Friday Night at the Movies: How to Train Your Dragon
by Bob Robinson
In a thoroughly enjoyable, family-friendly movie, Dreamworks Animation has created a wonderfully entertaining, visually exciting movie. With How to Train Your Dragon, directors Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders provide thrills and laughter for all ages, but underneath the dazzling 3D effects hides a deeper, much more profound message.
The story is about a village of vikings who are terrorized by dragons. The film is filled with battle scenes where dragons destroy the vikings’ village and steal their livestock. The vikings have been fighting the dragons for generations. It has gotten to the point that the very identity of being a viking is tied directly to killing dragons.
The young hero of the story, Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel), is a wimpy kid trying to prove his worthiness as a viking to his father and leader of the vikings, Stoick (Gerard Butler), as well as to the dragon master Cobber (Craig Ferguson).
The most frightening and most despised dragon is the “Night Fury,” a dragon that has never been seen, who streaks over the village in the darkness and shoots deadly firebombs at buildings. Hiccup manufactures a gun in order to shoot down the Night Fury. It works, and after a search, he finds the Night Fury injured near a crater lake, trapped and unable to fly away.
He slowly gains the trust of the Night Fury dragon, names
him “Toothless,” and even flies on the dragon’s back (in 3D, this was a
marvelous ride!). Hiccup finds that the most feared dragon, the Night Fury, is
actually as loving as a tame puppy.
The underlying message begins to shine through as Hiccup
begins to doubt the endless war against the dragons. He begins to wonder if the
vikings have been battling the dragons for so long and are so sure that they
are heartless terrorists, that the vikings are perpetuating a war that may not
be necessary. When Hiccup tells his father what he is discovering about this
reality, his father is repulsed not only by the idea, but by his own son.
This movie brings our current “war on terrorism” into a new
light. How have we so dehumanized our enemies that we see them as no more than
animals – dragons – streaking across the sky with the intention of doing us
harm?
I don’t want to give any more of the story away, but there
comes a moment in the story when Hiccup understands the real reason why the
dragons are doing what they are doing. With that realization, he is better able
to think of and implement solutions to the conflict – better solutions than
merely killing every dragon.
Jesus’ demand that Christians must love our enemies is a
difficult command to follow. In real life situations, it is emotionally
difficult guts to actually understand what our enemies are thinking, what
motivates them to oppose us, and what we must do to reach out for the purpose
of reconciliation. Sure, it is not simply forgiving and forgetting; it takes
seriously the sins that were committed and seeks to tell the truth about those
things. But the burden of peace and reconciliation is placed squarely on our
shoulders.
However, the American way has often been to treat enemies as
not worthy of understanding. We take the easy route far too often, simply
deciding to fight rather than to understand, to hate rather than to love.
We need to ask hard questions, questions that our hardened
hearts do not want to ask. What drives terrorists to do such atrocities? How
can we provide possible solutions to these underlying causes? Are we doing all
we can to understand the mind of our enemies? How can we overcome their
animosity toward us? What are we doing to overcome their evil with good?
Glen Stassen and many others have been advocating “Just
Peacemaking” as a means to overcome conflict. (link: http://documents.fuller.edu/sot/faculty/stassen/Just_Peacemaking/just_peacemaking.html
) They say that a biblical way of seeking peace is when “adversaries listen to
each other and experience each others’ perspectives, including culture,
spirituality, story, history and emotion.” To find peace, we are to “seek long-term
solutions which help prevent future conflict,” and “seek justice as a core
component for sustainable peace.”
It wasn’t until Hiccup understood the dragons’ perspective
that he could figure out a long-term solution to the conflict between the vikings
and the dragons. It wasn’t until Hiccup engaged his friends to seek justice for the dragons that a sustainable peace
was found.
posted April 16, 2010 at 6:08 pm
Just saw this the other day with my 11 yr. old nephew. We really enjoyed it. I didn’t think so much about the justice perspective as I did the parental aspect and the importance of accepting what everyone brings to the table as being a valuable contribution. But you bring to light another good point the movie makes.
posted April 16, 2010 at 9:35 pm
I don’t want to address this too much and take away from the overall review but when you said:
“However, the American way has often been to treat enemies as not worthy of understanding. We take the easy route far too often, simply deciding to fight rather than to understand, to hate rather than to love.”
This has not really been my experience much at all. I know many people who have done quite a bit of study about Muslims and Islamic culture since 9/11 trying to understand the “why”s. I’m young enough that several of my best friends have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. I guess it may seem crazy to some but they were trying to seek justice for those who had experienced so much injustice. They didn’t do it out of hate, but to set things right. It seems to me that facing (yes, even warring with) evil and defending the weak is still a noble and good pursuit.
I almost think this idea of “fight rather than understand” is a false dichotomy.
Anyway, I don’t mean to start any big political mess, I just thought I’d offer a small counter point. I thought the review was well done in any case.
posted April 16, 2010 at 10:45 pm
Wow, I have to say I’m really impressed by this review. It is so nice to hear someone suggesting a means other than violence. With only a teeny tiny fraction of what we’ve spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we could’ve solved world hunger, which would probably go a long way to preventing violence all over the world. When people are content, they are much less likely to engage in violence.
I also recently read an interesting article about taking sociologists and anthropologist types into the battle field to engage people and try to figure out what their needs are and how we can meet them, in order to get to people before the terrorist recruiters do. I really think this is a great step in the right direction toward battling terrorism (whereas I think going over there and fighting with them and blowing things up only makes things worse and makes them want to attack us more, much like you said).
Very thoughtful post, thank you.
posted April 16, 2010 at 10:53 pm
vanguardchurch.blogspot.com
Emma,
What was that old saying? “An ounce of prevention…”
posted April 17, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Scot,
Sounds like you need to read more Orson Scott Card. While he writes from a Mormon perspective and infuses his books with Mormon theology, he does have better handle on some issues than many evangelicals.
In the Ender’s Game series Card points out that in order to defeat an enemy, one must get so thoroughly in their head and in their mind that you know what move they are going to make. The trouble is, in order to know your enemy that thoroughly, you cannot help but understand him. And once you understand him, Card feels, you cannot help but love him.
While I think this is only part of the story, I see parallels in the incarnation where the only way for God to fully reconcile us with Himself was for him to become one of us, feel with us, suffer with us, and in so doing love us in a way that is impossible without an incarnation.
posted April 17, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Does this mean I can keep an ex-terrorist as a pet?
posted April 18, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Good review. I just saw it with my daughter Emma, and beyond the message of non-violence, I also really liked how it illustrated what postmodern philosopher Emmanuel Levinas said about being seized by the Face of the Other – i.e. that the foundation for all of our ethics (beyond any utilitarian formulas or categorical imperatives or veils of ignorance) is simply that experience Hiccup had of encountering the Other and recognizing him as a a being worthy of as much respect and compassion as oneself.