How to Train Your Dragon now has a live action version in theaters. But I’d never seen the animated version from 2010. Since it’s currently available on Max, it seemed like a good time to find out why this film is so popular. There are spoilers ahead.

How to Train Your Dragon is set in a Viking village. It’s an old village, but all the houses are new. That’s because hundreds of dragons fly by regularly and snatch up food and sometimes burn down houses.

The Vikings whole purpose is to kill dragons. They’ve killed a lot but more keep coming. The children’s education is dragon killing school. Stoick, the village chief, is voiced by Gerard Butler, who plays Stoick again in the new live action version. Stoick is embarrassed by his slightly built son Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) because he doesn’t seem tough enough to kill dragons, which is the only thing a Viking is meant to do.

Hiccup has a crush on Astrid (America Ferrera). She intends to be the best dragon killer in the school.

One day Hiccup is alone in the woods and he comes upon a dragon with a hurt tail who cannot fly. He tries to kill it, but he can’t do it. So he befriends it instead. He names it Toothless. He learns how to tame and befriend all the dragons, including the ones he’s meant to kill in dragon training school. He fabricates a tail piece for Toothless and off they fly.

He even takes Astrid flying in a beautiful scene where they touch the clouds. Toothless takes them all the way to the dragons’ lair. They discover that all the food the dragons have been stealing goes to a huge, greedy, tyrant dragon who wants everything for himself. If a dragon doesn’t bring him enough to eat, the tyrant eats the dragon itself. If you don’t give him what he wants, you die!

Hiccup and Astrid explain it all to the folks back home. The Vikings learn to appreciate and communicate with the dragons. The Vikings and dragons all work together to defeat the evil tyrant in power.

It’s a happy ending with a beautiful message about understanding differences and working together to defeat evil. No wonder the film is updated and modernized right now. It’s the perfect message for kids and adults.

You can watch this version on Max, or get out to a theater to see the live action release. If you’re like me and you have to wait for a streamer to pick it up, I don’t yet know who will have the new version.

It’s an excellent film and I wholeheartedly recommend it.