Fantasy is an inherently tricky thing to project onto the big screen. Whether live-action or animated, swords and/or sorcery require delicate handling to avoid feeling clichéd. Only the best fantasy movies can balance the usual genre tropes with emotional resonance and multi-faceted characters. Doing it once is difficult. Keeping the momentum across an entire franchise is virtually impossible.
Fantasy naturally lends itself to long, epic storytelling, but franchises can only return to the well so many times before creative waters run dry. The vast majority of fantasy franchises throughout movie history have, at some time or another, tripped over their own sandals. For our purposes, we will consider a “franchise” as at least three movies set within the same fictional universe. Within those parameters, only a single series can claim to have delivered consistently high quality.
How To Train Your Dragon Has Never Delivered A Bad Movie
Hiccup holding Toothless’ head in his hands in How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)
Loosely based on Cressida Cowell’s book, How to Train Your Dragon immediately soared to become one of DreamWorks’ best movies in 2010, appealing to all ages and offering a vastly different brand of animated brilliance compared to what Disney and Pixar were doing at the time. Released around the same period as Megamind and Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon found DreamWorks in a rich vein of cinematic form.
Alas, hopes weren’t as high for How to Train Your Dragon 2. DreamWorks has an inconsistent track record when it comes to sequels, with even the mighty Shrek falling from grace. It also wasn’t immediately clear how Hiccup and Toothless’ story could spread its wings in a way that would justify a continuation, especially after the vikings and dragons finally made peace. Would How to Train Your Dragon 2 just find a bigger dragon for Toothless to fight?
Well… yes, but the sequel was so much more than that. By sharpening the focus on Hiccup’s family dynamic, as well as Berk’s new partnership with the dragons, Dean DeBlois delivered a follow-up that stayed faithful to the original without repeating itself. How to Train Your Dragon 2 found a way to challenge viewers but not alienate them, and upped the stakes without sacrificing emotional substance.
Surely, however, three movies would be a stretch too far? Again, the How to Train Your Dragon franchise defied logic when The Hidden World maintained the high standard of its predecessors. The most dragon-centric effort in the trilogy, DeBlois’ threequel took the narrative to its logical conclusion by giving Toothless and his species their well-deserved “happily ever after.”
What could have easily been a sentimental mess turned into a poignant and satisfying end supported by worthwhile themes of friendship, growing up, and the struggle between man and beast. By the time How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World ended the trilogy, letting go of Hiccup and Toothless was the kind of bittersweet experience that only happens when characters are so beautifully crafted, they demand to be cared for.
Even after a trio of great movies, it was hard not to be skeptical about How to Train Your Dragon’s live-action adaptation. Coming so soon after the animated movies and following the 2010 original to the letter, there seemed little creative value in such an endeavor. Dean DeBlois’ return, alongside Gerard Butler as Stoick, offered some comfort, but 2019’s remake looked all a bit pointless from the outside.
Movie
Rotten Tomatoes Score (Critics)
Rotten Tomatoes Score (Audience)
How To Train Your Dragon (2010)
99%
91%
How To Train Your Dragon 2
92%
90%
How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
90%
87%
How To Train Your Dragon (2025)
77%
97%
In fairness to the cynics, How to Train Your Dragon’s venture into live-action is largely inferior to the animated films. At the same time, it’s far from a bad movie. As predicted, the adaptation’s biggest problem was releasing so soon after The Hidden World without offering anything different to the 2010 movie. If the animated trilogy never happened and the remake was judged entirely on its own merits, How to Train Your Dragon 2025 would be hailed as a fantasy classic and the birth of a major new franchise.
Other Major Fantasy Franchises Just Haven’t Been As Consistent
Bilbo looking to the distance in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The Lord of the Rings. Arguably the greatest movie trilogy of all time from any genre. Each of Peter Jackson’s three movies could rightly be considered the best, and if he stopped there, this article would be very different. But then The Hobbit happened, with The Battle of Five Armies (59% RT) especially lacking the visual and storytelling quality expected from Middle-earth. Even if you can find the silver lining within the Hobbit trilogy, The War of the Rohirrim (49% RT) dragged the franchise deeper into the doldrums.
The Harry Potter movies showed remarkable consistency between 2001 and 2011 but, once again, an ill-advised prequel offshoot spoiled the streak. Fantastic Beasts lost its bite with The Crimes of Grindelwald (36% RT) and The Secrets of Dumbledore (46% RT).
The 2000s’ Narnia movies ranged from decent to poor, Pirates of the Caribbean sank like a cannonball with On Stranger Tides (some might say earlier), and Shrek declined quickly after two great efforts. None can slay the mighty fantasy movie franchise that is How to Train Your Dragon.