How to Train your Dragon: Spoiler free edition!
So, just returned from the opening night of Dreamworks' new picture: How to Train your Dragon.
Off the bat, I should say a few things: I have never read the book, so I am not in a position to say how closely it mirrored the book. (Though, I've heard that just from the trailer, fans of the book were already complaining that Dreamworks changed a lot) Also I'm very proud to say I did NOT see the picture in 3d. Those things annoy me, I saw it in good old fashioned wide-format flat.
Personally, I enjoyed the heck out of the film. I think it was designed specifically for furries. It's pretty light on plot, but extra heavy on D'AWWWW moments, which is what we probably all came for. I will come out and say that in places, the dialogue gets pretty bad, and there's a few writers' cop-outs, but compared to some films (cough-eragon-cough) they really didn't bother me all that badly.
The quality of the voice acting was great, Dreamworks allocating several native voices to the cause, namely Craig Ferguson and Gerrard Butler. I had heard a lot of jokes about Craig Ferguson being a poor choice at voice actor, but he was actually probably the best one in there. A lot of the younger voices did okay as well.
The character design was good. I think Dreamworks did a fairly good job creating dragons that didn't look anything like cliche ones you've seen 3d rendered before. I do have to say that Toothless was by far the best and most original. But I'm okay with that, because he's the one we all came to see. It was amazing how they took a very geometrically simplistic character design and made him wonderfully expressive. Furry artists out there, if you've ever drawn cats, you need to go watch the film and look at how the artists used Toothless's eyes to portray emotion.
The special effects were pretty cool, even if a lot of them are placed obviously, they were pretty enough I didn't care. I was enjoying watching.
I do have to say, I probably will go see the movie in IMAX 3d. It's short enough that I don't think the 3d-ness will get to be as bad as it did in Avatar (which gave me such a bad headache I had to leave the theater).
I do want to warn folks that are going the IMAX route, careful that you don't get motion sick! Lots of flying scenes (no surprise) which are pretty to look at... but there were a few moments that even without IMAX and without 3d still made my stomach turn.
All in all, really good film, really cute dragon, and a fun story. I'll probably be returning to see it again. :)
Off the bat, I should say a few things: I have never read the book, so I am not in a position to say how closely it mirrored the book. (Though, I've heard that just from the trailer, fans of the book were already complaining that Dreamworks changed a lot) Also I'm very proud to say I did NOT see the picture in 3d. Those things annoy me, I saw it in good old fashioned wide-format flat.
Personally, I enjoyed the heck out of the film. I think it was designed specifically for furries. It's pretty light on plot, but extra heavy on D'AWWWW moments, which is what we probably all came for. I will come out and say that in places, the dialogue gets pretty bad, and there's a few writers' cop-outs, but compared to some films (cough-eragon-cough) they really didn't bother me all that badly.
The quality of the voice acting was great, Dreamworks allocating several native voices to the cause, namely Craig Ferguson and Gerrard Butler. I had heard a lot of jokes about Craig Ferguson being a poor choice at voice actor, but he was actually probably the best one in there. A lot of the younger voices did okay as well.
The character design was good. I think Dreamworks did a fairly good job creating dragons that didn't look anything like cliche ones you've seen 3d rendered before. I do have to say that Toothless was by far the best and most original. But I'm okay with that, because he's the one we all came to see. It was amazing how they took a very geometrically simplistic character design and made him wonderfully expressive. Furry artists out there, if you've ever drawn cats, you need to go watch the film and look at how the artists used Toothless's eyes to portray emotion.
The special effects were pretty cool, even if a lot of them are placed obviously, they were pretty enough I didn't care. I was enjoying watching.
I do have to say, I probably will go see the movie in IMAX 3d. It's short enough that I don't think the 3d-ness will get to be as bad as it did in Avatar (which gave me such a bad headache I had to leave the theater).
I do want to warn folks that are going the IMAX route, careful that you don't get motion sick! Lots of flying scenes (no surprise) which are pretty to look at... but there were a few moments that even without IMAX and without 3d still made my stomach turn.
All in all, really good film, really cute dragon, and a fun story. I'll probably be returning to see it again. :)