How to Train Your Dragon

Studio: Dreamworks.

Voice Talent: Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Gerard Butler, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Craig Ferguson, and David Tennant

Plot Synopsis:

In the village of Berk... where Vikings have lived for 7 generations... fighting dragons is an everyday occurrence... Hordes of dragons often swoop down on the village to carry of the livestock, people and any other food they can find whereas the Vikings band together to try and fight them off. The leader of this village is the mighty Stoick the Vast. A massive red haired warrior who dispatched dragons with ease.

Hiccup, Stoick's son, is not strong like the other Vikings, instead he has a keen mind and comes up with inventions which are geared towards the capturing and killing of dragons. Sick of the constant teasing and the overall bullying of the other kids and adults, Hiccup decides to venture outside during a dragon raid to try and catch or kill a dragon. Hiccup sets his sights on the rare and dangerous Night Fury: a breed of dragon that has never even been seen. using the catapult that he invented, Hiccup manages to shoot one down but is unable to convince the other Vikings that he has.

He decides to try and find the dragons body to prove that he had indeed brought one down and discovers that the dragon had indeed been downed... but was still alive... Hiccup prepared to strike the final blow but in the end was unable to bring himself to kill the defenceless creature. He cut the ropes which tied the dragon up and released him. The dragon attacked Hiccup and knocked him to one side before taking off haphazardly and flying away...

Hiccup realizes that he is unable to become a dragon slayer like he wanted to and returns home dejected only to find that his father had enrolled him in dragon slayer training. Unable to protest Hiccup attends the training sessions only to be mocked by his classmates and also his love interest Astrid.

He tries to learn more about dragons by reading a viking manual only to find that all dragons were merely classified according to how dangerous they were and that all vikings were supposed to kill all dragons on sight. Te one exception to this rule was the Night Fury breed of dragon which no one had ever seen and lived to tell the tale... the manual advised that in the event of an encounter with a Night Fury... one should just hide and hope it does not find them. Intrigued by the fact that the Night Fury that he had brought down had not killed him, Hiccup returned to the forest only to find the Night Fury trapped in a canyon, unable to fly out since his tail had been damaged.

Hiccup tried to approach the dragon slowly and they soon built up a bond with Hiccup bringing food for the dragon (whom he names "Toothless") and Toothless allowa Hiccup to touch and stroke him. Hiccup builds a replacement tail section for Toothless with his mechanical knowhow and mounts it on him. However the tail is not perfect and Toothless is unable to fly freely. After several iterations, hiccup succeeds in making a design wherein he is able to ride Toothless and fly high in the sky and perform aerobatics and suchlike. In the meantime he has also been acing his dragon slaying lessons since his experiences with Toothless have taught him about the weaknesses of dragons.

However Astrid suspects that Hiccup is hiding something. How could a wimp like Hiccup become so good at handling dragons in such a short time? She follows him and discovers his secret... what will happen next? A grand adventure thats what! Watch the movie to learn more!!

My Thoughts:

Voice Talent: Nordic accents seemed a trifle forced... but I guess I can let that slide...

Animation: Top notch... there is a reason Dreamworks is one of the best studios in the business and it lives up to its name yet again...

Story: Based off a book which I havent read, but I loved it. An adventure of epic proportions and the coming of age story of a young boy I think this movie will be even more of a treat in 3D. Visuals were all stunning and even the end of the movie credit rolls had good art going into them. All I can say is that it blows every post Wall E animated movie clean out the water... a must watch by any standards.

Overall Score: 95% Cant find much of anything to take points off for, but I dont ever give out perfect scores either.

Mass Media: A Boon or a Curse?

Mass media is (according to wikipedia): A section of the media specifically designed to reach a large audience. The term was coined in the 1920s with the advent of nationwide radio networks, mass-circulation newspapers and magazines. However, some forms of mass media such as books and manuscripts had already been in use for centuries.
Mass media includes Internet media (like blogs, message boards, podcasts, and video sharing) because individuals now have a means to exposure that is comparable in scale to that previously restricted to a select group of mass media producers. The communications audience has been viewed by some commentators as forming a mass society with special characteristics, notably atomization or lack of social connections, which render it especially susceptible to the influence of modern mass-media techniques such as advertising and propaganda.

So my little blog is also a little piece of the mass media pie. But my question is this... is it a boon? Or is it a curse?

In my opinion it has the potential to be both... and indeed... it is living up to its potential... but not only its potential for being a boon... but also a curse...

The positives of mass media are many... and are of great significance... but its the negatives which I want to discuss here... because it is those negatives which have been gaining momentum over the past few decades...

I am talking of the evils like media bias, glorification of immoral and illegal behavior, sensationalizing ordinary events, invasion of privacy, perpetuation of certain superstitions etc etc.

People have told me... if you dont like it... dont watch/read/listen to it... i.e. pretend to be a Deaf-Mute (Credit GITS and the late Salinger). I have tried... Really... I have tried to ignore some of the worrying trends I have seen in the youth of the world today... all a result of the pervasive nature of some of these aspects of the mass...

UNDERAGE DRINKING/SMOKING

I see larger and larger numbers of underage teenagers drinking and smoking everyday... a combination of a multitude of factors... easy availability of tobacco and alcohol notwithstanding, there is also the peer pressure they must deal with... the "everyone who is 'cool' must do it syndrome" as I sometimes term it...

But who are the ones who made smoking and drinking 'cool'? Who defined that? Mass Media... in the form of movies, TV shows, sometimes books... (sorry bout this Salinger... but you did it too...)...

I am not asking everyone to stub out their cigarettes and pour their drinks down the drain... I am asking them to think about why they chose to pick them up in the first place...

CASUAL SEX

It is now considered uncool not to have had a multitude of sexual partners before marriage... again... a trend which was popularized by mass media... particularly western media... which the Indian media has been trying to emulate... (truly a sad state of affairs that...)... This is something I am not as much worried about... so long as it occurs between consenting partners... who really are 'into' each other... but often times I see couples which are formed simply because: "well... all my friends have a girlfriend/boyfriend... I didn't want to be left behind"...

There is a growing trend of competition for the number of 'conquests' that have been made (this holds true for both for men and women)... which is something I cannot bring myself to accept...

Again.... a trend popularized by the mass media... and again... I am not asking all of you lovers out there to run away and elope and get married or practice celibacy before marriage (assuming you ever get that far)... I am asking you to think about why you are doing what you are doing... and think about whether you really want to do it for yourself... or just to be considered 'cool'... and to consider how any insincerity on your part could cause significant emotional damage to your partner...

INSTANT GRATIFICATION

Like they say... all things in moderation... unfortunately the spread of mass media has caused the spread of the "instant-gratification-culture." Everyone wants everything to move fast and to get instant results/pleasure... Not a bad thing to want... but it should set off alarm bells when we see ourselves completely forgoing... even deriding all other longer paths to the same goals...

Relationships used to be built up over time... nowadays its more like a collection of one night stands... Any sport where there is no heavy hitting real time action is considered totally boring... Test Cricket... Baseball... etc etc... The trend of moving towards having everything done in shorter and shorter times is not new, and is certainly not a bad thing... it is part of human nature... It is a good thing to increase efficiency... but sometimes the price we pay for that efficiency is terrible... and we often times dont even realize it...

CRIME/VIOLENCE

People nowadays are exposed to so much violence via the mass media... its phenomenal... I wish I had verifiable stats.... but I think it would not be an exaggeration to say that more people see more violent scenes in one form or another everyday these days... than they did before the advent of mass media... and this is having a startling effect on our youth... even children...

I heard of a terrible case (Thankfully not in India) where a young boy was killed by a couple of 10 year old's in a pretty gruesome manner... I believe it was in the UK...

But even in India... I have heard of several disturbing cases involving teenagers and young adults... rape, kidnappings of friends, beatings, murders even... This is not normal... and it IS a problem we need to face up to... I am glad that we don't have as many guns floating around in India (in the hands of private citizens) as there are in the USA... In the USA... school shootings occur every few months...

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The fact is mass media is so pervasive and so powerful that everything they project has a significant impact on us all psychologically without us realizing it.

Mass media (intentionally or not) implants images in impressionable young minds... when they are not mature enough to make educated decisions about their lives... when they are in their rebellious phase and do not want to listen to their parents even... Now there is the potential to implant both good and bad things... and it is my hope that we are able to get mass media to focus more on the good rather than the bad... It is not a question of age restrictions on media... because its a well known fact that the more you try to keep adolescents from getting/doing something... the more likely it is that they will go to extreme lengths to get/do it...