Why How To Train Your Dragon Has The Best Opening Ever

so here's the thing How to Train Your Dragon is a very, very good movie that most people wouldn't let us, we're not Vikings, stubbornness issues with a really good soundtrack. Honestly, I feel like this is one of the most overlooked films of the last decade. It's really not that bold of a statement when you look at the decade-long franchise that this movie created with two sequels and all that merchandising and branding and TV shows and specials and all kinds of stuff like did you know there's a how? to the Train Your Dragon TV shows on Netflix, I haven't, but yes, one of them, this race to the limit, has six seasons.

I had no idea that I'm completely out of touch with the youth of the world, so floss fortnightly, but I mean it when I say it, I think this entire franchise was carried on the shoulders of the success of this first one. movie, which is a story as old as time, the first movie was a massive franchise is always surprising and then the sequels and spin-offs and toy lines are just a bunch of big businessmen trying to squeeze the most out of the intellectual property. because, as much as I like the first movie, the other two have a couple of awkward moments.

I'm not saying they are bad. Movies, they just don't feel as strong as the original, Alpha protects them all, but it's a really strange message to have it in the family movie and then like the final movie in the trilogy, which they didn't put at number three. because I guess they were trying to reinvent themselves or something, it was a good movie. I guess I couldn't help but feel like they were putting too much effort into coming up with designs for action figures instead of developing the story of How to. Train

your

dragon

, the hidden world, the

dragon

s of Berk fought against Rivlin, their death grabbers, the hook-fang stormfly and their armored riders, they look at the attack like, come on, they just look like Power Rangers because then, like the ending of the film undermines its own ending, there was a really strange. epilogue gone for

ever

psyche I really felt like the filmmakers were going to see that it's old now that they have a family that's it, it's over just bury the damn thing and move on, but I'm getting off track along with all that, in addition to dehydration. husk that is the corpse of How to Train Your Dragon that has been sailing on life support for the past few years.

We shouldn't overlook how amazing the original movie was, but no, actually, this is an amazing movie, even when you think about what it is like. he's technically ten years old, the character design is great, the sound design is amazing, but the story is fantastic, you can follow Hiccup through the hero's journey, like when Toothless is part of the unknown world that Hiccup has to learn about and show the other teenagers. How to Ride the Dragons is the return with the elixir and literally the Magical Flight, but for me, what makes this movie so incredible, naturally, is the striking music.

I know the music guy loves them, but seriously, this soundtrack is fantastic. John Powell's first solo animated feature and he brought the heat, get it, because dragons don't care anyway. Side note: John Powell actually has a YouTube channel where he posts piano rules and orchestrations for a lot of his music, and for now he only has two case subs on YouTube, so let's send him some love and subscribe , but it's not just the music that makes this movie's soundtrack so great, which is a bit of a strange statement. I know what music sounds like on its own.

It is not all? There is something else that this movie does better than any other movie that has

ever

existed. I'm sure everyone has their own opinions and I'll let them finish, but How to Train Your Dragon had the

best

opening

ever now I know what you're thinking, you're thinking, hey, what's up with Star Wars? And I sure like it, I'm not going to lie, it's great, I play a bit when I'm working on classics, well, who doesn't? I like it, but it doesn't have anything on How to Train Your Dragon. Okay, obviously it doesn't have the same impact, but let me pose a question: what is the

opening

of a movie and/or a soundtrack that's supposed to set the right tone?

Yes Yes. That joke was old before I started this video, but it's actually an opening that's supposed to establish the world the narrative takes place in, introduce us to our characters, and get things going, but just to be clear, it doesn't. I am like a story or a narrator. I'm a music guy, but there's a really cool video on a YouTube channel called Grant Hodges that outlines a lot of the story beats and goes into depth about how the opening of How to Train Your Dragon is really strong in terms of its world. construction and how it works in the narrative, so if you are interested in the story, go and watch his video links in the description, but there are a thousand and a half things that a good opening is supposed to do and in many ways in that the music is very similar, so listen, listen to what this movie begins with.

This is the piece of music that represents Berk, the Vikings and the Viking lifestyle. Most people wouldn't let us, we are Vikings, shortly after we received this piece. of music misery my people in a resilient word have been here for seven generations um actually let's put a pin in that just remember this melody because we'll come back to it later, but shortly after as we get the narration of hiccups oh no, wait, I'm talking about a movie on YouTube, wait for the narration, but while we hiccup in the narration just as we get to the dragons we get a more exciting statement of the Viking theme, most people wouldn't leave us with more Vikings while we're introduced to the Stoic. we have some of the stoic theme that comes back every time he does something stoic that's stoic, the big boss of the triangle, they say when he was a baby he pulled a dragon's head out of his shoulders, then we have this great slow motion moment , brilliant. guys don't look at the explosions and this is actually the asteroid theme obviously this represents Astrid and you can hear it come back in all its glory during the song titled Romantic Flight now right here when Hiccup demonstrates his launcher bolus, they can barely hear it. like blink or you'll miss it at some point or I guess you can't really blink with

your

ears to be weird anyway you have to pay attention but there's another little theme idea here like this we'll throw it in for me.

A cheesy, humorous theme returns at the end of the film when the teenagers fly in to save the day. It's not too serious to make fun of the generic hero theme. It's a little tongue-in-cheek, but I think it really fits with that. silly teen style, so here, when we hiccup while listing the Dragons, we are presented with a theme for the Dragons which, as I'm sure you can imagine, comes to represent the Dragons, a Nadder head, be sure to make me at least notice bad. cultural things removed from one of those definitely yes, and that is indeed the whole opening, at least musically speaking, sure the scene goes on for a while, but musically this is all we really need and with that you can see the force in the opening. of this film not only from a musical but also a narrative point of view Lee, the opening runs through each of the main thematic ideas of the film, from the protagonists to the population, what prompted the protagonist to act in the first place and what He is possibly The Antagonist of the film and efficiently introduces the audience to the narrative setting.

Each of the characters and main ideas of the story were introduced one by one, fantastically establishing not only the starting point but also who and what the important players in this film are. but because this movie sets up the story so well, Powell was able to hijack that opening and set up all the thematic musical material that he would end up using throughout the movie, okay, so let's say it again: yeah, it's attention-grabbing, it's big, it's noisy for everyone. I know, it's wonderful, but really this theme just becomes Luke's theme in Star Wars, and while the title crawl is informative, it doesn't show us any of the characters, or the settings, or the motivations, and it doesn't. gave Williams no chance to develop anything. kind of lighting motifs or musical ideas that Williams could use for the rest of the movie other than Luke and really that's just because Luke is the main character of Star Wars, you could take a look at Superman and say the same thing, it's an opening very similar. to Star Wars and if you pay attention you can hear the love theme as part of the opening, which is actually the only music Lois Lane hears in the entire movie, and if you really want to open this up, you can argue that musically she exists as a Superman accessory, but that's a discussion for another day or you can watch a movie premiere and it comes from the opposite perspective.

What if you have a piece of music that runs through all the musical material you are going to listen to? the overture to a musical or the opening to one of those older Disney animated films, but because it plays during the credits or in a live-action setting on an empty stage, we can't associate those musical ideas with what they are. I'm going to perform on stage, wait. John Williams adapted the music for the film adaptation of Fiddler on the Roof. Anyway, you learned something new every day. That's what makes the opening of this movie the

best

introduction to a movie.

It tells in a clean, efficient and concise manner. audience everything they need to know and sets up the musical chess pieces that Powell will end up moving throughout the film, the opening scene, I mean, not even in just the first five minutes of the film, Powell presents the audience with all the material musical that is to be used to tell the story all but one, this is the Toothless theme, you can listen to it whenever it is present, but here is the thing and this is important. Toothless's theme is the only theme that does not appear in the beginning of the movie because Toothless is an outsider, not part of Berk or the known world if you want to know the entire Hero's Journey II.

Toothless is unknown to the Berkians, and Hiccup leaving the village to learn about Toothless represents the hero's journey into the unknown. Check out my video on Spider versus if you want to know more about that kind of stuff, so when you first listen to Toothless' motif it's light, it's really the only new material you hear outside of that intro, so when you listen to that theme for first time musically speaking. you're having trouble figuring out with him this is something different that we're not familiar with plus there are two elements of this theme that powell uses to tell a story first is in bagpipes in which we don't really hear bagpipes any other meaningless story a in turn helps Toothless and feels like an alienated outsider.

In fact, we don't see bagpipes again in the score until we see the Vikings tying up Toothless, but as the story progresses we hear his theme and instruments more familiar to him or at least. The least instruments that appeared at the beginning of the film similarly, when we first hear Toothless's light motif, is in lesser armor, but when we see Hiccup and Toothless meet and learn from each other, we begin to hear its light motif in a major key. key signature so you hear Toothless's theme everywhere when Toothless is around, sure it's cool, exactly what you'd expect, but remember that piece of music I told you to remember from the beginning, misery, my people, in a word, tough, it's been here for seven generations. that's technically hypo, now full disclosure, there is a lot of material out there and the thematic and musical ideas of How to Train Your Dragon and not everyone necessarily agrees with each other and how certain themes are labeled or how they appear in the film.

So I'll include links to all of these sources as well as a bunch of additional reading in the description below and I'd like to draw attention to this video from a YouTube channel called Phoebe Kate that barely has 250 views, so go ahead. Watch her video as always, links in the description, but I would especially like to draw attention to this video because it does a better job of explaining what I'm going to try to explain right here because if we call this topic of hiccups my people. in a word and then we take the Toothless theme and then we hear what happens in a scene where Hiccup and Toothless discover how to fly together to a song that Powell titled Test-Drive, not only do we hear these two come together but in this absolutely epic. moment when Hiccup gets rid of his cheat sheet and two can fly together symbiotically, is emphasized in the music when Powell modulates or changes the key signatures from D to e, it's that standard power ballad modulation heard everywhere when want.

Give your piece that extra oomph, but right now we see and hear these characters come together in the film and the soundtrack, which gives usIt provides this epic moment, but it doesn't stop there, all of these musical ideas continue in the sequels, in fact, I'd say it was the strong establishment of these things in the first film that made them so effective going forward, e.g. in the second movie we see a lot more of Astrid in the teens, so naturally we hear a lot more about the asteroid thing and I hear a lot more about the teen thing and when we see the Alpha in this hidden world of dragons, we get those unknown bagpipes again, hey, I thought, and of course we get a new theme for the new villain Drago, but when it comes to Hiccup and Toothless we get the music we all know and when we get to the third movie, because many Things have changed, Powell has to introduce a lot of new material as spoilers, but the Stoics are dead and he only appears in flashbacks, so I give it a try. to keep the use of their theme may be a little awkward, but there's something interesting family that happens in this movie, so when they decide to leave Berk, they have this Thor Ragnarok moment where Hiccup says that Burke isn't a place, it's a town, but Burke is one. more than this place we are burke the people the dragons I say burke is wherever we go since Scott is not the place it was this could be a scud a Scott is where the people are, which is pretty much what we've been getting musically speaking Burke's theme is also the theme of the people of Berk or the Vikings.

Most people wouldn't let us, we're Vikings and naturally this theme also appears in the third film, so Powell ends up introducing new music for the third film, such as a new theme for the new villain grimille and a new theme of love for Toothless in the light fury, but here's the thing, although he introduces new music in the second and third films, he still opens them up by showing us as much of the original material as he could. In the opening of a second film, we get to repeat a lot of familiar themes. This is Berk, the best kept secret on this side of the world, and the same thing happens in the opening of the third film, even introducing us to the Toothless One. and the light fury theme, but yeah, sure, don't bother waiting for us to be this colorful, since any ordinary paradise has beaches and lots of sunny dragons, and here's what these constantly reintroduced themes became so ubiquitous throughout the world. franchise that those specials on Netflix use them as theme music and all of this, this entire franchise, the musical material of this decade, comes from the first five minutes of the first movie, a collage of musical ideas that were quickly introduced and then we are.

It was allowed to develop and breathe naturally as the story unfolded, so yeah, I get it when you first hear it, maybe it doesn't have the same impact that you might have with something like oh, I don't know, but from a structural perspective, openness. This film acted as the foundation for building an intricately detailed soundtrack that has not only endured through the onslaught of franchises and endless sequels, but has also been a testament to the impact that well-crafted music can have as a narrative device. and that's why How to Train Your Dragon has the best opening ever thanks for watching probably to my sponsors for making these videos possible.

A very special thanks to Alec Alec Alec and Andrew Luke Clara so DJ now Anand doctor well Emmett Hussman Hayden Elsa Jordan Adams Karen Rosa now Meyer and John a Terran and Who am I? I would also like to thank everyone who requested that talk on how to

train

your dragon. I love this movie, seriously, it was a lot of fun making it if you like what you saw here, be sure. to subscribe and check out my other videos, follow me on Twitter and Twitch, answer your music questions live and if you really like what I'm doing, consider supporting the channel on Patreon, but that's all for now, thanks for watching.