Dean DeBlois, writer/director of How To Train Your Dragon 2 (as well as the co-director of the first movie) believes that dragons are real.  Well, sort of.  “They’re real to us,” DeBlois admitted, when discussing the legendary creatures who are the focus on his animated film. “The longer you live with the dragons, the move specific their personality becomes. Someone might pitch out an idea of ‘What if Toothless were to do this?’ and we would collectively say, ‘No, that’s not Toothless.’ We know enough about Toothless as a character now to know what would be right and something that wouldn’t work.”

How to Train Your Dragon 2A friendship develops between Hiccup and the dragon Toothless in the first How to Train Your Dragon film

Toothless is the central dragon in the How To Train Your Dragon films, which focus on the relationship between a Viking called Hiccup and a dragon that he befriends and names Toothless.

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When designing the dragons, DeBlois explained the production team's tactics to make them seem as real as possible: “We want the dragons to feel like they’re part of the animal kingdom, so we reference a lot of animals in the dragons. One might act like a walrus while another one might act like a parrot. Stormfly, Astrid’s dragon, is very parrot-based in her movements, but we also combined it with the fetching qualities of a dog, so that makes it an interesting combination.”

How to Train Your Dragon 2How to Train Your Dragon 2 was released today

How to Train Your Dragon 2 was released today to very positive reviews. It currently holds a 92% fresh rating on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes and has been described by Wall Street Journal film critic Joe Morgenstern as “a movie the world needs.”

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