How to Train Your Dragon 2 is a 2014 American computer-animated fantasy film loosely based on the book series of the same name by Cressida Cowell, produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is the sequel to the 2010 computer-animated film How to Train Your Dragon and the second installment in the trilogy. The film is written and directed by Dean DeBlois, and stars the voices of Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, T. J. Miller, and Kristen Wiig, along with Cate Blanchett, Djimon Hounsou, and Kit Harington joining the cast. The film takes place five years after the first film, featuring Hiccup and his friends as young adults as they meet Valka, Hiccup's long-lost mother, and Drago Bludvist, a madman who wants to conquer the world. It is DreamWorks Animation's 29th feature film.
DeBlois, who co-directed the first film, agreed to return to direct the second film on the condition that he would be allowed to turn it into a trilogy. He cited The Empire Strikes Back and My Neighbor Totoro as his main inspirations, with the expanded scope of The Empire Strikes Back being particularly influential. The entire voice cast from the first film returned, and Cate Blanchett and Djimon Hounsou signed on to voice Valka and Drago, respectively. DeBlois and his creative team visited Norway and Svalbard to give them ideas for the setting. Composer John Powell returned to score the film. How to Train Your Dragon 2 benefited from advances in animation technology and was DreamWorks' first film to use scalable multicore processing and the studio's new animation and lighting software.
The film was released on June 13, 2014, and like its predecessor, received wide acclaim. Critics praised the film for its animation, voice acting, musical score, action sequences, emotional depth, and darker, more serious tone compared to its predecessor. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. The film won six Annie Awards, including Best Animated Feature. The film grossed over $621 million worldwide, making it the 12th-highest-grossing film of 2014. It earned less than its predecessor at the US box office, but performed better internationally. The third and final installment in the trilogy, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, was released on February 22, 2019.
How to Train Your Dragon 2 is DreamWorks Animation's first longest film, with a running time of 1 hour and 41 minutes.
Chris Sanders, co-writer and co-director of How to Train Your Dragon and Dean DeBlois' collaborator since Lilo & Stitch, will not return to write and direct the sequel, due to his involvement with The Croods; although, he will only executive-produce the film.
The music in the film's teaser trailer was "Beyond the Clouds", written and conducted by Audiomachine.
When offered the sequel, Dean DeBlois accepted it on condition he can turn it into a trilogy. For the sequel, he intends to revisit the films of his youth, with Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) having the pivotal inspiration for the film. "What I loved especially about Empire is that it expanded Star Wars in every direction: emotionally, its scope, characters, fun. It felt like an embellishment and that's the goal." Dean DeBlois admitted in an interview at the 67th Annual Cannes Film Festival about the improper use of making animated motion picture sequels. "I think too often animation sequels seem unnecessary. They turn the same five or six characters into another adventure." Upon accepting the task to write and direct the sequel, DeBlois went to DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and pitched a completely different approach: "I told him I was interested if he would consider the idea of a trilogy, because then the first film could serve as a first act in a larger narrative on the way to an overall coming-of-age story where Hiccup would become a wise Viking chief, and we could end on roughly the same concept as Cressida Cowell's book, explaining why the dragons disappeared." With the decision to set the sequel five years after the events, it would work best for the story and DeBlois' ambition. "That way, we could avoid the problem that is often faced by sequels where you start with a character who had all his problems seemingly solved in the first film."
The first DreamWorks Animation film to use its new animation and lighting software through the entire production. Programs named "Premo" and "Torch" will allow much more "subtlety, in facial animation, the sense of fat, jiggle, loose skin, the sensation of skin moving over muscle instead of masses moving together." Dean DeBlois said, "I think the film looks a lot better than the first. In addition, our film is the first to showcase a whole new generation of software that has been developed at DreamWorks called Apollo. In past versions, if you wanted to do something as simple as arch an eyebrow, you would have to select the eyebrow from a menu and input what degree of arch you would want, enter that numerical amount, and wait for that to render," whereas the new system allows them to work in a much more intuitive way, using a stylus and touch-sensitive Cyntiq monitor to grab and manipulate the characters, which now render in real-time. "It allows animators to go back to working with their hands."
Dean DeBlois asked Cate Blanchett to play the role of Valka during the 2011 awards season where How to Train Your Dragon (2010) was being campaigned for Academy Award recognition. "I told her that I had written the part for her in How To Train Your Dragon 2. And she smiled, saying that the (original) movie was "a big hit in her household with her three boys," said DeBlois. "I told her about the character, and I could see it blossoming in her mind."
Shows:Chris Edgerly (Gobber) • David Faustino (Dagur) • Alfred Molina (Viggo) • Mark Hamill (Alvin) • Susanne Blakeslee (Ingrid) • Edie Mirman (additional voices)
See also
Locations:Berk • Itchy Armpit • Hidden World
Objects:Hiccup's Shield • Inferno • Dragon Eye • Dragon Eye II • Blue Oleander Crew:Dean DeBlois • Chris Sanders • Bonnie Arnold • Alessandro Carloni • David Soren • Jennifer Yuh Nelson • John Powell Universal Parks:
Songs
Sticks & Stones • Where No One Goes • For the Dancing and the Dreaming • Into a Fantasy • Together from Afar
