section that could turn 180(?) degrees, so it really felt like he could fly anywhere on that stage. It was really well done.
Let's meet some of the other dragons!! There are some clips here showing the dragons and how they move.
The Deadly Nadder! I love you Toothless, but Nadders are probably the prettiest HtTYD dragons in my opinion. *_* You can see there are a good number more vikings in dragon training than there was in the movie. I got all excited at one point when Gobber said something like, "Now go, Camicazi!" And a girl leapt forward to try to attack. Camicazi is from the books and I really like her, so I was all giddy. But looking at the cast, there is no Camicazi listed. Nur thinks Gobber was just trying to get someone to do a kamikaze attack. Hm. =T
And of course my only somewhat good shot of the Nadder has her head facing the other way. You can see Gobber on this big ol' chair in the lower right corner.
This is when Hiccup is supposed to kill the Monstrous Nightmare. The Nightmare has a different design from the movie, and I didn't like that it was different at first, but this version is just so lovely too that I fell in love. He came up and roared and blew smoke at each side of the stage.
Hello, you pretty thing you! Let me take you home and take care of you!
Hiccup says, "Stand back, you losers, watch this."
Awwww shit son, Hiccup is petting a dragon. He's petting a goddamn dragon! BADASS. Then of course the moment is ruined by Stoick and the other vikings and the Monstrous Nightmare tries to eat Hiccup.
BUT TOOTHLESS WILL HAVE NONE OF THAT AND THEY BATTLE! Toothless sends the Monstrous Nightmare running, but gets captured by the vikings because at this point they've all contracted a case of the stupids.
The adult vikings take Toothless into their ships and sail towards the dragon's nest. And why did I start telling the story all of a sudden? Oh well. So yeah, they're sailing to the next because as vikings age they develop crazy hearing issues where it's hard for them to listen to reason.
Surprising no one, THERE IS A GIANT DRAGON AT THE NEST. If only Hiccup had said somethi- OH WAIT HE DID. HUH. But look at Red Death! ♥ Biiiiig dragon!!
One more of Red Death because WHY NOT.
Red Death went back in, the younger vikings come to save the day, Hiccup dives in the water to save Toothless, Stoick dives in to save both of them and things are looking up! (The water effect was cool, with neat lighting, sound, and bubbles!) But then the lights went down and an announcement came on saying that there was a problem and the show would restart shortly. So Hiccup went backstage and Flying!Toothless just sorta sat out there and the lights came up.
At first, Toothless just sat there, but as time went by, he would look around and blink and it seemed like he was starting to get restless because he would move more and more as time went by. Before too long the lights went back down and the show continued!
Nur and I think the scrim broke, because the Red Death never came out again. The fight scene with it somehow worked anyway (they projected the body onto the wall/scrim and it looked like the head was just sorta… out of frame).
Fly, Toothless! Fly!!!
You can see all the fire on the wall from the Red Death on the right.
BUT THEN RED DEATH WAS DEFEATED AND THINGS WERE GOOD AND IT ONLY COST THE VIKINGS THEIR PRIDE AND HICCUP'S LOWER LEFT LEG. YAY!
Yay, they won! They won! I honestly have no idea how they got Ground!Toothless out if the scrim was broken, but no point in thinking about it!
Stoick went back stage and I guess he was supposed to get on the Gronckle (sorry, I didn't take any clear enough shots of her) and maybe ride out, but since the scrim never opened, he just sat behind it and you could see him, but he was… stuck back there, giving his lines. "Look, son, I'm riding a Gronckle!! …………It's a shy Gonckle, but I'm riding it!"
Good job, Hiccup and Toothless, you have changed the world! Now please let me have a dragon.
But the show was over and I wasn't getting a big dragon to take home. I did however, fail to resist the temptation of the merch stand. And despite telling myself and Nur over and over that I WOULD NOT buy a Toothless plush, I already had a super cute one at home, I bought a new Toothless plush. Her name is Sumi and she is ALWAYS HAPPY. (Those are my paws spread out on her sides, she doesn't have weird-looking wings or anything.) I also got an "Official Dragon Trainer" shirt which looks AWESOME and I have already worn with pride.
Before leaving, Nur kindly took a picture of me with the Riders of Berk poster.
If you have a chance, I recommend trying to go see the show. I loved it, I was very inspired by it (gonna make me some DRAGONS), and it was lots of fun. The dragons in the show are incredible, and the clever things they do with the scrim/wall, lights, and effects are very cool.
♥♥♥♥DRAGONSSSSSS!!!!!♥♥♥♥