Taking advantage again of the “discount day” at the nearby theater, I saw “How To Train Your Dragon 3” on Tuesday, and it was sweet. I’m an emotional fellow, and cried at all the appropriate places (like the last 10 minutes).
.
Although it does bother me sometimes that the reaction it elicited was done in such a cookie-cutter fashion. “It works, why change it?” is a decent philosophy, but I have thought long over the years about how “it works” (when it comes to plots) is a narrow description, because although it did bring tears to my eyes, by tomorrow and I’ll have forgotten every detail of that movie. “It works” isn’t the same thing as “it’s meaningful to me and truly touches me.”
.
Well, I won’t have forgotten EVERY detail. As far as kid’s fare goes, I think the “Train Your Dragon” trilogy tried to plumb a teensy bit deeper than most.
.
Anyhow, PLEASE don’t pay too much heed to my opinion here. A writer’s opinion on stories is usually based on a different set of priorities, one having to do with their own daily struggling with reconciling meaningful story on their OWN pages. I am NO meaningful “critic” of media in ANY reasonable sense of the word.