Finally, after a long, long wait, How To Train Your Dragon 3 – which will be subtitled The Hidden World – is ready to take flight and spread its wings. It’s been a long time coming, too, as the last movie flew into theaters way back in 2014 and it was only this spring that we got the first trailer for the threequel.
Promising another vibrant, colorful adventure, the teaser certainly got us excited for what’s on the way, as we saw Hiccup and Toothless (who’s as adorable as ever) team up together once again for what appears to be a journey to discover their true destines. Living up to the previous entries in the franchise will certainly be tough, no doubt about it, but according to director Dean DeBlois, the pic will be a bittersweet goodbye to the characters that fans have grown to love over the years, one that will hopefully satisfy viewers.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly in a recent interview, here’s what he had to say:
“We thought about it for a long time and came up with what we think is a bittersweet way to say goodbye to these characters, but the right way. You will understand why Hiccup says, as you heard in the trailer, ‘There were dragons when I was a boy.’ And by the end of this film, you’ll have answered the question [of] what could have happened to them.”
Further in the interview, DeBlois touched on the main theme of the film, which is letting go.
“The overall theme of the story is letting go, or finding the wisdom to let go, rather,” he says. It applies to the non-human characters, too. “So much of Hiccup’s identity, as a leader and an adult, is because of his relationship with Toothless,” says DeBlois. “But if Toothless is not there, who is Hiccup?”
“What we’re seeing in this story is Toothless learning to trust his own instincts. It’s not just a B-story. This is a potential agent of change that forces Hiccup to consider what sort of leader he wants to be, or even can be, without Toothless.”
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is set to fly into theaters on March 1st, 2019, after being delayed numerous times, and if Steven Spielberg’s to be believed, it’s an absolute classic and better than the original.
