Legend of the BoneKnapper Dragon (2010)

Wonderful character development!

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Dreadfully Boring

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Hiccup and his friends embark on a quest to find the legendary Boneknapper dragon, which, as told by Gobber, tried to get him and his treasure numerous times. It's a short story from the "How to train your dragon" universe and although Toothless is missing, it manages to be quite entertaining through its cartoony inserts. It's finale is a laugh and predictable but it's a good short overall. Nothing out of the ordinary unfortunately.

As with so many animated films, How to Train Your Dragon created this short film I presume to go on the DVD as an extra. The plot is that the gang of children set out in search of a completely mythical dragon called the Boneknapper – a dragon only known via the highly dubious stories told by Gobber. While the main parts of the short are CGI, the stories snap into a nicely effective cartoon style which I liked as it differentiated it from the "reality" of the rest of the film. I can understand why some would see these sections as "cheap" because they clearly are less expensive to produce, but this didn't mean that this was the motivation – it worked as a device for me, not as a cost-saving.The plot is simple and most of the laughs do come from the exaggeration in the story-telling in the cartoon sections. It isn't great but I did like the "and what came rising out of the water/volcano/ice" bits as they were out of nowhere and consistent. The rest of it comes and goes pretty quickly though and I certainly don't think the short is worth making an effort to seek out and it certainly doesn't stand up to the standard of the main film. But as a throwaway extra on a DVD? Sure, why not?

Let me start out by saying that I'm a huge fan of the original HTTYD film. The plot and characters, the voice acting, the visuals, and the score were all superb and I rank the movie highly amongst all of the animated films I've seen. I'm aware that this is supposed to be a "short film" and not a full- length sequel to the movie. However, that is no excuse for throwing together a half-arsed job in an attempt to milk what looks to be a very promising franchise. If I could erase my memory of viewing this short, I would. Let me break down everything that was wrong about this "film" for you:The plot: Technically, HTTYD is a "family" movie aimed towards kids; I get that. However, being in my 20s I still found the original story to be highly enjoyable (if a bit predictable) but still with a respectable level of emotional maturity. Still, the dialogue was witty and the story flowed well. I'm well aware that you can't do much in the span of 15 minutes, but the story in LOTBD was embarrassingly juvenile such that anyone over the age of seven would find "uncool" to watch. Did they hire the same writers? Jokes were lame, and everyone's personalities were reduced to stereotypes. Toothless had more of a cameo than an active role, despite the fact that he is one of the principal characters. Heck, the hammerhead sharks and yak had more screen time (take from that statement the content of the plot)! The film was more about Gobber, who I found to be quite funny in the original but I hated how he was portrayed here as a paranoid, stubborn, bumbling oaf.The visuals: This was what shocked me the most, aside from the horrendous script writing. What happened?! The original movie had absolutely mind-blowing visuals; the details they put into both the characters and environment were stunning. The environments were incredibly stale and unpolished, like something I would have expected from the 90's in terms of quality. And to cut even more corners, they stuck in some lame 2D schlock-fest to fill up about half the time. The score: I loved John Powell's soundtrack to the movie. It's on my iPod and I've listened to it about a dozen times. To make it even more obvious that this film was a last-minute idea, they didn't both to re- hire Mr. Powell to create a new score, and they instead re-used everything from the original. I was looking forward to hearing some more original stuff, but it became a predictable disappointment.Frankly, I'm also disappointed with the voice actors that they would lend their talents to such a shoddy production. If the quality of this film is a preview of what I can expect from the second and third full- length sequels, then Dreamworks will have lost my support for this once- promising franchise.

I can't quite put into words how much I was disappointed in this.I love HTTYD, especially for the flight and fight scenes, I enjoyed the dialog and the film was fun.This "film" doesn't deserve to be packaged with HTTYD. It does literally EVERYTHING wrong. All the character don't interact with hiccup except for one scene, he's just there because he has to be, and of coarse he has the "smart" part at the end.Toothless is seen for approximately 10 seconds and only in the background! he was the true star of the original film, the only reason to leave him out would be to cut cost due to animating him. He doesn't do anything funny, make a sound, or interact with anyone. They get him in the film in the beginning and thats it.All the shots are static and simple, no artistic merit behind them at all, the background seemingly thrown together in 5 minutes by a studio intern.The dialog, dear god the dialog is atrocious, consisting mostly of clarifications and terrible puns. Gobber: "A BONENAPPER!"Ruffnut: "A whatnapper?"It's so atrociously bad that I'm actually saddened the original voice cast returns. It shows me they will lend there voices to anything as long as they are paid. Do not watch this, it will be very painful to anyone over the age of 3.