How to Train Your Dragon

I am fascinated by the origin of myth - how human beings over the history of time have told stories. Sometimes these are an attempt to work through and explain things, and sometimes all the imagination and retelling has allowed these stories to be handed down for thousands of years. To think about the places where these things began, and how different or similar the stories are around the world - and how our storytellers, (in this case, the popular media) make the stories current for the issues of our time -

Such as the tale of the dragon. In Asia, the dragon is revered, a symbol of power, of luck - and as a Chinese guest said to me once, "is the symbol of the Emperor." Beautiful dragons, with elements of lizards, snakes, fish, and birds exist in ancient art - the creation of the human mind.

And, the story is ancient in Europe. The dragon is evil, though - fiercely guarding huge mounds of treasure in Norse mythology, the legend of Beowulf, all the way up to J.R.R. Tolkien's Smaug - a selfish, fire-breathing creature that must be slain. A great,terrible, imaginary thing to be feared. And drawn exquisitely, from the human imagination. Isn't this truly, myth come alive?

One theory has the origin of an Asian dragon as crocodile-like, and I find this understandable, with their ferocious way of attacking prey with those impenetrable, scaly bodies and huge snapping teeth. But here I must speak about the unique diversity of the Komodo dragon, and how its qualities are as unusual as any cautionary tale.

Found in Indonesia, it can ambush and kill and adult deer, consuming as much as 80% of its own body weight in one feeding. They have a long yellow, forked tongue and no venomous fangs, yet possess a poisonous bite - sort of a deadly analogy to "breathing fire". A variety of toxins are excreted through the lower jaw and seep into wounds from crushing teeth bites. If the Monitor lizard or Komodo loses contact with its prey it can soon catch up to it, since the toxins lower blood pressure, prevent clotting of wounds, and the creature will be doomed one way or the other.

The Fort Wayne Children's Zoo had one when I was working there, and also didn't Sharon Stone's ex-husband get bitten by one in a bizarre encounter at the LA Zoo? Scary. Anyway, I thought all that up just to talk about How to Train Your Dragon, which may be one of the best animated movies of the year.

What carried the movie for me and my youngest child was the character of Toothless, main dragon in the story - its interaction with the boy Hiccup was the most engaging dog-like/horse-like relationship possible, a human and another species - and then the cool add-on effect of flying-riding. I thought this was great in 3-D, and the flying scenes are rollercoasterish without the nausea. Sure the 3-D tickets are more expensive - I only spring for this once in a while, choosing carefully, but it's cheaper than going to an amusement park. As I said in my previous review, I don't jump to see a movie filmed for 2-D with the effects added later. This new 3-D was great however -it was flying on the backs of dragons and feathers flying all around you.

Hiccup, slight young man in a Viking village, doesn't want to kill dragons like the other villagers - although he has a bad name and a nasal voice, his character is given a clever way of verbal deflection and some other good qualities. I like this amount of thought in a kids' movie. The boy is inventive, a tinkerer, has great powers of observation and free will - thinking with the brain God (or Thor) gave him. All great things for kids to be sympathetic with in a character.

The details go by too fast in the movie, so I clicked on a website to re-hear the specs of the species of dragons in the movie - each has been charted by the vikings and each breathes a different type of fire. There is a dragon that spits napalm, and one that makes lava by swallowing rocks, melting and chewing them.

There is a two-headed dragon, in which one head breathes gas and the other head sparks that to light. The mysterious 'night fury' has been unseen to the Vikings previous to this story - it launches an accurate firebomb in the dark sky of night. Hiccup invents and launches a bola-like grappling trap from a stolen cannon during a battle and succeeds in downing the first one. Movie is launched. I'll leave the story to you.

The movie is 98 minutes and is based on a children's book. I've not yet seen Avatar, but here again is a movie featuring creature-flying rodeo-style, and oddly a Kraken-like, underworld mega-dragon that must be destroyed - it's smelling like Clash of the Titans. In this dragon movie, sometimes listening to the voice over of Craig Ferguson as he manipulated the English language make MY mouth feel tired. But I really liked this movie, and I'm very picky about what the kids see. This one is a winner. It reminded me of how fun and rewarding it could be to train an animal, such as a horse. Good job, Dreamworks.