DreamWorks was in a weird spot back in 2010. They were the "Shrek" studio—the guys who did snarky, pop-culture-heavy comedies that poked fun at Disney. Then How to Train Your Dragon happened, and honestly, it changed the trajectory of the entire company. It wasn't just another kids' movie about Vikings hitting things. It was a tonal shift toward something more atmospheric, more sincere, and significantly more dangerous.
The first film didn't just introduce us to Hiccup and Toothless; it set a blueprint for how to handle disability, parental disappointment, and the cycle of war without being preachy. If you rewatch it today, you'll notice how quiet it is. Directors Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders—fresh off their success with Lilo & Stitch—brought a specific kind of "outsider" energy to Berk. They took Cressida Cowell’s book series, which is great in its own right, and basically stripped it down to the studs to build a cinematic epic.
The Night Fury that almost wasn't
Most people don't realize how much the design of Toothless carries the entire emotional weight of the story. In the original books, Toothless is a tiny, green, toothless dragon that Hiccup can carry around. He's kind of a brat. The movie flipped that. They needed a creature that could be terrifying one second and like a giant, scaly kitten the next. To get that "cat-like" behavior, the animators literally studied footage of a black panther and a domestic cat with a piece of tape stuck to its paw.
That’s why the interaction feels so real.
When Hiccup first finds the Night Fury in the woods, the scene is almost entirely silent. No snappy dialogue. No DreamWorks-style jokes. Just two scared, injured kids looking at each other. By making the dragon a "Night Fury"—a creature no Viking had ever actually seen and lived to tell about—the stakes became massive. It wasn't just about training a pet; it was about deconstructing a centuries-old genocidal war.
Why Berk feels like a real place
The world-building in How to Train Your Dragon is surprisingly gritty for a PG movie. Berk is described as "twelve days north of Hopeless, and a few degrees south of Freezing to Death." It’s a place defined by stubbornness.
Roger Deakins, the legendary cinematographer who did No Country for Old Men and Blade Runner 2049, actually consulted on the lighting for this film. That is why the fire looks so warm and the fog looks so oppressive. He pushed the team to use "naturalistic" lighting, which was pretty revolutionary for CG animation at the time. Usually, animated movies are brightly lit so you can see all the expensive textures. Deakins wanted shadows. He wanted the world to feel lived-in and slightly terrifying.
✨ Don't miss: Why October London Make Me Wanna Is the Soul Revival We Actually Needed
Think about the forge where Hiccup works. It’s cluttered, orange-hued, and smells like soot even through the screen. This groundedness makes the flying sequences feel like a release. When Hiccup finally gets on Toothless’s back, the movie stops being a Viking drama and becomes a high-octane flight simulator. John Powell’s score—specifically the track "Test Drive"—is doing heavy lifting here. It’s easily one of the best film scores of the 21st century. It uses bagpipes, penny whistles, and a massive orchestral swell that captures the pure, terrifying adrenaline of being 5,000 feet up with a broken tail fin.
The nuance of Hiccup and Stoick
The core of the movie isn't actually the dragon. It's the father-son dynamic. Stoick the Vast, voiced by Gerard Butler, isn't a "villain" in the traditional sense. He's just a man who has lost his wife to dragons and is terrified he’s going to lose his son too. He thinks the only way to survive is to be a warrior.
Hiccup, voiced by Jay Baruchel, is the antithesis of the Viking ideal. He’s thin, talkative, and inventive. The conflict comes from a genuine lack of communication. When Stoick says, "When I was a boy, my father told me to bang my head against a rock and I didn't complain," he’s not just being mean—he’s describing a culture built on endurance.
Hiccup’s realization that "everything we know about them is wrong" is the turning point. It’s a classic trope, sure, but it’s handled with such nuance. He doesn't just stop fighting; he starts observing. He uses a blade of grass to calm a dragon. He uses fish. He uses the very things the Vikings ignored because they were too busy sharpening their axes. It’s a story about the power of empathy as a tactical advantage.
That ending changed everything
We have to talk about the finale. In 2010, mainstream animated movies didn't really do permanent consequences. Usually, the hero wins, everyone is fine, and they have a dance party to a Smash Mouth song.
How to Train Your Dragon went a different way.
🔗 Read more: How to Watch The Wolf and the Lion Without Getting Lost in the Wild
Hiccup loses his leg.
When he wakes up at the end and tries to stand, only to realize he now has a prosthetic that mirrors Toothless’s prosthetic tail fin, it hits like a freight train. It cements their bond. They are both "broken" by the war, but they are whole together. It was a bold move by DreamWorks that gave the franchise a level of respect it carries to this day. It told the audience that these characters aren't invincible. The Red Death—that massive, hive-queen dragon at the end—was a real threat, and victory had a cost.
The Red Death itself is a masterclass in creature design. It’s not "cool" like Toothless. It’s a bloated, multi-eyed parasite that forces other dragons to feed it. It represents the "old way"—a cycle of consumption and fear. By defeating it, Hiccup and Toothless aren't just saving the Vikings; they’re liberating an entire species.
Technical milestones you probably missed
Technically, the film was a massive leap forward. The "Fire Shader" developed for the movie allowed for varying types of dragon fire—some sticky and green, some explosive and white-hot. They also had to figure out how to animate 2,500 dragons on screen at once for the nest sequence.
But the tech always took a backseat to the character beats. Look at Astrid. She starts as a hyper-competitive warrior who has every right to be the hero of the story if Berk stayed the way it was. Her shift from Hiccup’s rival to his confidante happens during the "Romantic Flight" scene. Again, it's a scene with almost no talking. It’s just visual storytelling. She sees the world from the clouds and realizes that her entire worldview was too small.
How to actually "train" your dragon (or anything else)
If we're looking for actionable takeaways from how Hiccup handled Toothless, it’s all about observation over aggression. Whether you're training a dog or learning a new skill, the "Hiccup Method" actually holds water:
💡 You might also like: Is Lincoln Lawyer Coming Back? Mickey Haller's Next Move Explained
- Identify the fear. Hiccup realized dragons were more afraid of Vikings than Vikings were of them.
- Remove the threat. He dropped his knife. In any negotiation or learning process, lowering the stakes often leads to the biggest breakthroughs.
- Find the "Dragon Nip." Every creature has a motivator. For the Gronckles, it was a specific herb. For the Night Fury, it was fish and companionship.
- Iterate and test. The montage of Hiccup building different tail fins is basically a lesson in engineering. He failed. He crashed. He adjusted the pitch of the prosthetic. He tried again.
The legacy of the first How to Train Your Dragon is that it treated its audience like adults. It didn't shy away from the fact that changing a culture is hard, dangerous, and sometimes painful. It remains a high-water mark for animation because it dared to be quiet when other movies were loud, and it dared to be permanent when other movies were temporary.
To get the most out of a rewatch, pay attention to the lighting in the final battle. The way the clouds glow from the internal fire of the Red Death creates a sense of scale that few films have matched since. It’s a reminder that even in a world of Vikings and monsters, the most powerful thing on screen is the trust between two individuals who were supposed to be enemies.
If you're revisiting the series, start with the 2010 original and pay close attention to the score's motifs. Those same themes evolve through the sequels, but they are at their purest right here. You can find the film on most major streaming platforms like Peacock or for rent on Amazon. Watch it on the biggest screen you have; those flight sequences deserve the real estate.
The film isn't just a "kids' movie." It's a study in how to bridge a gap between two worlds that refuse to understand each other. It’s about the moment fear turns into curiosity, and honestly, we could use a lot more of that today.
Next time you watch, look for the small details in the background of the Great Hall. The tapestries actually tell the history of the war you're watching end in real-time. It’s that level of detail that keeps Berk alive sixteen years later.