Dragons: Gift of the Night Fury (2011)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Blistering performances.

While the original movie and its sequel were both excellent, this short is a huge disappointment; a bland kids' movie with an inane story and little of the humor and excitement of the features.As the short begins, all the dragons fly off. The kids are sad, and wonder where they've gone, but they don't do anything to try and figure it out. If this were a two-hour movie, it would turn into the adventure of someone trying to find them, but it's 20 minutes, so they don't have time for anyone to even wonder too deeply.************** SPOILERS ******************** There are other things in the movie that don't make much sense. One kid chains up his dragon to prevent it from leaving, but it's unclear how he would know he needed to chain it up. When the dragon is set free, it flies off to join the others, even though the others had flown to an island to lay eggs, and this dragon had laid its eggs where it was chained (which means it simply left them behind without a thought).And while the protagonist could have used his disabled dragon to follow the others, instead he makes it a way to fly off on its own. And it follows a different course than all the others, which doesn't really make that much sense either.

This is a half-hour (well, actually a little over 20 minutes) animated short film which came out four years ago, between the two first "How to Train Your Dragon" movies. The voice cast are the actors from the feature films as well. The writer and director have very long and prolific careers in the industry already, so here they are getting a good chance with a prestigious project that could even result in them being in the same position in future movies if the HTTYD-franchise runs for a couple more entries. Sadly, I have to say I was fairly underwhelmed by this short film. I don't think it is really better than any the episodes of the series. The heart and great moments from the two feature films are almost completely missing here. The relationship between Hiccup and Toothless gets elaborated on a bit further, but nothing that really goes much under the surface. The dragon babies are cute and maybe the best thing about this film. But beyond the cuteness, there isn't really a lot either. Dragons fly away and people wonder where they have gone. And that exploding dragon egg storyline was actually pretty bad and just added some "animated special effects" to the movie, but did nothing at all otherwise apart from randomly bringing some chaos to Berk. Disappointing short film. Not recommended.

These days went their is a hit animation film, not only will there be a slew of sequels there will be bonus short films as well that turn up as DVD extras or made for television specials to keep the franchise name going.The Toy Story and Shrek films do it. The How to train your Dragon films have followed with the CGI short, Dragons: Gift of the Night Fury. Following from the original film where the Vikings now have dragons for pets who nearly all disappear during the holiday season of Snoggletog leaving the Vikings bemused.Toothless gets a new tail to allow him to be independent but he flies off as well and is thought to have disappeared. However the kids hatch a plot to find out what has happened to them.The short will keep the children largely entertained, adults who have not seen the original film will be left bemused. The quality of the animation is very good though.

As many of you were fearing, we all thought after the...."interesting" short that was "Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon" last year that hope for the HTTYD franchise being up to par with the movie was very slim, and it was...but somehow out of all those odds, Dreamworks managed to release a short with so much depth you literally drown in the ocean of emotions it overwhelms you in...and a holiday short, nonetheless."Gift of the Night Fury" is certainly a "gift" to all the fans who are really looking for something that matches the emotional depth of the movie, and in some cases (dare I say) the level of mature character development in this short exceeded the movie. It manages to cram more emotion in 22 minutes than most movies can in 2 hours, which says a whole lot.This could've easily been another silly short with slapstick comedy, sassy one-liners, and clichéd morals about holiday nonsense, but even though "Gift of the Night Fury" was a holiday short, it really does more to bridge the gap between the movie and ultimately the TV show with the holiday theme as more of an undertone to everything else going on.The character development, as mentioned before, was where this story really shined. Everyone was so in character and the interactions between everyone was believable, easy, and lovable. Who mostly stood out, though, was of course Hiccup and Toothless's bond (honestly, one of the best friendships for animated characters in general) it really showed how much closer these two are becoming and gives promises that everything you see is 100% genuine. But, surprisingly enough, even Hiccup's relationship with his new girlfriend Astrid was a nice and easy addition to the mix of things as well. I really applaud shows that have the guts to have two people openly date since most animated TV shows (or just TV shows in general) always focus on getting two characters together rather than what happens afterwards. Hiccup and Astrid's interactions were so wonderful and you can really feel the chemistry and strong yet relaxed feelings of comfort and warmth between these two (ah, young love).The addition of baby dragons was handled very carefully as well, and it did it's job to make you go "awww" when you were supposed to as well as giving the Vikings and Dragons one more thing to bond over. I love how this short shows how attached the Vikings already are to their dragons and this is definitely shown in the ending.Even the animation quality was up to speed with the movie. You could tell it wasn't the same scoop as the movie--probably due to a budget cut and time issues--but it had the same level of detail to surroundings and careful attention to movement as the movie did.Honestly, in my opinion this short pulled out all the stops and went above and beyond the call of duty to create a heartwarming story with all the assets of the movie that we know and love as well as throwing in some new ones that only made us love Hicucp, Toothless, Astrid, and all the other Vikings and Dragons on Berk even more.I'd give it a 12 out of 10 if I could...yes, it's THAT good. And if anyone is a fan of the movie and simply fears franchise expansion, don't be afraid to watch "Gift of the Night Fury" it's a wonderful second chapter to the HTTYD story.