Berk's Grapevine

Dragons 2 Interview: The 'Darkest' One in the Series


(Spoiler alert!) Half Star Wars, half Lord of the Rings, How to Train Your Dragon 2 is not about "pandering to children." Empire Magazine interviews Dean DeBlois about How to Train Your Dragon 2, which according to Jay Baruchel is the "darkest one in the series."

From the 40 minutes of footage Empire watched, the battles with Drago's dragon armies are set to be the highlight: virtuoso displays of animation, daring dog-fight choreography, and an ever-increasing variety of explosions. As glimpsed in the second trailer, one batted takes place on Arctic plains not unlike Hoth's snowbound tundra, with Berk's finest facing total wyrm war. Heart-in-mouth stuff, it shows just what can be done with ore than 14 months to make a Dragons film.

Dean DeBlois also hints that something new will happen between Hiccup and Toothless:

We really put that relationship to the test. While the first one had some bold ideas, in this film we go bolder. Their friendship takes a really interesting and dramatic turn… I'll say no more.

And we hear again that he plans for the franchise to end the same way as the books:

I'm aspiring to the same ending Crssida has for her books, even though we've parted wasy in terms of narrative. To have Hiccup, a grown, wise Viking chief, standing on a cliff with his stalward companions, looking at a sky that's no longer teeming with dragons, and over that, hear the first words you read in the first How to Train Your Dragon book: "There were dragons when I was a boy…."

Below are scans of the complete interview! Thanks littlenightfury and hiccupsapprentice!

69 comments:

  1. :3 so excited! Which magazine is this?

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  2. Words can't describe my excitement..

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  3. OMG, this movie is going to be more epic than I thought.....

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  4. Awesome! But these spoilers.. They've ruined me..

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  5. I just glanced through it. I don't want to ruin it for myself.

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  6. It's from the May 2014 edition of Empire I believe?

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  7. Cool, I thought that was it but I wanted to make sure XD

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  8. I'm gonna head into town and pick this up :D
    If you're looking for it yourself, on the cover it says "25th birthday issue" and has Tom cruise on it.

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  9. I wonder how you make a Scauldron.. Anyone have a lab?.. I wanna make a Cloudjumper so can someone give me a X-Wing Starfighter


    But.. while being serious.. So many spoilers! And has anyone noticed the Skullcrusher dragon?

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  10. SOILED IT SOLIED IT TO MUCH SPOILS

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  11. GlowWormTheFlightmareMarch 30, 2014 at 2:19 PM

    This looks awesome! Can't wait to see it! It is cool to see how the teens changed, especially since they are meeting new characters! So excited!

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  12. I know! I'm jumping up and down clapping my hands!

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  13. lol Owl+Great Dane+Bat+ a F******G X-WING STARFIGHTER = Cloundjumper

    Seems Legit

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  14. Oh Gods! I need to read this, but the spoilers? OHisepgj WHAT DO I DO! *CRIES*

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  15. II The Night Fury IIMarch 30, 2014 at 2:26 PM

    I sorta expected that he'd end up as a Chieftain... so no spoilers for me. I mainly just looked at the photos and fangirled hard. xD

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  16. Why did I read your comment? xD

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  17. I've spoiled movies before; for Example (Thor The Dark World) I was so excited I decided to read the wikipedia and see some information but, stupid me, I read up to the part where Loki 'dies' and I freaked out....


    I need to read this, yet I don't want to.

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  18. Writes "spoiler alert" at the top.
    People still complain about spoilers.
    DX

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  19. II The Night Fury IIMarch 30, 2014 at 2:33 PM

    Why did I write this? NO ONE READ MY COMMENT FOR YOUR FANGIRLING SAKE!!!

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  20. II The Night Fury IIMarch 30, 2014 at 2:36 PM

    *SPOILER ALERT* I didn't really read it, I don't want to ruin the movie for me. I got the Chieftain spoiler from Instagram, not here.

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  21. NO. I DIDN'T WANNA READ THAT. NUUUUUU.

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  22. Well, It's nice to see DeBlois take a mature and very dark approach on
    the series, but damn, am I going to miss Toothless and all other dragons
    in their respect, when it comes to that time. *sniff sniff*

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  23. Yea, but I have this thing to read everything, even if I know there are spoilers. It's a horrible habit. I only read half of it, thankfully. =/ I couldn't really read the magazine with bad eyesight.

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  24. Dang it, I read one of the italic paragraphs! I'm ruined XD even if it happed in the books I don't want it to happen in the movies D:

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  25. I'm now going to ignore every single comment and this article completely. From what I read down below, though.... *Sobs*

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  26. WHY DIDN'T I LISTEN.

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  27. Just how spoilery is this post? Because I wont read until I know it isn't to bad.

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  28. why i read it, my eyes are full of tears !!!!!

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  29. I'm in tears, and that's just reading one paragraph! Save yourself! Don't do it DX

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  30. I just looked at the pretty pictures and the small summary about the first film. My mind is still intact. So until the next thing on this site pops up I will not READ anything.

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  31. Meatlug is a Harley Davidson/ Helicopter Hybrid

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  32. my heart is beating so fast that im having trouble breathing right now XD

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  33. Those that means were gonna have a dragon rebellion?

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  34. anyone else notice it says that HTTYD2 will be out on July 4th now, instead of June 13th?

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  35. maybe thats when their review will be out but i just thought i'd point that out.

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  36. "There were dragons when I was a boy..." I. Will. Cry.

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  37. Hey, I think you just guest reviewed one of my stories on ff.net. The one where Astrid miscarries. If that was you, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to review. It means a lot to me, especially on that particular story. So thanks for that. :)

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  38. End of the dragons…? NO!!! That almost have me a heart attack when I read it!

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  39. I'm going to talk about the spoilers since you honestly shouldn't be reading this particular page anyway if they bother you.
    1. Seeing Dean so adamant that there's no pandering to children alleviates some of my fears that pressure to maintain a target audience would hold the film back. The potential is there for something special if it's going to be as mature as he claims here.
    2. It's a smaller detail, but I really like Hiccup's flaming sword making use of Nightmare saliva really sounds cool. At first look, I thought that sword was out of place. It's nice that their explanation is actually perfectly grounded in the already established universe.
    3. The end of the article pretty much puts to rest any speculation that Hiccup will die at any point of the franchise. Thankfully, it also sounds like the conclusion to the trilogy will virtually eliminate the possibility of cash-grab sequels. Overall, I'm really pleased with what I read here.

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  40. I have a feeling that July 4th is when it comes out in the UK :c

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  41. I'm not sure if I should read it or not. Since the book spoiler yesterday I'm scared about such things.

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  42. VelocityTheSpeedStingerMarch 30, 2014 at 4:07 PM

    Scauldron= Baleen whale + Toothed whale + Pelican. ;)

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  43. Claire Ashton-BriggsMarch 30, 2014 at 4:08 PM

    don't worry, July 4th is the UK release because this interview is from the UK magazine Empire. the rest of you still get it a month earlier than we do (no bitterness there at all!!!)

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  44. I found out today that my last day of school is June 12th!!! So happy!!!! :'D

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  45. VelocityTheSpeedStingerMarch 30, 2014 at 4:14 PM

    OOOOGGGHH SEXY SPOILERS BABY
    jk, now how will everything end in the third movie when the dragons are "gone"? I can't imagine DW simply killing off so many dragons, and that'd be too predictable... But in the end it has to end like the books, so that means however the dragons "died" in the books, they will perish the same way in the movie. That's still not gonna make me read the books.

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  46. This is huge !!!!
    I've read the interview, as far as I'm concerned, I knew I wanted to read it. And I'm not disappointed, happy to know more, and yet, still so little.
    I'm sure it'll be wonderful for us all to discover the movie, and not only because it's (probably) a great movie of adventure, characters' development, friendship, and so on. No. Because we all know here what this story means to us, what these characters mean to us, and what all this time in the fandom means to us !

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  47. FirewheelTheSkullcrusherMarch 30, 2014 at 4:41 PM

    SKULLCRUSHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  48. Harley.Davidson? :-D

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  49. Wow, lot's to read! Amazing stuff too! Dang... for a while I had gotten my hopes up that this one wouldn't be quite as dark, BUT now that I'm seeing that it actually will be pretty intense, I am OH SO excited! Not designed to pander to children? WOOHOO! Talk about breaking the mold. Awesome stuff... I'll definitely need to write some posts on this... Why must I be so incredibly busy!!?

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  50. Okay I'm reading this...

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  51. I think it was planned so ;-)

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  52. After reading this; I find it's not really much of a spoiler because we still have yet to SEE all that happens and how it happens. Confusing, to you maybe, but not to me.

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  53. I was browsing and I saw someone say it was going to release in July or December; but I'm not totally sure. I'm getting all the books for my birthday and can't wait to read 'em! :)

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  54. I should've just stayed away from this but curiosity killed the cat; it's not much of a spoiler, at least to me. I feel like it was just a thoery, in someway. Like hypothetically...I dunno...but I feel so happy that I read it, yet I don't...So 'm going to sob and try to forget everything.

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  55. Ok, finished reading... heart is in rags. Yep, this just proved a lot of things I was panicking about. Oh,this is going to be the best and yet the most destructive movie ever!

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  56. Good for you ! I can't wait to get my hands on book 12... seems I have to wait (I hope it'll be July !)

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  57. Good way to sum it up !
    I'm pretty sure that at the end of the movie I'll be in an emotional wreck !!

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  58. I think I'll trust you here. I cant stand huge plot spoilers. little tiny ones like the itchy armpit thing was alright, but no plot spoilers. :( Can you guys PLS try not to talk about this outside this post for me? save the one who was smart enough to ask first?

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  59. YOU GUYS DON'T LISTEN TO SPOILER WARNING! Seriously! I'm scrolling through the comments and people keep saying stuff about regretting reading it and things like that! Was I the only one who thought to ask about how bad the spoilers were before considering reading it?!

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  60. Anyway, I couldn't have helped myself ! XD

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  61. Sure ! That's respectable ! (um, at least, we'll try !)

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  62. Hey, nice new pic! ^ ^ And you guys need to learn some self control!!! XP Go watch dragon episodes a few times or find a hobby or SOMETHING!

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  63. Thx. ^ ^ And careful for Andy too. He also didn't read it and is worried he will have to avoid this site till June.

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  64. Guys, I found a picture (a for real picture, not a toy) of Eret! Should I post it? (It's already on the day of Dragons post, if you want to see it there)

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