#thw criticism

[honeyed-latte]

The only good part in THW was how it amplified how sexy and goofy Hiccup is and I appreciate that.

#hiccup haddock #httyd #thw criticism

[nartml]

No, because imagine waiting years to get the answer to the one, most burning question you have about a franchise.

Your curiosity, growing more and more potent with every new installment, every new development.

So many possibilities, so much potential, the sheer capacity for interesting twists and intricate plot points.

All to be crushed, wasted, with the lamest, truly most moronic answer.

Night Furies were one of the most mysterious parts of HTTYD.

Personally, I was brimming with excitement just thinking of all the endless ways the directors could expand upon this species, its history and its culture.

Naturally, we got nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada.

Like, really? You expect me to believe that Grimmel (actually now? bffr, get this discount-Viggo outta here) cleared the entirety of, arguably, the most elusive, most careful, most intelligent, most powerful species of dragon.

(Which, even if rare, we're looking at at least several hundred dragons.)

Because they can't travel long distances (Who are you talking to right now? 🤨) and because they can't bear the cold (Girl, be so serious 😮‍💨).

Ladies, gents, my non-binary friends; I've heard it all. This is it. It was so ridiculous, so disappointing, so ridiculously disappointing I started laughing.

And maybe fans who've only watched the movies don't get the hysteria, but if I'm anything, it's a RoB, DoB, RTTE truther. And damn, those series are laying it on thick, especially RTTE.

You have the Dragon Eye. Places like Vanaheim. New and fascinating discoveries about dragons left and right.

THIS PART:

I was kicking my feet up and down when I saw this.

We could've done so much more with this, but nope. Of course not.

Fuck, I will die mad at this movie.

#httyd #night fury #thw slander #thw salt #thw criticism #sigh #disappointment stings #tsk tsk #i could go on #and on #and ON. #the hidden world #my anti thw agenda

[bitchin-tubs]

As I have previously stated im a hating ass bitch and yknow what I hate even more than most things about helluva?? HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD !!!!!!!

I HATE this babybutt smooth scaleless eyeshadow wearing ass dragon

I HATE how stupid he looks and acts just to make a point about the domestication of wild animals that mind you that's a process that takes GENERATIONS to accomplish

I HATE how the original message of friendship and understanding was thrown out just to have dragon romance

And yknow what? Ive BEEN a redesigner this are my old redesigns of the lightfury that I hold very dearly to my 15 year old heart

I call her Toothpaste🩵

#thw criticism #the hidden world critical #thw critical #httyd3 critical #my art

[frosti-moon]

Oh look, it's DoB!Hiccup being smarter than THW!Hiccup, who let dragons crowd Berk village for no fucking reason.

#httyd #hiccup haddock #defenders of berk #thw salt #thw criticism

[iamchickenhearmesquawk]

Man, the hidden world as a place doesn’t make sense at all to me. (As an enjoyer of the shows so yeah yeah they’re technically not canon but like)

You’re telling me there are screaming deaths and thunder drums and death songs are all coexisting happily with everyone else? Or Scauldrons and seashockers? And snow wraiths are there too? The cave crashers?

The dragons in this world (the movies and show at least) are just so different from each other and need different habitats.

#thw criticism #I feel like dragons are like #so vast in this universe #they’re like birds #like just a new class of animal that exists here #they’re not a specific type of animal like narwhals or something #anyway #if you like thw that’s fine but I dont #rtte #HTTYD #HTTYD rtte #I am indeed rewatching the show now and despite like #how the animation is low budget #it’s good #I like it #it expands on everything so well #rant post #but like #mini rant

[juniemunie]

My feelings for THW can be summarized in this one video I made last night in a manic frenzy

#thw salt #thw criticism #the hidden world criticism #httyd movies #httyd #how to train your dragon #yea i just got really mad #youve seen the stuff ive reblogged i think theyve spoken better than me #so i made this instead to make me laugh #anyways GotNF is the true sequel and canon part of the trilogy

[toothbrushfingers]

i’m sorry but it has to be said:

this feral dragon lady is Valka Haddock

this is an imposter

#like you can’t tell me these aren’t two different people #why is she suddenly half the age she was before #like ????? #httyd #how to train your dragon #httyd movies #httyd 3 #httyd valka #valka haddock #valka #thw criticism #thw #thw salt #httyd thw #the hidden world

[vivid-wisp]

I’ve always had super mixed feelings (now evolved into negative feelings) regarding HTTYD The Hidden World ever since it first released, so seeing more people actually talk and speak about the issues of the movie makes me feel better LOL. Like y’all are putting it into words why this movie just felt so off to me. I just wish more of the general population of fans and viewers thought about the movie a little more beyond “visuals pretty.”

#httyd #httyd the hidden world #how to train your dragon #thw salt #httyd 3 salt #httyd 3 criticism #thw criticism #first time I watched THW I remember feeling vaguely disappointed. now I know why #anyways THW doesn’t exist and i choose bits of canon from it and throw the rest into fire

[000marie198]

Why does seeing literally any screenshot of Thw and post thw Toothless makes me wanna blow something up

What is that rubber plastic dog toy thing?

Where is Toothless?

#they massacred my boy #thw salt #thw criticism #toothless #httyd toothless

[angorith-arts]

The Hidden World Was Aesthetically Disconnected from the Other HTTYD Films: an essay no one asked for

Ok ok I know this is an art blog and I’m going off the rails a bit with this but I think it must be said: HTTYD The Hidden World was not animated in the same style as the other two films, and it has bothered me for a long time. We have all talked at length about the slow but significant dog-ification of Toothless that accompanied his dying character and personality (rip wild catlike Toothless), but I want to discuss the aesthetics of the films as a whole, discounting most changes to character designs themselves (except for one at the end because the light fury is to blame for all of this actually).

But angorith, you may very well ask, how can you say the animation is worse than the previous films when we got such breathtaking scenery as the hidden world and New Berk? To that I reply, the animation isn’t worse, its just not fitting in with the rest of the films.

Let’s take, for example, the first film. The animation style was thoroughly textured and gritty (partially due to technical limitations of CGI in the early 2000s but the animators leaned into it and I think it worked in their benefit due to the fact that they were animating gritty things like dragons and Vikings), creating a stylized but believable world of outdoorsy people and wild dragons. The dragons, specifically, were beautifully and realistically textured, with rough, detailed scales that made them feel believable despite being stylized in the manner of the film. The fur textures on the characters’ clothes were rough, resembling the fur that remains on tanned hides. The wood grain is old and worn, the weapons have nicks and scratches; you can tell the animators worked hard to make everything seem realistic despite technical drawbacks. And that’s not even to mention the beauty and depth in the outdoor scenery.

The second movie continues this trend. You can tell that the textures are more lifelike and that the animation has improved- especially when looking at the hair textures and fluid character movements- but it’s still textured and not over-polished. They aren’t afraid to show wear on objects or characters, they don’t shy away from giving Stoik, Gobber, and Valka age lines, they showcase the effects of riding on the leather equipment, the scars on the human and dragon characters are clearly visible without being too in-your-face, its a stunning and beautifully made piece of animation. But, in my opinion, most importantly, the characters are distinct from their backgrounds. This is seen in both of the first two films, where the distance between characters in the foreground and the scenery in the background is distinct. When silhouetted against the sky, the characters stand out from it instead of fading in to look flat and airbrushed against the scenery. This is largely due to the lighting and shadows being strictly defined throughout the movie. It allows for distinct shapes and clear definitions of character features. I’m no expert and may be speaking a bit from nostalgia, but I think the second film has the best animation of all three.

The Hidden World breaks this mold in a way that I found detrimental to the overall style of the film. Characters like Valka, who were once so convincingly animated to look their age, look fifteen years younger and airbrushed into smooth lines. Hiccup’s freckles are less prominent despite his outdoor lifestyle, and overall, despite the beauty of the scenery and the artful composition of many of the shots, the characters don’t have as much weight to them. The beautiful backgrounds in this movie seem like they’re swallowing the characters whole instead of remaining in the background, and I attribute this to what I call ‘the airbrushing effect.’ The shadows on the characters themselves and the boundaries between characters and backgrounds in this film are blurred, which takes away that depth that was so present in the first two movies. It looks like the characters are smushed into the background at times, leaving blurred expressions and less-defined features and boundaries. This isn’t the case in every scene, but it is in many of them, and it has bothered me since I first saw the film in theaters. Some of the textures look amazing, like the armor and dragon scales, but then you look at a character’s face and they look all fuzzy and indistinct, like they’re wearing makeup and dissolving around the edges. THW follows the growing trend of overly-blended animation, which isn’t necessarily bad in and of itself, but when an aesthetic precedent is set for your movies and then the third installment breaks the established rules, it can make that film fit in poorly with the rest of the franchise in a visual manner (not to mention the story incongruities but that’s a talk for another day).

Here are some examples:

In the second film, the boundary between Astrid and the background is distinct, despite her being farther away. Her face shape is more well defined, less round and fuzzy looking. Look at the boundaries around her face and head in the third film. There’s stil a foreground and background, but she looks like she’s blended a little too much into the background. Stormfly’s horns on the left are more jagged-looking, mimicking the texture of a realistic antler or horn, while on the right they’re smoother despite being in closer view.

Similar shots from 2 and THW here, see how much more defined the lines are between hiccup and the background on the left? Even just the features of his face are less clear; the bridge of his nose looks flattened.

Similar lighting from HTTYD 1and THW. The definition here is a bit better, but look at the skin textures. Hiccup looks like he’s wearing foundation in THW. For comparison, look at him from HTTYD 1! He’s got freckles! Don’t take away his freckles!!

Moving back to Berk means Valka must have gotten ahold of some de-aging cream, right?

I can’t add any more photos but hopefully y’all get the idea.

Now the reasons behind this stylistic change surprised me, and then really pissed me off. Its’s this thing’s fault:

I read an article a while back that said that in order for the crew to be able to animate the light fury, they had to devise new animation software for the third film (if anyone can find the article that would be a huge help, I can’t remember where I found it). She simply didn’t work in the established program, so they had to create a different software to accommodate the lighting effects of her sparkles and whatnot. Since the lighting seems to be one of the things that bother me most in this movie, this causes me some (slightly irrational) frustration, and brings me back to the question of why?

Why would you integrate a character whose design is so off-base from the other characters that you had to make new software just to make it work, to the detriment of the entire look of the movie? Wouldn’t that be one of the most clear signs that the character itself does. Not. Fit. The aesthetic of the film? this pisses me off so much. I know I’m irrationally angry about a movie that came out years ago, but from a visual, storytelling, and personal standpoint, I hate the way this turned out.

I’m not saying I hate the the third movie, or that if you like it you’re wrong. There’s so much about the film that I liked, but all the positives are outweighed by my disappointment.

TL;DR: the way that the crew made the light fury not only ruined the storytelling and conclusion to the franchise, but messed with the animation style too, which to me is an unforgivable sin.

Thank you for coming to my bitchy TedTalk

#httyd #httyd 2 #httyd the hidden world #thw salt #thw criticism #light fury #httyd thw #toothless #hiccup httyd

[saturnniidae]

That scene where Hiccup let's Toothless play fetch with his leg is so odd to me bc like. I don't know any disabled ppl (myself included) who would let their pets use their mobility aids as toys. Like,,, that's usually something you try to avoid immediately

#and yes ik Toothless is much smarter than a dog or cat #and isn't even a pet #he is hiccups best friend #which just makes it weirder actually #toothless' behavior throughout the entire movie is just ooc ngl #so is pretty much everyone else's #thw is not canon to me‼️ #httyd #httyd thw #thw criticism #toothless #hiccup haddock #hiccup and toothless #canon disabled character #moth.txt

[local-dragon-haunt]

Im thinking about how horrifying the ending of THW is purely from an ecological standpoint.

Like the Hidden World is so isolated. It’s gotta have a perfectly balanced ecosystem to survive. If you stuff every single dragon into that fragile system it is going to self-destruct.

Not to mention that their diets are mostly carnivorous, so they’re going to have to leave anyway to go hunting, at which point the prey is going to catch on because there’s going to be so much of it and move further from the Hidden World, and the dragons will follow them lest they resort to cannibalism.

And that’s not to mention if, say, a disease raked through it?

God I’m so angry. I’m so pissed. The only way for this to work is for the Berkians to monitor them Park Ranger Style and by doing that they'd have to frequent THW, which no longer makes it a hidden world. One wrong person stumbles across the only exit to it by watching them, and it’s all over.

#thw #how to train your dragon the hidden world #critique #how to train your dragon #hiccup haddock #toothless #hiccstrid #hictooth #thw criticism

[nartml]

I get that THW was going for a sobering message of "sometimes you have to let people go" and "some friends can't stay forever", but it was hilariously unsuccessful.

It's still baffling to me, the amount of raving reviews calling it "the perfect ending".

Apart from the wild thematic inconsistencies, and the endless flaws with Hiccup's logic of "oh, yeah, I know that things have never before been this good for dragons, I know that Berk is living proof that even the most stubborn people can change their minds on dragons, I know that dragons thrive on companionship and love their humans, I know that good people exist, I know that I'm the instigator of a huge revolutionary period, butttttt..... because bad humans exist I'll lock away the entirety of the draconic population in a glorified underground cage, in the hopes that one day humans will stop being bad and learn to cooperate with the creatures that they question, or even forget, the existence of a measly decade after their disappearance. Magically.", this message plainly didn't fit.

Not just in a thematic context. I mean that it literally doesn't fit in this situation, and it doesn't fit the characters.

It doesn't even fit reality, because you have to let go of people for reasons. Some friends can't stay forever, for reasons.

Valid ones. Reasons like, you grew apart, you don't have shared interests anymore, they betrayed you in an unforgivable way, they're not good for you, they're not good to you, they died, etc etc.

Had any one of these happened? At any stage? The one thing you could, albeit pointlessly, argue is that they grew apart. That they outgrew each other.

Only that...they didn't? Did I miss something? Because Toothless flying away for, what, a day to spend some time with his love interest, is not outgrowing. Toothless finding romance does not mean that he and Hiccup grew apart.

And this isn't just about the Light Fury. I'm not discussing whether or not she's a good character (she isn't), and I'm not discussing whether or not she deserves Toothless (Ha, you're funny). Even if she were the absolute best, most perfect match for Toothless and a compelling character, it still wouldn't even remotely mean that he and Hiccup grew apart.

In fact, if you grow so far apart from your best friend that you can say goodbye to them forever, just because you found a new partner, then I really don't know what to tell you. (Except that you're probably not a good friend.)

Hiccup realizing that Toothless doesn't make him who he is, and doesn't define him, that he doesn't need Toothless in order to be someone, or even that he doesn't need Toothless at all, doesn't mean that he outgrew him. Not even slightly.

I mean, come on, I don't need the vast majority of people in my life. Arguably, I might not even need any of the people in my life. This doesn't mean I don't want them there.

This doesn't mean that I won't fight for them to stay right here, by my side.

Oh, look, how's that for a change? How about a movie where your friends refuse to leave you? Because that's what I want, and that's what How To Train Your Dragon deserved.

That's what Hiccup, and the rest of the Berkians, deserved. And that's what fit. That's what thematically fit, what fit reality, or at least the httyd reality, and what fit the characters themselves.

This movie treated the dragons as mindless pets, whereas in every other step of the way, they were treated as people.

Toothless isn't a just slobbery puppy.

Toothless is intelligent, curious, kind, understanding, funny, snarky and sarcastic, graceful, elusive, protective, loving, wary, and fucking loyal (plus much more).

I can't think of a character that has demonstrated as much loyalty and protectiveness as this guy.

And yet he was barely any of the aforementioned things in thw. He became unrecognizable.

All the dragons became unrecognizable, for no justifiable reason.

The final message shouldn't have been that your friends sometimes have to leave you, and that you have to let them go.

(The humans left the dragons just as much as the dragons left the humans btw)

It should've been that they'll fight tooth and nail to stay, even when the going gets tough, even when priorities shift, even when you tell them to go.

No matter how passionately you insist that caring for you is rotten work.

It's not to them.

#my anti thw agenda #i said what i said #i said what i needed to say #i stand by it #this franchise deserved a better ending #i could still go on #im still mad #i shall die mad #lord give me patience #for if you give me strength i will be charged with dean's murder #this is a hyperbole btw #not just for legal reasons i really don't have it in me to kill him but yk. still #toothless #hiccup haddock #thw criticism #thw salt #httyd the hidden world #httyd thw

[honeyed-latte]

Daily reminder that I HATE THE HIDDEN WORLD, I HATE IT.

#thw criticism

[frosti-moon]

I present to you: Barbie and the Light Fury

Because you cannot tell me this dragon belongs anywhere except for in a 3D animated Barbie movie

sequel to my silly edit here

#httyd #thw criticism #light fury #light fury criticism #httyd 3 criticism #httyd the hidden world #thw salt #im having fun figuring out photoshop :3

[gaylactic-fire]

Obligatory salty about HTTYD 3 mood that happens to me every once in a while. But I do honestly find it extremely funny that everything HTTYD that has come out after THW (minus maybe the christmas special) either seems to ignore THW's existence or blatantly go against it, like:

- That other christmas thing where Toothless and his abomination babies are just chilling in Hiccup's house

- The Nine Realms, which has been actively going against THW's ending since the beginning and only getting more and more brazen about it.

- HTTYD Journey which appears to take place before, during or after HTTYD 2

- Universal theme park's upcoming Isle Of Berk section. Which granted, we only have a few concept images of, but no obvious references to HTTYD 3 yet (no sign of the light fury or any HTTYD 3 dragons)

Like hmmm gee.. it's almost as if Dreamworks knows the only way to keep milking the cash cow is to go "Actually we take it back we know that you wanna see this guy and his dragon hang out and not be separated forever." And it's so funny like... my brothers in christ you made the third movie.

#fires posts #ramblings #httyd 3 criticism #httyd 3 critical #thw criticism #thw critical #Dreamworks scrambling like “WAIT WAIT WAIT SHIT NVM”