Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon: This 13-minute animated short movie does not even feature the dragon main character from "How to Train Your Dragon". instead it is all about the Boneknapper as the title already suggests. Gobber is almost obsessed with finding it and the kids just cannot take him seriously. I have to say this was a fairly forgettable effort for the first half in terms of drama and humor, but when the Boneknapper actually entered the picture it became a lot more entertaining. I did not like the way they animated the tales that Gobber narrates at all. Of course, they have to make it look differently from the usual animation here, but they could have come up with something better than that. Boneknapper, on the other hand, is nicely animated and the story around it is a bit predictable, but still not bad at all. Also nice is that the voices of all the actors from the real movie, including some big names, are included in here. It's a decent watch I might say. Not a must-see by any means, but nicely done all in all. Oh yeah, now there are a couple more short films out there about this franchise, a television series and of course a second movie. A third will follow. Give these a chance if you enjoyed the first "How to Train Your Dragon" movie. I personally would love to see Boneknapper in the third film. I kinda like the character. Oh yeah final note: The director here, John Puglisi, also worked in the art department of several animated films including HTTYD. You can check out the other ones on his filmography. As director in charge, however, he has not been too prolific to this day.
Gift of the Night Fury: 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.
Book of Dragons: 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.
Gift of the Night Fury: 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.
Book of Dragons: 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.
