How To Train Your Dragon, a movie review by Harlow Klein

How To Train Your Dragon, a movie review by Harlow Klein           The tale of ships, fearless men, and gruesome fighting. This is what the Vikings were all about but in the 2010 Disney film, How to Train your Dragon directed by Chris Sanders the view on Vikings takes a turn to draw in younger viewers. The film sets off with In the in the island of Berk, with the main character Hiccup. Hiccups father is the chief of their tribe of Hairy Hooligans and has high expectations of his people… all of his people except Hiccup. Hiccup does not fit in with the viking scene and is different than the rest. While others are out fighting dragons, Hiccup comes to the rescue for one. What Hiccup has is a special bond that connects him to the dragons. He understands how to handle them and realizes their not scary but just scared of the vikings. The story goes on and Hiccups father finds out about Hiccups secret companion and is appalled. He takes away his dragon and has him lead him to the “dragon hive”, here they discover that they have much bigger problems such as the mega dragon, and that the dragons were really just fending for themselves. In the end the tribe comes together with the dragons in order to defeat the queen dragon. Although it may just be a cute cartoon, How to Train your Dragon is a great and educational film to get children involved with the history of the middle age Vikings, but doesn’t tell the whole truth.   Although this film shows a happy ending and mystical dragons, the real Vikings were not as nice in real life and there wasn't a happy ending for the victims of their raids. In the movie they find the hive of the dragons and realize they only steal in fear of their losing their life from the mega dinosaur. The Vikings realize they can't win this battle without the help of the dragons. In this case the film shows the Vikings relying on the help of others in order to survive, but in real medieval times the Vikings were the main ones in charge and didn't need help because they controlled who lived and who didn't. Also, real vikings showed no sympathy in real life, an example is the heroic act of virginity which was done by the nuns. Even though the Vikings were disgusted by the women, they still chose to burn down their church while the women remained in it. Again, the film hides some of the truth of the real vikings and how savage they truly were.        The clothing, accents, and characteristics play a major key in the relationship to real Vikings and cartoon ones. The animation characters wear clothing crafted of animal skins, furs, metal brooches, and shields. This is quite similar to the real ones which can be evident when reading, “Over his shoulders the man wore a cloak, which was fastened with a brooch” (“Clothes and Jewellery”). Seeing the characters all dressed up helped to put into perspective what the Vikings were really like, and how they used their resources. The fact the author made this an animation just helped to make the viking aspect more kid friendly and less gory and raw. It makes the audience view the Vikings as large heroic men and not savages. Another article of clothing and protection was the helmet. They film shows helmet with horns and designs, but the truth is that the real vikings did not have these elaborate helmets but more simple ones. One source states, “During the Viking age, helmets were typically fairly simple: a bowl with a prominent nose guard” (Viking Helmets).      They also had the huge, ornate and well made ships with grand sails that they filled with a bunch of warriors, when they went to battle. This again is much like the real Vikings who used the ships when they went to invade other towns off the rivers and then jump back on their boat to the raid the next one. The movie really emphasizes the ships and shows the carvings on the tip and the large sails. This is relatable to the real Vikings and just really grabs the audience's attention to point out these people meant business when it came to their ships. They also showed the characters rowing the boats with oars which is important because that is how the boat worked with the Vikings in order to help them cover the amount of land they did in that short period of time. Bennett, who is the author of Medieval Europe, writes, “...this ship was used c. 800 to bury two women... Beautifully carved and of elegant shape, it was a practical machine of trade and war. Propelled by oars and sail, ships of this sort had great speed on the open sea…” (Bennett 108). This view of the ships helps to connect to the idea of how the real vikings used them as burials and just to touch on the idea of how they were built. This again was not shown in the film because when watching an animated film, there's always a happy ending, but with the real vikings happy endings were not common.  How to Train Your Dragon, is a great film to introduce the idea of vikings to younger children but is not a reliable source for older adults to learn the truth about vikings. The movie hides the bad aspects of the culture of the vikings and portrays them as nicer people than they truly were. This film had a lot of other important details such as how women were warriors and not just maidens of the house, which is true. So again, there were few details the film did show but also a lot they hid from the audience. It is a children's film though so I feel as if they did give a good foundation for learning, and I surely hope someone who is truly wanting to learn about vikings would find a more reliable and in depth source.            


Sources:
“Viking Helmets.” Hurstwic,
http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/manufacturing/text/viking_helmets.htm. Accessed 12 Sept. 2019.

“Clothes and Jewellery.” National Museum of Denmark, https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-viking-age/the-people/clothes-and-jewellery/. Accessed 12 Sept. 2019.

Bennett, Judith. Medieval Europe: A Short History. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011.

Movie: https://www.vudu.com/content/movies/details/How-to-Train-Your-Dragon/182052