Book of Dragons (2011)

How sad is this?

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The acting in this movie is really good.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Basically, this 16-minute short movie from 4 years ago tells us a whole lot about what other species of dragons exist in the world of "How To train Your Dragon". This was released shortly after the first film and they definitely made all they could out of this franchise. Several short film, a television series, a second movie and more films in the next years. Actually, that second film came pretty close to winning an Oscar this year. Anyway, this short film here is not really a must-see. One reason for that is that it repeats the action of the first movie on several occasions, so you will already know about parts of it. But why did they do this? I am fairly certain that nobody will watch this short film if he has not seen the original movie. Anyway, it's very mediocre from start to finish. Some of the references are funny, some not really. I also am not too sure what to think of the comic book style animation that is used to tell us what happened back then. Does it serve its purpose? I don't know. It is certainly not half as good as the usual animation which is also used in the feature films and occasionally in this short film. Maybe they did not have the money or time to use it from start to finish. this would have improved "Boog of Dragons" a lot in my opinion. Still, it's a fairly decent movie and all in all I recommend it if you liked the feature films. Also nice to see that they got the voices from all of the important characters from the films in here.

This is one of two shorts recently released that are based on the "How to Train Your Dragon" characters. Of the two, "Book of Dragons" is by far my least favorite--mostly because it isn't all that much fun.The film begins with a quick recap of the original full-length film. Then it purports to be an educational video--instructing the viewer on what it is to become a dragon trainer. It's interesting how the characters appear to talk to the viewer--as if you are applying for one of these jobs. Much of the instruction is on the history of dragon identification and these portions are done with what appears to be traditional hand-drawn animation. Some of this is rather cute but too much appears to like a very dry lecture. An interesting idea but one that gets old rather quickly.