Dragon Journal pages 3-4

Here is the next set of pages. I have taken two pictures to try and show what it looks like. They are both the same pages. Anyway, if you want to read them you can use the translation key I posted in the first  entry on this leather journal. Hope you like the way they look. I have quite a lot of journal entries, but these first Toothless ones are probably my favorites! 

Video "Dear Friend"

Hello again,


when my friend Toothless became an admin on the wiki, I just felt like putting my congratulations and my general regards to him into a little film. Before I explain, how I did this, just watch it first :)


Well then: Here's how I've done it:

1. Preparations
• I needed a video-cutting-application, so I bought Magix Video Deluxe 2013
• I copied all the transcripts from Berk's Grapevine and transformed them the way I needed them (Quite a hassle, since I only had the source code of the previously downloaded pages to crawl with pretty complicated regular expressions and stuff like that...). There were some parts missing, some spelling errors and a big number of inconsistencies in formatting. I omitted everything that was not spoken, so that I only had several text files left with the names in the odd and the spoken sentences in the even lines of those text files.
• I've programmed a little application to process those transcript-files. This program was able to order by names, by episodes and so on...
2. Now I've written my letter to Toothless:
   

   Hello good old friend,
   since I know that you really love quotes what I say, I thought this might be a good idea. I thought pretty long about what to say here, but no matter what: Nothing can picture our friendship that wouldn't break in a perfect way. You're one of the best friend I ever had, so thank you bud, you're amazing! It's really cool, that you're now one of the chiefs of the "Viki". Who would have thought that? As you know, if you need a hand, you can always count on me. Plus it would make me perfectly happy if you wouldn't mind let me help you. Maybe one day we both might be running it together. Well I have to admit, you're the best to draw Dragons I've ever met! You made me smile so often, that it hurt my face more than once. Yep... that's weird, I could tell. Our best idea yet was to send each other snoggletog gift(s). Write you always makes for a good day. Very well then. I hope you really enjoyed this moving picture. See you tomorrow!

3. I looked up the words and word-groups to piece this letter together from tiny movie-snippets
4. While piecing this together, I had to rephrase some things in my letter, because for example the word "quote" was never said in any episode, short or the movie. For this I choose a piece where Hiccup says "[...] what I say [...]"

Well... That's it :)
Let me know what you think about it in the comments :)

Greetins from sunny Dresden

How To Train Your Dragon! My favorite movie of all time...why? Entry 8

Alright, after seven rather lengthy posts on why I like the movie HTTYD, I believe I have reached my last "deep" reason. After this post I will probably be dealing with "shallower" topics like the animation, voice acting, texturing, and soundtrack. Those will be much less important than these first entries, but they have their own critical role to play in making HTTYD my favorite movie of all time! Now, onto my last "deep" entry. I hope some of you have been reading and enjoying these posts. It has been nice to express my thoughts!

The next reason I really love HTTYD is because I find it emotionally stirring and at parts heart-wrenching! Hold on...now that is just odd. You watch a movie because you find certain parts sad or stressful? Yes, of course I do! I enjoy watching a movie that can engage you. If a movie has a sad part, but it does not make me feel sad, then there is something lacking. Movies like HTTYD have the ability to make you really engage and affiliate with the characters. You wind up caring about them. If a movie has unmoving events and characters, then I am fairly unimpressed. As I said in entry two, I found Hiccup extremely easy to affiliate with, and I believe many other HTTYD fans have felt the same thing. As soon as you begin affiliating with a character, you start to care about them. When something goes wrong, you are worried, stressful, or grieved. When the character triumphs, you rejoice along with them! I think a great example of another movie that does this for me would be Lord of the Rings. When Gandalf "dies" in the first film, it is an incredibly powerful emotional moment. You watch as the characters are facing the grief in their own ways. That is the kind of power I admire in a story, the ability to make you care about the characters!

HTTYD had this at many, many points! When Hiccup was in danger, I know that I was actually afraid for him. When Hiccup was picked on, it bugged me. Then when Toothless becomes Hiccup's first real friend, we are all happy for him. When they do their first successful test drive, I feel the exhilaration and excitement of the moment. Then there is the rejection by Stoick. Man that scene! As I said before this movie can be heart wrenching! Hiccup is absolutely desperate, absolutely helpless, and in the end, absolutely crushed. His father's rejection leaves him on the ground with his senses and emotions completely shatter. I watch his mannerisms, words, and expressions in that scene, and I feel so gripped by the stress and sadness. He is begging for his best friends life, he is trying to apologize, he is pleading with his father to not go and get himself killed, but Stoick will not listen. Even after watching the movie over seventy five times, that scene is still powerfully sad. Nothing quite compares with the ending. There is such a mix of emotions. Hiccup wakes up to see his best friend at his side. Then he realizes something is wrong. The look he gives Toothless when he discovers his leg is missing is so painfully sorrowful. He deals with his grief, and decides to push through. Toothless helps him, and that might be one of the most beautiful moments in the film. Then to Hiccup's great surprise, he steps out into a world he has transformed! Everyone looks up to him, everyone is grateful, and his father is finally proud of him. The deep despair washes away and I leave the movie with a feeling of triumph and joy! That is what I call a powerful film. This is a film that can draw you in and make you feel what the characters are feeling. So that is (for now) my last "deep" reason for loving HTTYD. It engages the emotions. It makes you care for the characters, and in the end it makes you feel like they are real people, almost person friends! Even more than that; at times I watch Hiccup, and I feel like "I looked at him and I saw myself."And that is why HTTYD is my favorite movie of all time!

How To Train Your Dragon! My Favorite movie of all time...why? Entry 7

"Everything we know about you guys is wrong." That may be the most memorable and defining quote of the film. This seventh entry will once again be a little Hiccup centered. Didn't we already deal with that? Well, yes in a way. Still, Hiccup is so central to the film that I feel this entry is legitimate. I will focus mostly on what kind of protagonist Hiccup is. Just like last entry talked about how HTTYD had a "parent versus teen" plot, this entry will talk about the other major plot crux, which is that Hiccup sees that everything the vikings know is wrong and he has to change the way they think.

This again seems to be another relatively common plot type. In a way it really is. There are many movies that display the hero as the one who has discovered the truth and now needs to convince the others of it. In these types of plots, the protagonist usually acts in one of two ways. He can be a cocky, self confident person who has seen the problems with his culture and is determined to expose them, or he can be a more humble, selfless hero. The first generally has the attitude of, "I'm right. You're all wrong, and you're gonna see in the end!" The second usually has thoughts more along this line, "Man, they are all so much better than me in so many ways. I wished once to be like them, but now I see they are wrong. I have to try and convince them even if there is no way they will listen to someone like me." The second is much more like Hiccup's attitude! I was very pleased with that. He did not attack the viking culture for the sake of being a revolutionary. He did not want to stir up trouble; he really just wanted to fit in, but then he discovered that fitting in made him do something that was clearly wrong! He is now at a crossroads. Will he stand alone and risk being mocked and rejected, or will he swallow his conscience and conform. Hiccup choses the first, and he does wind up changing everything the vikings believe.

So yet another reason I love the movie is that they handled the "everything my culture thinks is wrong" type plot in a very honorable and admirable way. Hiccup was a great protagonist. He was not self promoting; he was self sacrificing! He was a protagonist who thought he could never fit in and that deep down he was a disappointment to everyone, but then he discovers that he is a hero in his own way! At first he really wants to look heroic, then he gets the opportunity of a lifetime, then he sees the problem, then he gives up any hope of ever being admired, and finally through his sacrifice and courage, he proves that he truly is a great hero!

Awesome Quotes: Entry 1

"Look, I gave you this academy because it's the best thing for Berk. Now you have to do what's best for the academy, and I'm sorry son, but what's best is very rarely what's easy."

--Stoick The Vast, episode 2: Viking For Hire


Ok, so this entry will be a quicker one! I love this quote! I intend to post lots of quotes from lots of different sources. Most will either be from or be applicable to HTTYD, but some might just be special to me. Anyway, Stoick has a great point! Lots of people will tell you that you can have great stuff and do great things with no cost, but the simple truth is that we are to do what is best. That is very, very often hard! Still doing what is right and best is what I want to strive for, and if that means I have to push through hard things, sacrifice, be misunderstood, or mocked, I still want to strive to live in the most Christ like way because that is what is best!

Dragon Journal Page 1-2

This is a page from my custom Leather Dragon Journal. I have made it in an attempt to mix the book of dragons and Hiccup's journal. It is written from Hiccup's perspective, so I guess it is supposed to be his journal in which he keeps all the facts he is learning about dragons. I have really enjoyed doing it, and I hope you will all like them. I have taken this image with a much better camera, so if you click on it, you will be able to see it on a very large scale. I will also give you a translation guide here at the bottom just in case any of you are willing to put in the work to translate and read it! Keep an eye out for these because I hope to post lots of them!

How To Train Your Dragon! My favorite movie of all time...why? Entry 6

Six entries? Come on isn't that a little overkill? Well...no. I still have quite a lot more to say, and I intend to say it! I am pulling back onto the plot/character centered reasons why I love the movie. Post five was more on the style of how it was done. Now they do tie in together, but I am going to deal with another one of the more relationship and character based reasons in this entry. My next reason for loving HTTYD was the tension in the relationship between Hiccup and Stoick.

Wait...so you are happy that the movie shows a teen struggling with his parent? Well, sort of! It is  yet again a realistic feeling that I can associate with. Lots of movies have a stereotypical teen or child versus parent plot where in the end the teen proves the parent is wrong or at least gets their way. HTTYD did this plot, but it was in a remarkably and beautifully different way! Most teen versus adult plots revolve around the teen wanting something and the overly restrictive parent not giving it to them. Another scenario is that the teen rebels against their parent's ideas and beliefs just for the sake of rebelling. Hiccup did not do either of these things! Though he and his father butt head (leaving Hiccup figuratively on the floor every time), Hiccup deeply wants his father's approval. When he begins to tame Toothless, it is clearly not just for the sake of disobeying his father. It would have been tempting to do something to spite Stoick just because Stoick was not accepting him, but Hiccup trained Toothless with pure motives. He wanted to do what was right, but at the same time he deeply did not what to displease his father! That is great! He loves his dad enough to try and not disappoint him. He tries and tries to conform to the viking world so that he can please his father. It is miserable for him, but he still just goes on trying. He only stops trying when he realizes that what his father and the vikings are doing is wrong. He looks at that dragon lying terrified on the ground, and he suddenly feels that something is wrong with what he is about to do. He has been in Toothless's position his whole life, helpless. Now he sees the dragon and a reflection of his own fears. He can't kill it. He frees it, and then he tries to go home and explain his feelings to his father. He does not want to blatantly fly into his father's face, so he just attempts to slip around the issue and go on living a normal mundane viking life. In the end, he actually loves his father enough to defy him! That is much harder than just sneaking around behind his back and telling everyone how wrong his dad is. He bravely stands up against his father because he sees what his father is doing is wrong, and he cares about Stoick and the tribe enough to tell them they are wrong. That is an incredible decision! He wants his father's affection deeply, but he is willing to never get it if he can help the vikings to see that everything they know about the dragons is wrong!

What a great use of the teen parent plot! Both of them love each other, but both are ridiculously different! They both want to show each other love, but they really don't know how. Hiccup wants to please his father, and that is a very good thing, but he is willing to lose that for the sake of what is right. I am a first born son in my family, and I know the strain of wishing to please your father! It is such a critical thing for me. You look up to him, you admire him, and you really desire to have him appreciate and affirm you! Thankfully, my father does, but I still can easily connect with Hiccup's feelings toward Stoick. I can see how much he sacrificed when he stood against his father, and that makes him all the more admirable!

The end of the story is such a happy one! Hiccup and Stoick continue to grow closer and closer to each other! It is beautiful to see how Hiccup's bravery actually did eventually deeply impress Stoick! The final "You just gestured to all of me." moment was priceless! I must say that the father son relationship was handled in a unique and very good way in this film! You had no cocky, arrogant, typical teen who flies into his parents face. You had a boy who deeply respects his father, and he respects him enough to try and show him that he is wrong! And that is yet another reason I love HTTYD!