What How To Train Your Dragon 3 Did Right and What it Did Wrong | Story Dissection

How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (Also known as How to Train Your Dragon 3), grossed over 522 million dollars worldwide, received huge amounts of acclaims for its gorgeous animation, music track, and emotional weight. It marked the end of the massively popular series loved by millions, but did it do everything right? Today, I'll state my opinions on whether or not it was a suitable ending, and whether or not it was a good story itself.

Things it did well: 

-The Villian, Grimmel the Grisly

    

Grimmel the Grisly was a fantastic villain, unlike anything we've ever seen before in the series. Viggo Grimborn, Drago Bludvist, the Red Death, they all wanted to control the dragons and use them for their own end, but Grimmel wants none of that. He wants to destroy the dragons. He knows that humans and dragons can't coexist, as Hiccup discovers at the end of the film. His answer is to destroy them. John Truby (He wrote the Anatomy of a Story) once said, "The main opponent is the one person best able to attack the weakness of the hero." and Grimmel certainly fits this description. Hiccup's biggest fear is losing his dragon, his friend, Toothless. Grimmel's mission is to kill Toothless, which is why he is such a perfect villain. 

-The animation

I think I'll let the GIFs speak for themselves this time. 

https://media.giphy.com/media/X6kEbDk4tYXGZwMC0U/giphy.gif

https://media.giphy.com/media/1g1fZWtSCmHvgSTBh0/giphy.gif

https://media.giphy.com/media/pOhnod8Mj0yiOEtCIX/giphy.gif

What they did wrong:
One thing that's kind of important when making a trilogy such as this is the escalation of stakes. In other words, they have to face bigger and badder threats in each movie. They did this well in HTTYD 1 to HTTYD 2, but in HTTYD 2 they had reached something called a power ceiling, which is when a character becomes as powerful as they will ever become. The power ceiling for HTTYD is the Alpha, which Hiccup and the rest of the Dragon Riders dealt with in HTTYD 2.

 This left no room to bring in a bigger threat for HTTYD 3, because they had already faced and overcome the most powerful thing in their world. Grimmel is a great villain, but he pales in comparison to the strength of the Red Death and the legions and trappers of Drago. 

Conclusion

HTTYD 3 was a great story, and I wanted to share some thoughts with you and know I have! Let me know your thoughts in the comments below! Thanks for reading!