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| HTTYD 2 questions I would like to share (SPOILERS!) | |
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| Topic Started: 17 Jul 2014, 00:51 (8279 Views) | |
| NightoftheFury | 17 Jul 2014, 00:51 Post #31 |
Shhh...Toothless is watching
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Alright, I'm going to take the engineering/aerospace approach to answering how Drago could ride Toothless. But bear with me because it might get a little technical.... Where to start, ah yes toothless' prosthetic: A while back I studied toothless' prosthetic in extreme detail, down to the mechanical components and even drafted some technical drawings of how someone would go about creating one for real. From those as well as the original designs for his prosthetic from DW...here is how it theoretically works. There are two pedals that are on either side of toothless. One is simply a regular pedal while the other is specially modified for hiccups prosthetic. From these pedals there is a rope attached to either end so that the pedal acts as a gimbal. There are two loop rings around toothless' front legs that work to convert the change in angle of the pedal to linear displacement of two ropes that are guided by a leather binding (think bike brake cable) back to his tail.  By linear displace meant think of how a old school bike works without gears...if you push the pedals back and forth you change how the gearchain change interacts with the rear wheel. Same concept for toothless except instead of a rear wheel we have the tail mechanisms.  Two rope loops, two pedals. Hiccups right foot (his good foot) controls the opening and closing of the tail. The ropes are connected to the first leader bar of the tail and it is pulled forward pulling the rest (due to the leather fabric) with them.  Apparently closing is passive so Hiccup simply relaxes his foot to have it close (think of how during the first movie when toothless took off with hiccup on his tail, when hiccup didn't actively open the tail it closed in by itself). So right foot = opening of the tail. Now his left foot (prosthetic) controls the angle of toothless tail which doubles as a horizontal and vertical stabilizer. By angle I mean this:  The left tail loop rope loops around the round left rope mechanism (As seen above) which controls a roll bar concealed by the prosthetic tails leather cover. This is what the Rod thing we see in the second movie does. It controls the angle of toothless tail. The reason (i assume) that Hiccup went with this type of device is so that he can infinitely adjust it while having it stick in place. By that I mean hiccup can control the angle easily by sliding the rod forwards or backwards (which again is connected to a loop ring with a rope going back to the tail) and when he's happy with it he can simply remove his foot BUT he doesn't have to use the locking lever. This is so that when he is on toothless he can take both feet out of the pedals and lay flat on his stomach as we see him do at the beginning of the 2nd film. He only seems to need to use the locking lever to freeze the ropes in place, thereby locking the angle and opening of the fin, when he leaves toothless to solo glide. Its not the same setup as in Gift on the Night Fury. Its simply just locked into a position that supports level flight. [Unless there is a third cable traveling down the Brake like cable assembly or there is a some type of locking quick release mechanism inside the tail I don't see how he can freeze the opening of the tail because that rope loop for that is on the other side of toothless controlled by his right foot]. So right foot = tail opening, left foot = tail angle. Now here is why I think Drago could Fly toothless. The right foot is permissible, its still a standard pedal and as long as it is kept open toothless can fly at level flight. Now as many of you have said it would be extremely hard for Drago to use the right side rod mechanism.... However I don't think he would have to. Hiccup was flying toothless right before so it is possible that the lever could have been left in more or less the correct angle for flight. But also, as I said earlier toothless rear tail is both a horizontal stabilizer and vertical stabilizer in one. In aviation they call them a v-tail. Beech K35 Bonanza  The angle between the right and left tailwing is important here to keep up level flight. (that's why when toothless lost one of them he could fly only for a few seconds before veering of course.) So the last angle Hiccup left it in probably helped with flight stabilization. But also remember that now toothless has his new spines, which are shaped, interestingly enough like a v-tail stabilizer.  And there are many of them. Plus toothless can somewhat control the angle of them which collectively might help offset the effects of the prosthetic placed into an un optimal position. So whatever angle Hiccup had left the tail in before + the additional stabilization gained by his new spikes was probably enough to fly straight (although rather difficultly as we can also see toothless a little shaky as he is flying). Just my observations/thoughts As for the other question, I'm really hoping they answer that in HTTYD3. |
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| doeslingx | 17 Jul 2014, 02:42 Post #32 |
...and one other reason
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That is a seriously impressive bit of analysis.  So any ideas what the positions on Hiccup's cheat sheet in the first film would correspond to? In those days only one of the pedals seemed to control anything, and the prosthetic was made of much flimsier material (paper?) |
| I don't have a signature, see? | |
| thenightandthefury | 17 Jul 2014, 10:22 Post #33 |
Gronckle
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That is impressive but that is for the first movie. If you look at my post you'll see the design is nothing like the first one. In the second one his leg snaps on to the rod and locks in place. It's clearly shown in the teaser trailer. In the first movie his leg snaps into a stirrup. I still stick firmly by my belief that Drago could easily move the rod with his foot. There is no reason it wouldn't be able to move should he nudge it with his foot. Everything Hiccup can do Drago can manage in some way. Thus why I spent the time to show pictures and a gif. Take a look at it, you'll see what I mean. Personally, I think a lot of people are looking at this like "Oh no one can fly Toothless except Hiccup!" with a one minded direction. Thing about Dreamworks is its very open minded, very original. Me? I just wish people would stop analyzing and nit picking the movie to death and just enjoy it. And saying you put more thought into it then dreamworks.. O.O Seriously? I think Dreamworks put years of thought into it, much more then any one of us combined. Well my short rant is over. Word of advice; quit nitpicking and just enjoy it! |
| Eret | 17 Jul 2014, 11:06 Post #34 |
....Son of Eret
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True, people are absolutely allowed to criticize things they don't like or understand as with any movie, but I don't think dreamworks did anything without giving it a lot of caring consideration about whether it makes sense or fits in to the story. |
| Cartoon Freak | 17 Jul 2014, 12:13 Post #35 |
Deadly Nadder
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Without criticism, we are left with nothing but passive consumption of material, which is a problem for a whole host of reasons. At best, it is an immature, incomplete way of appreciating art. And honestly, I would wager that for any movie, there's some aspect that a fan or group of fans has put more thought into than any person who worked on it, if such a thing were feasible to prove one way or the other. It's only a serious problem when the aspect in question is important. The issue of how Drago is able to fly Toothless is such an issue. Note, however, that it does appear to more or less make sense, and the issue is a matter of presentation rather than content. Of course, I'll be having a look at the relevant scenes in detail when I have a copy of the film on DVD or Blu-Ray, but that's a fair way off. |
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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. | |
| MartianArchaeologist | 17 Jul 2014, 13:30 Post #36 |
Gronckle
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NightoftheFury's explanation is by far my favorite. Ever. I want to differentiate between the kind of criticism that ends up in "good" or "bad" and the kind of analysis that ends up teaching me something or sparking my imagination in "what if" and a thousand new vapor trails of imagination. Thanks, Night, for the best kind of analysis! |
| NightoftheFury | 17 Jul 2014, 17:14 Post #37 |
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Shhh...Toothless is watching
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Although it looks like the second movie has a completely redesigned system, in actuality the only thing that has changed is Hiccups prosthetic interface. He redesigned his prosthetic foot so he had to redesign only how his foot connected with toothless' system. They are otherwise pretty much identical. In HTTYD 1 We have this setup:  In HTTYD 2 We have this setup, All the previous components are there. The only thing that is new is the sliding rod, which is for hiccups prosthetic:  The rod is attached to a sliding mechanism which is then guided by a rail that hiccup forged and attached to the Rope Ring loop. Protruding from the sliding mechanism is the equivalent to an I-Bolt which is how it interacts with the rope. The rope is threaded through the I Bolt and then knotted. So when hiccup slides his foot forward, the rod, which is attached to the sliding mechanism, also slides forward pulling the rope with it. This simply replaces the gimbal type design that was in HTTYD1:  The lock mechanism is fairly simply as well. A hook type device is on the end of the lever and once pulled up it catches the edge of the sliding mechanism, effectively locking it in its furthest forward position. I guess that is whats needed for solo gliding. Lock system:  Lock Engaged:  The rest of the systems are still intact on the tail side: HTTYD1:  HTTYD2:  No change. So it seems as though the only thing Hiccup changed was his interconnect with Toothless' system. So in terms of flying toothless nothing has really changed. The right foot controls the opening (we see this right at the beginning of the teaser trailer) and left foot controls the angle.
This is 100% true. There is no reason why Drago could not move the rod forward. Its sits freely on the sliding mechanism and can simply be pushed with anyone's foot. The only reason its a rod to begin with is because that's what works best with hiccups prosthetic. And Yes everything Hiccup can do Drago can also manage: The right foot is simply a pedal so that's easy and the left foot can be adjusted by pushing the rod. Not an issue. I'm not saying that "Oh no one can fly Toothless except Hiccup!" anyone can. But there is another issue that doesn't have to do with working the controls....Its how to use them! It even took Hiccup, the original designer of the system, a few afternoons to understand the ins and out of the different positions. And we do see other riders ride toothless, but they probably at least got some training/the basics of how it works (Think, to S02 the episode frozen, at the begging of it Hiccup is talking about aerodynamics/ concepts of flight, He has surly told the others how this system works). But Drago has never seen hiccup before, has never seen toothless before and hasn't really seen them fly in detail. My issue with How Drago could fly toothless did not come from how he worked the system (Its totally possible) but rather how he knew what to do with them. Its sort of like the analogy MartianArchaeologist came up with. If we think of toothless tail as gears.... If you were to take a person who has never ever driven a manual shift car or seen how its done and put them in the drivers seat they would be pretty lost. Yes they would be able to move the gear shift and press the clutch, but that's useless unless you know what your doing with them. If you were transported to Berk and dropped into toothless' saddle would you know what to do, what to control? Sure you would be able to move both pedals but would you know what to do with them? That's the real question here. How did Drago pretty effortlessly get toothless flying without knowing any of the controls? And that's why I believe that he was able to maybe fan out the tail, using the right pedal but then the combination of toothless' spines and the fact that he was under mind control, helped him keep level flight. @doeslingx As for the cheat sheet Here is what I gather: \ = Toe Down - = Level/Neutral / = Toe Up He has both recorded for each respective pedal.  As for what each position does, That would require a bit more in depth study. There are 9 possible positions 3 each pedal two pedals so 3x3 = 9. But I guess only 6 can actually be in flight positions. But for HTTYD2 there are 3 possible positions on the right pedal but an infinite number of positions on the left due to the sliding nature of the system. Again how did Drago Know? I think he did not and rather got lucky with the right pedal and toothless' spines. I'm in between Cartoon Freak and Eret on this on. DW has totally done their homework. Honestly there are probably details that we may never even know exist and details that are in the concept are but are not portrayed in the final animation. Point is DW has all the details. I'm fairly certain if you ask the concept artists or the animators how Drago was able to fly on toothless' they'd have the answer. And if not I'm 100% SURE that Dean would. But that being said, there are only so many animators but thousands upon thousands of fan. Surly just by that ratio, at some point a fan will think of something that DW did not. Its just the statistics of it. I would not call it nit picking, rather I like to think of it as detailed exploration. And I think Dean would love that we do this. It shows that he truly did create a rich and vibrant world in which to tell his story. |
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| MartianArchaeologist | 17 Jul 2014, 21:48 Post #38 |
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Gronckle
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Hear hear. And pass along my thanks for this very thing. |
| dorcas18 | 18 Jul 2014, 06:43 Post #39 |
Dragon Egg
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Once again thank you NightoftheFury, for your detail explanation about the wing mechanism. I can know appreciate more on what Dreamworks has toiled into this project.  Sure to have level up my aerospacing knowledge a bit 
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