DreamWorks Dragons (TV Series) When Lightning Strikes (2012) User Reviews

Diminishing Issue of Trust

[Alex_Hodgkinson · 9/10 · 23 July 2014]

The Vikings have installed metal perches for the dragons to land on, but that's where the problem lies; their god is the god of lightning and they're installing metal perches. Chaos ensues; lightning everywhere. Mildew, the one who still hates the dragons, uses this to turn Berk against Toothless, preaching that Thor is angry at them for allowing a Night Fury to live among them.

How the Vikings didn't consider that Thor may be angry at the perches or Hiccup didn't come to that conclusion earlier, I don't know. What I do know is that this is a rather intense episode with a great story to boot. Of course, there is the issue that there already is metal installed all over Berk, including the spot where Hiccup tries to prove his point. That problem will have to be ignored in favour of a great story.

Development occurs in the area of Toothless. Berk trusts the dragons now, only turning on one singular dragon and accepting the others, despite the dragon they choose to turn on being the one who has helped them the most. It's lovely how Stoick doesn't even consider it being Toothless's fault now, considering his earlier beliefs, and Gobber siding with them now after his years of dragon hunting.

Aye, this is among my favourites, with intense scenes that echo the film. Not perfect, but a remarkable episode nonetheless.

Dragons: Déjà Vus of Berk

[shonenpunk · 1/10 · 12 January 2017]

Since I love the How to Train Your Dragon movies, I really wanted this series to be good, but it started really weak, with the same plot being recycled over and over for a couple of episodes. Then finally we had new stories and I thought the show was getting better, but then they decided to repeat that same old plot AGAIN in this episode.

Once more, something happens in Berk and Mildew makes everybody think it's a dragon's fault and puts the whole village against Toothless, wanting him to be kicked out of Berk. But then, again, when everything seems lost, Hiccup figures out the problem (that we all realized within 2 minutes of episode) and shows everybody it wasn't the dragon's fault, so everything is OK again in Berk for another week, until they start having the same problem again and again.

This time they even put religion in the middle of the situation, making everybody sound so silly, especially Hiccup who's always been a smart and centered guy, which makes me think he was totally out of character in this episode. I can't believe I saw him talking about Thor that way, fearing a god's power.

The universe of How to Train Your Dragon has a lot of potential to be explored and I thought that was the reason in creating a series for the franchise, but nothing makes sense when they keep repeating the same plot over inside Berk and not exploring anything. I mean, you have FLYING DRAGONS, why wouldn't you want to get out of that boring village to have some adventures? Now we are all bored here with your quests…

They're just playing safe, as if they didn't want to create something cannon for the series (like villains, new dragons, etc). But in this case, what's the point of creating a series anyway?