Honest Trailers - How to Train Your Dragon is the 283rd episode of Screen Junkies comedy series Honest Trailers. It was written by Spencer Gilbert, Dan Murrell, Joe Starr and Lon Harris. It was narrated by Jon Bailey as Epic Voice Guy. It parodies the animated fantasy movie How to Train Your Dragon (2010), along with its sequel How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014). The video is 4 minutes long. It was published on February 12, 2019, to coincide with the US theatrical release of the sequel How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. It has been viewed over 1.2 million times.
Watch Honest Trailers - How to Train Your Dragon on YouTube
"How to Train Your Dragon: it's the best of what's left!" ~ Honest Trailers - How to Train Your Dragon
Script[]
From the studio (DreamWorks Animation) that made a movie about a bee in an interspecies relationship with a lady (Bee Movie), comes a fantasy adventure so solid, it'll almost make you forget... DreamWorks made a movie where a bee falls in love with a lady. (shows Barry B. Benson flirting with Vanessa Bloome in Bee Movie) I mean, he's a bee! And she's a lady! How is that supposed to even work?! It's physically impo--! Wait, what movie were we talking about again?
How to Train Your Dragon 1 and 2
Visit the magical land of Berk, a place full of happy Vikings and happy dragons, and when they team up, you can assume they'll bring untold pain and carnage to the rest of the world. (montage of gruesome human- and dragon-related violence on Game of Thrones and Vikings) AAUGH!! MY EYES!! I CAN'T UNSEE THAT!! IT'S HORRIBLE!! IT'S A NIGHTMARE!! So let's turn the dial back to family-friendly, to experience the saga of an unlikely hero: Hiccup. He didn't inherit his father's Viking strength, or his Viking... Scottish accent (?)...
Stoick: (in a heavy Scottish accent) --to placing first in dragon training...
...but he's got more droll Viking apathy than a Viking Judd Apatow character.
Hiccup: I see a dragon and I have to just... kill it, you know? / (to Gobber) You, sir, are playing a dangerous game. Keeping this much raw... Vikingness... contained? / They wouldn't know what to do with... (points to his lack of muscles) all this.
Still funnier than Funny People.
Everything will change when he meets Toothless, a dragon crossed with all your favorite cat videos! (shows Toothless playing with a tree branch) They'll prove that working together makes people stronger, and their friendship will transform Berk from a land that used to hate and fear dragons, to one that uses them for Quidditch or something. (shows some sheep in a net looking at each other in confusion) I mean, progress is progress, right? Eh, whatever; look how cute he is! Aww! (shows Toothless aggressively licking Hiccup to the point of annoying him)
Strap in as Hiccup teams up with his pals, Astrid and the Warriors Four, who have even less character development than Sif and the Warriors Three, like the boy one (Snotlout Jorgenson), the nerd one (Fishlegs Ingerman), the other girl one (Ruffnut Thorston), and the other boy one. (Tuffnut Thorston) Man, what a waste of Jonah Hill... or is that McLovin? It's hard to say. Together, they'll take you deeper into the world of dragons, whether it's discovering that dragons are all drones serving a bigger dragon (The Red Death), or that dragons are all drones serving a bigger dragon (a Bewilderbeast), or that bigger dragons can fight over who gets to make dragons into drones serving a bigger dragon. (Drago's Bewilderbeast)
Hiccup: Another one?
Huh... There's actually very little dragon training in the entire franchise; then again, "How to Prevent the Submission of Your Dragon to the Will of a Homicidal Apex Predator" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
So if you want a fantasy series for all ages, that swaps out DreamWorks' usual pop culture references for some actual heart, make sure to check out some of the best modern fantasy movies today (shows the posters for How to Train Your Dragon, How to Train Your Dragon 2, the Harry Potter series, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Jack the Giant Slayer, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons (2000), In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds, In the Name of the King 3: The Last Mission, The Golden Compass, Eragon, Conan the Barbarian (2011), and Legend of the Seeker), that aren't most of the Harry Potter movies (removes the Harry Potter posters), or Lord of the Rings (removes the Lord of the Rings posters), or terrible. (removes most of the other posters until the ones for How to Train Your Dragon and How to Train Your Dragon 2 remain) How to Train Your Dragon: it's the best of what's left!
Starring: The Boy with the Dragon How-To (Jason Baruchel as Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III); This Is... Scotland? (Gerard Butler as Stoick the Vast); No Arm-ie Hammer (Craig Ferguson as Gobber the Belch); Lydia (America Ferrera as Astrid Hofferson, alongside Lydia from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim); Dragonforce (Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Fishlegs Ingerman, Jonah Hill as Snotlout Jorgenson, Kristen Wiig as Ruffnut Thorston, and T.J. Miller as Tuffnut Thorston); Mother of Dragons (Cate Blanchett as Valka Haddock); DRAGOOOOO! (Djimon Hounsou as Drago Bludvist); Yawn Snow (Kit Harington as Eret, Son of Eret); and...
Hiccup: (after Toothless tries to grieve with him after Stoick sacrifices himself to stop Toothless from killing him under mind control) No! Get away from him! Go on! Get out of here!
Toothless: (groans sadly)
...(sobbing) Dragon Bawl Me (Randy Thom as Toothless). (sniffles) I'm gonna need a second...
How to Prevent the Submission of Your Dragon to the Will of a Homicidal Apex Predator. See? Not catchy.
Honest title for How to Train Your Dragon - How to Prevent the Submission of Your Dragon to the Will of a Homicidal Apex Predator. Title design by Robert Holtby.
Tuffnut: Everyone knows I'm more irritating! See? (turns Belch's head upside down to annoy Ruffnut on Barf)
Very true, T.J. Miller; very true. (shows Ruffnut smacking Tuffnut's head with a shield)
Trivia[]
Honest Trailers Commentary - How to Train Your Dragon
- Writer Joe Starr is a passionate fan of the entire HTTYD series, but writer Spencer Gilbert was much more lukewarm towards the sequel.
- The writers discussed which "bad fantasy movies" to include in their grid. Dan Murrell argued that they shouldn't include the first Narnia movie The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe because he anticipated many viewers would comment that it wasn't terrible.
- Some of the deleted jokes included: a reference to the bongo cat meme; and calling the supporting characters "NPCs." The writers intended the NPC reference to call back to the video game term "non-player character." However, they decided the term NPC had been co-opted as a political insult which muddied their intended meaning.
- Screen Junkies have also made Honest Trailers for several other animated movies including Despicable Me 1 & 2, Minions, The Boss Baby, The Secret Life of Pets, Toy Story, Inside Out, Finding Nemo, Finding Dory, Cars & Cars 2, The Incredibles, Shrek, Frozen, Moana, Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6 and Zootopia. See list of Honest Trailers for more.
Watch the full Honest Trailer commentary on YouTube
Reception[]
Honest Trailers - How to Train Your Dragon has a 96.7% approval rating from YouTube viewers. Many media outlets commented on the positive tone of this Honest Trailer. Slate wrote, "The How to Train Your Dragon movies are so well made that even their Honest Trailer has to look elsewhere to find much worthy of mockery." Screen Rant noted that "by Honest Trailer standards, the video is incredibly kind, taking more shots at rival movies than HTTYD itself. In 2019, there are few better endorsements of a movie's quality than when Honest Trailers can't find much to make fun of."
Screen Rant also wrote, "Highlights of the trailer include comparing Toothless' behavior to internet cat videos, pointing out the wildly different accents of Hiccup and his father, and questioning why the dragons in Game of Thrones need to be quite so violent." Epicstream found the Honest Trailer notable for commenting on the dire state of cinematic fantasy, writing "The trailer also makes a jab at the fantasy genre in general. Besides Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, Hollywood hasn’t been able to pump out any noteworthy fantasy epics on the big screen."
Production credits[]
Video thumbnail for Honest Trailers - How to Train Your Dragon
Voiceover Narration by Jon Bailey
Title Design: Robert Holtby
Written by Spencer Gilbert, Dan Murrell, Joe Starr, Lon Harris
Produced by Spencer Gilbert, Dan Murrell, Joe Starr & Max Dionne
Edited by Kevin Williamsen
Assistant Editor: Emin Bassavand
External links[]
- How To Train Your Dragon Honest Trailer: Family-Friendly Game Of Thrones - Screen Rant article
- The Honest Trailer for How to Train Your Dragon Roasts Other Fantasy Movies Instead - Slate article
- Catch Honest Trailer for How to Train Your Dragon Before The Final Movie Comes Out - Epicstream article
- 'How to Train Your Dragon' Gets an Honest Trailer - ComicBook.com article
- ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ Honest Trailer: So Good That It Might Make You Forget About ‘Bee Movie’ - SlashFilm article