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Interview with Dean about HTTYD2 [spoilers] |
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Topic Started: 05 Jun 2014, 00:01 (5398 Views)
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duckizo
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05 Jun 2014, 00:01
Post #11
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Dragon Egg
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She's a dragon whisperer who clashes with her son about how to best protect them and was originally conceived as a sympathetic antagonist. But DeBlois realized after two drafts that Drago Bludvist (Djimon Honsou) is a better antagonist.
Warning: Post-movie viewing rant/*very spoilery* stuff below
Spoiler: click to toggle Valka clashing with her son sounds great! Too bad it wasn’t in the movie. The movie is set up like this: Hiccup runs away from his dad, because he can’t be his dad. There is conflict there. Hiccup runs towards his mother, because he thinks that he can actually be like her. INSERT CONFLICT HERE? If this movie is about Hiccup figuring out who he is-- a mediator between two extremes-- then naturally we would expect Hiccup to figure out that he actually can’t be his mother, either. He has to find his own happy medium. But there isn’t any conflict between him and his mother. Unless I’ve completely forgotten an entire scene from the movie, which I saw about three weeks ago. Anyway, I think “the Dancing and the Dreaming” is sort of meant to be a resolution to the Dad’s side vs. Mom’s side conflict, which is a bit of a cop-out. Hiccup’s parents (representing the two extremes Hiccup is mediating between) kinda just unite in front of him. Internal conflict solved. And then, Stoick dies and Hiccup takes his place. Again, I might be totally wrong and I need to see the movie again before I come to conclusions (especially since none of the other reviewers said anything negative about it). I’m glad that we do get to see Valka flawed, even it’s only for about 10 seconds. Of course, Hiccup forgives her because IMO he’s just glad that someone understands his attachment to dragons and it makes him feel a bit less guilty for not wanting to become chief.
TL;DR Valka is flawed but Hiccup’s just like OK COOL about it. It didn’t really DO anything in terms of furthering Hiccup’s internal conflict. I still loved Valka as a character, though, just not how her narrative arc fit in with that of Hiccup’s. It seems like everyone else who saw the film does, though, so I’ll just be in my own little corner.
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Eclipse-Wolven
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05 Jun 2014, 00:33
Post #12
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Ninja Dragon
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- duckizo
- 05 Jun 2014, 04:01
- Quote:
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She's a dragon whisperer who clashes with her son about how to best protect them and was originally conceived as a sympathetic antagonist. But DeBlois realized after two drafts that Drago Bludvist (Djimon Honsou) is a better antagonist.
Warning: Post-movie viewing rant/*very spoilery* stuff below
Spoiler: click to toggle Valka clashing with her son sounds great! Too bad it wasn’t in the movie. The movie is set up like this: Hiccup runs away from his dad, because he can’t be his dad. There is conflict there. Hiccup runs towards his mother, because he thinks that he can actually be like her. INSERT CONFLICT HERE? If this movie is about Hiccup figuring out who he is-- a mediator between two extremes-- then naturally we would expect Hiccup to figure out that he actually can’t be his mother, either. He has to find his own happy medium. But there isn’t any conflict between him and his mother. Unless I’ve completely forgotten an entire scene from the movie, which I saw about three weeks ago. Anyway, I think “the Dancing and the Dreaming” is sort of meant to be a resolution to the Dad’s side vs. Mom’s side conflict, which is a bit of a cop-out. Hiccup’s parents (representing the two extremes Hiccup is mediating between) kinda just unite in front of him. Internal conflict solved. And then, Stoick dies and Hiccup takes his place. Again, I might be totally wrong and I need to see the movie again before I come to conclusions (especially since none of the other reviewers said anything negative about it). I’m glad that we do get to see Valka flawed, even it’s only for about 10 seconds. Of course, Hiccup forgives her because IMO he’s just glad that someone understands his attachment to dragons and it makes him feel a bit less guilty for not wanting to become chief.
TL;DR Valka is flawed but Hiccup’s just like OK COOL about it. It didn’t really DO anything in terms of furthering Hiccup’s internal conflict. I still loved Valka as a character, though, just not how her narrative arc fit in with that of Hiccup’s. It seems like everyone else who saw the film does, though, so I’ll just be in my own little corner.
You're not alone here. Warning: Mild spoilers below!
Spoiler: click to toggle After I saw the movie, the only problem I had with Valka was exactly what you said. I like that she is a flawed character but I don't think they made her quite flawed enough. If they had had Valka clash with Hiccup more and be a real extremist in terms of the dragons it would've been a lot more interesting. Both for Hiccup's development and the overall plot. I actually liked Valka, don't get me wrong. I thought she was a good character. But they DID have a chance to do more with her character than they did and it would've improved the movie had they did. At least in my mind.
Who knows, maybe I need to see the movie again. I certainly plan to.
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-Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup-
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Cartoon Freak
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05 Jun 2014, 06:53
Post #13
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Deadly Nadder
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- And...Yep...I'm a Nerd
- 05 Jun 2014, 02:04
- Cartoon Freak
- 04 Jun 2014, 22:38
To bring out the obvious example, I'm pretty sure kids understood The Empire Strikes Back. Kids aren't, on the whole, stupid.
I'm going to assume you're referring to Vader. Vader wasn't revealed as a sympathetic antagonist until Return of the Jedi, and even then I'm sure most young kids didn't understand the cautionary tale he was supposed to represent.
Actually, I think most kids would understand the basic idea of "Anakin became corrupted by power and became evil". And honestly, if kids didn't mind the idea of the hero's father, whom he near-idolised in the first two movie, turning out to be outright evil, then I'm pretty sure they could handle the idea of Valka being an antagonist, even if they didn't completely understand her character.
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As for the Valka/Drago debate, how believable could you keep Valka as an antagonist when she would see her own son and husband coexisting with dragons? The switch to Drago, in my mind, is justifiable.
It's not that hard. She would simply see domestication as a form of subjugation, little better than what Drago is doing. For that matter, she could use basically any argument that people make against other people having exotic pets.
It's actually more sensible than Drago's more generic (apparent) motivations. I mean, seriously, why does anyone even want to conquer the world (or any arbitrarily large area)? What are you supposed to do with it once you have it?
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Number of times I've watched the trailer: 18.
My pet peeve: people who refer to complete strangers by their first name. The correct ways to refer to a "John Smith" whom you have never met are Smith, Mr Smith, or John Smith. Not "John". He's not your buddy.
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Crest1347
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05 Jun 2014, 11:42
Post #14
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Dragon Egg
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- Cartoon Freak
- 05 Jun 2014, 10:53
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As for the Valka/Drago debate, how believable could you keep Valka as an antagonist when she would see her own son and husband coexisting with dragons? The switch to Drago, in my mind, is justifiable.
It's not that hard. She would simply see domestication as a form of subjugation, little better than what Drago is doing. For that matter, she could use basically any argument that people make against other people having exotic pets.
It's actually more sensible than Drago's more generic (apparent) motivations. I mean, seriously, why does anyone even want to conquer the world (or any arbitrarily large area)? What are you supposed to do with it once you have it?
Rule it, probably. I mean, why did Alexander build such a grand empire?
Also, Drago, from what I've seen so far, styles himself as a god. So its very likely that he really isn't 'conquering' the world, just reclaiming what he thinks is rightfully his.
Also, in my mind, I see an interesting story where Drago loses his family to a dragon attack(s). At that point, he swears revenge and seeks to destroy them. However, when he finds the hatching Bewilderbeast, he forms a different plan for revenge. Somewhere along the line, he starts believing his own lies and truly thinks he is a god.
That being said, Dean's true plan for Drago is significant enough that it will "be explored" in the third movie. How can you 'explore' a generic villain? There is definitely a plan, and it is enough to supplant Valka.
On that note, let me switch to Valka as a villain. I agree with your point that Valka could have viewed (and might still, even in the current script) subjugation as slavery like Drago practices. What I disagree with is how far she would be willing to go. Attack Berk? Plausible. (Attempt to) Kill Astrid and the other Dragon Riders? Extremely plausible.
However, my acceptance falls apart with Stoick and Hiccup. If she attacked Berk, Stoick would defend it. If she attacked Astrid, she would face her own son in combat. Now, take the excuse that she hasn't seen her son for twenty years and doesn't know about him leading the Riders. She still knows that attacking Berk puts her against her husband and son. Would a loving mother and wife be willing to do that?
Fine, let's hand-wave that and say she is enough on the dragon side to do that. What happens when Hiccup defeats her? Does he forgive her for attacking and endangering Berk because of a relationship? What about Stoick? He has to put his people in front of everything, even family. Can he order her execution?
Fine, let's hand-wave even those and say that Dean comes up with an awesome way to do that. What about the dragons that the Riders and Berk has to fight? Do they kill 'good' characters? Can they in such a movie? What about the good Bewilderbeast? Either they kill it, or lose their dragons to it. How do you solve such a problem?
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Cartoon Freak
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05 Jun 2014, 12:00
Post #15
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Deadly Nadder
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What you've just talked about is everything that makes the idea interesting. There are no easy solutions to the problem. That's when you get moral dilemmas, internal conflict, and all that other juicy stuff that makes a great story. And perhaps the greatest thing? You can go with pretty much any solution, because once you've established that there's no one solution that fixes everything, there's no wrong way to do things either. It's when writers insist on casting things in black and white, with purely evil villains and purely good heroes, that you run into problems when their actions simply don't hold up under scrutiny.
Regarding Drago and revenge, if there's no evidence for it in the second film (and I've certainly yet to see any), then it's an utterly lousy revenge on both the parts of Drago and the writers. Revenge, by its very nature, needs to be overt. The revenger needs to make his identity and motivation clear to the target of the revenge, or else it just loses all meaning. You can look to any revenge tragedy to see this (Shakespeare did a few, but I'm more of a fan of the simply-titled "The Revenger's Tragedy"), or you can just go straight to one of The Princess Bride's most famous lines: "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
So yeah, if DeBlois is trying to paint Drago as a revenger, then he really has to do it in the second movie (and again, I've yet to see any evidence for this, even in reviews, and given how spoiler-filled some of them have been, you would think they would give some hints as to the villain's motives if there were any of note), or he's completely messed up how revenge is supposed to work, and we're right back to the original idea of Valka as the antagonist being a lot better.
Oh, and I would just like to add that there's no inherent problem with a villain whose motivation is just conquest, as utterly nonsensical as that would be (and yeah, it's nonsensical when people do it in real life just for the sake of it, as well), but when you have a better idea for a villain (and Valka as an antagonist trumps Drago inherently in almost every way, and can easily be made to trump him in the remaining ways as well), you go with that.
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Number of times I've watched the trailer: 18.
My pet peeve: people who refer to complete strangers by their first name. The correct ways to refer to a "John Smith" whom you have never met are Smith, Mr Smith, or John Smith. Not "John". He's not your buddy.
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Neilandio
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05 Jun 2014, 13:27
Post #16
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Dragon trainer
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Valka as a sympathetic villain would have been the first movie all over again. I'm glad they changed it.
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My dragon den:
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Crest1347
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05 Jun 2014, 16:33
Post #17
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Dragon Egg
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- Cartoon Freak
- 05 Jun 2014, 16:00
What you've just talked about is everything that makes the idea interesting. There are no easy solutions to the problem. That's when you get moral dilemmas, internal conflict, and all that other juicy stuff that makes a great story. And perhaps the greatest thing? You can go with pretty much any solution, because once you've established that there's no one solution that fixes everything, there's no wrong way to do things either. It's when writers insist on casting things in black and white, with purely evil villains and purely good heroes, that you run into problems when their actions simply don't hold up under scrutiny.
Regarding Drago and revenge, if there's no evidence for it in the second film (and I've certainly yet to see any), then it's an utterly lousy revenge on both the parts of Drago and the writers. Revenge, by its very nature, needs to be overt. The revenger needs to make his identity and motivation clear to the target of the revenge, or else it just loses all meaning. You can look to any revenge tragedy to see this (Shakespeare did a few, but I'm more of a fan of the simply-titled "The Revenger's Tragedy"), or you can just go straight to one of The Princess Bride's most famous lines: "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
So yeah, if DeBlois is trying to paint Drago as a revenger, then he really has to do it in the second movie (and again, I've yet to see any evidence for this, even in reviews, and given how spoiler-filled some of them have been, you would think they would give some hints as to the villain's motives if there were any of note), or he's completely messed up how revenge is supposed to work, and we're right back to the original idea of Valka as the antagonist being a lot better.
Oh, and I would just like to add that there's no inherent problem with a villain whose motivation is just conquest, as utterly nonsensical as that would be (and yeah, it's nonsensical when people do it in real life just for the sake of it, as well), but when you have a better idea for a villain (and Valka as an antagonist trumps Drago inherently in almost every way, and can easily be made to trump him in the remaining ways as well), you go with that.
Ah, my apologies. I agree with you that it could make for an excellent story. However, what I was trying to point out (and I really should've stated it more overtly) that that idea would face problems with executives, test audiences, moral guardians, etc... The movie is supposed to be for a younger audience, of course.
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And...Yep...I'm a Nerd
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05 Jun 2014, 17:07
Post #18
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Terrible Terror
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- Cartoon Freak
- 05 Jun 2014, 10:53
- And...Yep...I'm a Nerd
- 05 Jun 2014, 02:04
- Cartoon Freak
- 04 Jun 2014, 22:38
To bring out the obvious example, I'm pretty sure kids understood The Empire Strikes Back. Kids aren't, on the whole, stupid.
I'm going to assume you're referring to Vader. Vader wasn't revealed as a sympathetic antagonist until Return of the Jedi, and even then I'm sure most young kids didn't understand the cautionary tale he was supposed to represent.
Actually, I think most kids would understand the basic idea of "Anakin became corrupted by power and became evil". And honestly, if kids didn't mind the idea of the hero's father, whom he near-idolised in the first two movie, turning out to be outright evil, then I'm pretty sure they could handle the idea of Valka being an antagonist, even if they didn't completely understand her character.
- Quote:
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As for the Valka/Drago debate, how believable could you keep Valka as an antagonist when she would see her own son and husband coexisting with dragons? The switch to Drago, in my mind, is justifiable.
It's not that hard. She would simply see domestication as a form of subjugation, little better than what Drago is doing. For that matter, she could use basically any argument that people make against other people having exotic pets.
It's actually more sensible than Drago's more generic (apparent) motivations. I mean, seriously, why does anyone even want to conquer the world (or any arbitrarily large area)? What are you supposed to do with it once you have it?
But that's an oversimplification in a sense. It wasn't power in the traditional sense that began Anakin's march to corruption, but rather the desire to control that which was uncontrollable. His love and passion (forbidden Jedi emotions) caused him to seek a way to circumvent death, not for the sake of dominance, but out of love. This initially pure motivation is what led him to turn to Palpatine. So while I agree that a young child might pick up on Anakin being corrupted, if that's all they took away from the story then they still wouldn't be taking away the whole story.
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Hiccup: Dragons are kind, amazing creatures that can bring people together
Drago: Or tear them apart...
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Cartoon Freak
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05 Jun 2014, 19:50
Post #19
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Deadly Nadder
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Indeed, but they would take away enough to be satisfied. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a film having many layers. Indeed, I would say it's a very good thing.
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Number of times I've watched the trailer: 18.
My pet peeve: people who refer to complete strangers by their first name. The correct ways to refer to a "John Smith" whom you have never met are Smith, Mr Smith, or John Smith. Not "John". He's not your buddy.
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HideousZippleback
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06 Jun 2014, 00:14
Post #20
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[color=blue]I'm just here for Snotlout. [/color]
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- Cartoon Freak
- 05 Jun 2014, 10:53
- And...Yep...I'm a Nerd
- 05 Jun 2014, 02:04
- Cartoon Freak
- 04 Jun 2014, 22:38
To bring out the obvious example, I'm pretty sure kids understood The Empire Strikes Back. Kids aren't, on the whole, stupid.
I'm going to assume you're referring to Vader. Vader wasn't revealed as a sympathetic antagonist until Return of the Jedi, and even then I'm sure most young kids didn't understand the cautionary tale he was supposed to represent.
Actually, I think most kids would understand the basic idea of "Anakin became corrupted by power and became evil". And honestly, if kids didn't mind the idea of the hero's father, whom he near-idolised in the first two movie, turning out to be outright evil, then I'm pretty sure they could handle the idea of Valka being an antagonist, even if they didn't completely understand her character.
- Quote:
-
As for the Valka/Drago debate, how believable could you keep Valka as an antagonist when she would see her own son and husband coexisting with dragons? The switch to Drago, in my mind, is justifiable.
It's not that hard. She would simply see domestication as a form of subjugation, little better than what Drago is doing. For that matter, she could use basically any argument that people make against other people having exotic pets.
It's actually more sensible than Drago's more generic (apparent) motivations. I mean, seriously, why does anyone even want to conquer the world (or any arbitrarily large area)? What are you supposed to do with it once you have it?
You need to tell this to all those supervillians in other movies... Sigh.
Valka as villian would have held far more "Empire" feels that's for sure.
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