Film Name: 驯龙高手3 / How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
By the third installment of the “How to Train Your Dragon” series, the theme has evolved from the bond between humans and their pets to the relationship between humans and nature. When the people remove the seats, headgear, and ropes from the dragons, the film unquestionably arrives at the ultimate ceremony it has always sought to reach. This ceremony is neither a heartbreaking separation between humans and their companions, nor a sacrifice involving the cost of life. It is simply the act of unfastening. Yet the liberation of thought behind this act is far from simple.
The Vikings’ liberation of the dragons is also the film’s liberation of its contemplation on the relationship between humans and nature. From that searing encounter a decade prior to this majestic, epic liberation a decade later, humanity’s journey unfolds: from fearing dragons and nature, to attempting to control dragons and master nature, to finally liberating dragons and yearning to return to nature. This decade-long shift in consciousness seems to distill millennia of human contemplation.
Faced with this historical tide, Grímli’s defeat was almost inevitable. He still sought to control dragons, and even with superior physical strength and advanced technology, it proved futile. His defeat came easily—though perhaps unsatisfying from a narrative perspective, it aligns perfectly with the film’s overarching theme. He wasn’t defeated by Hiccup, but by his own defiance against the tide, by an irreversible current.
The film frequently interweaves flashbacks of Hiccup’s childhood, using a warmth that echoes the grandeur of the ceremony’s arrival. This warmth reveals that humanity’s yearning for harmony with nature may not stem from some acquired intellectual reasoning, but from their innate, original hearts. So when people shed the dragons’ shackles, they also shed a burden called “selfishness.”
How to Train Your Dragon: What begins as training a dragon ultimately becomes training oneself to stop treating the world selfishly. This outcome is nothing short of marvelous. Perhaps we should all try our hand at being a “dragon trainer” within our own circles.
While shedding shackles, Hiccup never removed Toothless’s mechanical tail. It not only aided Toothless’s flight but became an eternal token and bond between them. Perhaps what humans impose upon nature isn’t solely driven by control—there are also acts of kindness. Nature perceives and remembers these.
The film is filled with grand orchestral scores, creating an epic finale. But why dwell on the sorrow of parting? This might just be the beginning of harmony between humans and dragons, between humans and nature.
While I don’t entirely agree that dragons must hide away to survive—does nature only find protection within human-designated reserves? Compared to the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature in Chinese culture, “How to Train Your Dragon” may offer only a compromise solution. Yet regardless, Hiccup’s first encounter with Toothless and the Vikings’ collective awakening to dragons will forever remain beautiful moments in our hearts.
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