YMMV / How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Was Toothless really going to abandon Hiccup forever after finding the Light Fury? While he didn't immediately come back, he didn't hesitate saving Hiccup and Astrid from the other dragons in The Hidden World and at the end of the movie it was pretty clear he didn't want to leave Hiccup, meaning he could have been simply waiting for the Light Fury to be ready to go back to New Berk.
  • Why did Valka believe that the riders relied too much on their dragons? Was she worried about the dragons' safety or she had come to regret her decision of abandoning her family (especially after the second movie proved it was All for Nothing) and she was now afraid that the riders were going down her same path?
  • When Hiccup sent the dragons away, was he protecting them or New Berk? Considering that in just a couple of years he has lost both his father and village at the hands of people wanting to hurt Toothless and the other dragons, it is possible that now he considers their presence a constant danger for himself and the other Vikings and has decided that the separation is the only way to prevent further attacks.
  • This deleted scene puts Astrid's actions during the movie in a new perspective, especially her attitude towards Toothless. Did she really believe that Toothless had abandoned Hiccup, or was she simply trying to get rid of what she considered a dangerous rival for Hiccup's affections?
  • Why did the Light Fury follow Toothless back to New Berk from the Hidden World? Was she acting out of love for him or was she simply afraid of staying in the Hidden World without his protection? Alternatively is it possible that she followed Toothless just to bring him back to the Hidden World and had no intention of staying in New Berk?
  • It's frequently debated whether or not Toothless is actually a good alpha. He never actually does anything for his flock, goes off to the Hidden World despite knowing that Grimmel poses a threat to them, and orders them to submit to Grimmel rather than risk the Light Fury's safety. The script's emphasis on the fact that Toothless commands the dragons to leave for the Hidden World — an alpha's command being something that, generally speaking, dragons aren't capable of disobeying — has even led some to outright compare him to Drago's Bewilderbeast. With all this in mind, Toothless' competence as a leader can easily come off as an Informed Attribute, with his many mistakes making him a borderline Designated Hero.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • Interestingly, when Grimmel spoke of Stoick accepting Dragons leading to his own death, Hiccup surprisingly took it well. Given that he didn’t lash out at Grimmel for speaking ill of his father’s death.
  • The vikings don't seem particularly sad over the idea of abandoning their homes and leaving Berk forever to search for the Hidden World, including Hiccup, who just saw his childhood home being burned down.
  • Tuffnut doesn't seem particularly upset at the idea of his sister being held prisoner and possibly tortured by Grimmel. Subverted in that he's proven right that she doesn't run any danger, and gets freed a little later.
  • The humans are appropriately saddened as they release their dragons. The dragons, apart from Toothless, don't seem to care either way . Barf and Belch actually smack Tuffnut in the head on the way out.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Given that the first two films feature literal Kaiju battles, this reaction was perhaps expected.
  • Hiccup and his group take on Grimmel’s forces with relative ease, and release the entire village's dragons from their cages rather quickly to wreak mostly one-sided havoc.
  • Although Grimmel manages to drug and control the Light Fury and commands several of his own dragons, Toothless takes out the latter with one powerful attack and he and Hiccup rescue the Light Fury without much aerial struggle afterward.
• Ass Pull:
  • As pointed out here, the movie reveals that apparently, Night Furies are unable to stand cold temperatures and are unable to fly for long distances without resting, even if Toothless never showed any sign of this either in the first two movies or in the animated series.
  • The reveal that all the Night Furies, with the exception of Toothless, have been killed by Grimmel. Not only was this never hinted at in the previous movies, but it contradicts the first movie where it was stated that nobody had ever seen a Night Fury before Hiccup. Mitigated in that Valka stated in the second movie that Toothless may be the last Night Fury and implied that she had seen them before and even worked closely with them.
  • The Deathgrippers' venom in general could be considered this. Not only is it revealed that the effects of its mind control cannot be undone by an Alpha dragon, but its other effects also constantly change according to Grimmel's needs at the moment.
  • Ultimately, the dragons leaving raises a number of issues.
    • The reason given is that they're not safe and that the world doesn't "deserve" them, but with Grimmel dead, a massive flock behind them, and hints that Hiccup's ideology is spreading offered by the warlords, they're the safest they've ever been in the series. Especially since the Berkians have arguably fought much more dangerous than him.
    • The reason why the Berkians cannot live in the Hidden World as originally planned, which led to the above. The main reason is that the dragons of the Hidden World would not listen to Toothless. When the Light Fury is taken hostage, Toothless is able to effortlessly order his flock to surrender. Not only that, it's revealed in the epilogue that he is able to rule the Hidden World unchallenged.
    • Toothless living independently in itself requires Artistic License – Medicine with regards to maintenance of prosthetics, but the previous film also established the existence of other dragons permanently maimed and crippled (specifically sliced wings and blindness). Since the only apparent way to get to the Hidden World is via flight, these dragons are basically screwed.
    • Even after going into hiding, Toothless and his family hang around on the rocks outside of the Hidden World, exposed enough that Hiccup is able to find and reach them via a small boat.
    • The possibility of the dragons returning when the world "deserves" them is allowed, but given that the dragons of the Hidden World will attack a human on sight — and that Toothless, after a mere ten years of living there, has adopted this mindset — it isn't clear when, if ever, such an Utopia would even come.
  • The existence of the titular "Hidden World" also qualifies. Stoick supposedly told Hiccup stories about it when he was younger, but in the first film, his obsession was with finding the nest. If anything, the Vikings should have assumed that the nest WAS the Hidden World (albeit, Stoick does distinguish the nest he sought from the Hidden World. The nest is where the dragons raiding Berk were largely coming from, whereas the Hidden World is where ALL dragons the world over ancestrally originated).
• Award Snub: This movie lost the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature to Toy Story 4, retroactively making the franchise a case of this with respect to the Oscars.
• Awesome Music:
  • The second trailer mixes "Test Drive" with Distant Cousins' Are You Ready, and it is glorious.
  • The final score by John Powell must count as this as well.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • There is very little middle ground when it comes to the Light Fury. Some think her design is cute, some can't stand it. Some think she's nothing more than a Satellite Love Interest for Toothless, some think they're a nice couple. She's intrinsically tied to the fact that the dragons leave, but no one, not even the movie itself, can seem to nail down exactly how much of it was because of her. And that's without getting into the meta stuff surrounding her or her behavior in Homecoming.
  • Grimmel is very divisive. Some find him to be a compelling, competent psychological antagonist to round off the trilogy, especially with him being an Evil Counterpart to Hiccup. His detractors see him as a silly, non-threatening Flat Character, who despite being set up by the film as a genius hunter only seems to get ahead by chance due to other characters grabbing the Idiot Ball instead of his own methods or genius. The revelation that Grimmel is also responsible for the almost complete extinction of the Night Furies has divided the fans even further, with some believing that it further justifies him being the final villain, while others believe this revelation was too contrived and generic.
• Broken Base: The dragons leaving. Is it a natural turn of events that establishes the message of "loving someone means letting go", or is it a blatant Ass Pull that flies in the face of the message of "co-existence" that was established in the previous films and media?
  • The movie itself, which is easily the most divisive of the franchise. There are neutral opinions out there, but generally speaking, people either love it or absolutely despise it.
  • The response to the Light Fury’s design has been... mixed. Some love the bright white color scheme, streamlined appearance, and the fact that she resembles a beluga whale while others dislike the much smoother, subtly sparkly and overall less angular design, and have accused DreamWorks of designing her like that in an attempt to pander to little girls. The fact that none of the other female dragons we've seen look anywhere near as overtly feminine doesn't help matters in this regard. Some would be fine with the design if not for Word of God saying that she looks like this for no other reason than to "convey the idea that she's female."
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Contested Sequel: It's easily the most divisive of the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy, and very possibly the most divisive DreamWorks film thus far. Some fans call it a masterpiece that is a fitting send off, while others see it as an underwhelming finale.
• Crack Ship: Despite the big age gap, there are some people who genuinely ship Ruffnut and Grimmel.
• Crosses the Line Twice: When Hiccup announces to the rest of the Vikings that he's going to leave with Astrid to go look for Toothless, Snotlout angrily stands up and shouts "Who died and made you chief?" Gothi (the elder of the tribe) immediately whacks him across the head for being so insensitive.
• Cry for the Devil: There are actually a few fans who felt sorry for Grimmel’s Deathgrippers because Grimmel drugged them into obedience with their own venom and forces them to work for him. The fact that each of them seemingly die during the final battle without being freed from their mind control made quite a few people express pity for them.
• Die for Our Ship: Bizarrely enough, Stormfly gets a fair bit of this from Toothless/Light Fury shippers, some even going as far as to say they want to see her dead and Astrid riding the Light Fury. The fact that Stormfly has never been canonically interested in Toothless and is a mom with her own children never seems to matter.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Zephyr and Nuffink, Astrid and Hiccup's daughter and son, have been welcomed almost immediately by the fandom thanks to their Adorkable nature and them being the children of the main couple.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • One image seen in the Dragon Eye in the series was a picture of what then appeared to be a Night Fury wreathed in a bright glow.◊ With the reveal of the Light Fury, and the Hidden World where all the dragons live, many fans are now speculating that this was what the Dragon Hunters in Race to the Edge was really after, and that they were trying to hunt down a Light Fury to find the secret entrance to the home of all dragonkind.
  • Despite Dean DeBlois admitting that he did not consult the makers of the television series when making either Dragon 2 or The Hidden World, many fans have expressed hope and believe that certain characters from the series, such as Heather, Dagur or Mala, would still appear or be referenced in the film, even if only as background cameos with no dialogue.
  • After DeBlois confirmed that Drago Bludvist's originally intended return was removed in rewrites, many have speculated that Drago would still have a role in the film, even if much smaller than DeBlois' original intent ^note His army's insignia being on the flags of Grimmel's fleet have especially contributed to this. The most common assumption is that Grimmel killed him between movies and took over his fleet..
    • His Bewilderbeast, instantly recognizable by his missing tusk, appears in the background at the dragons' Hidden World, suggesting that he's been reformed and accepted by the other dragons and has found a new lease in life.
  • While the Dragons' disappearance is a Foregone Conclusion, fans have predictably been speculating exactly how or where they go and if they can or will ever come back.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: There are several reasons listed here resulting in a Fanon Discontinuity entry below:
  • Toothless has been saved from Grimmel and now has a family with the Light Fury, but this doesn't change the fact that he is still The Last of His Kind and that the Night Furies will go extinct after his death.
  • While the Berkians and the dragons going separate ways is presented as the best solution for both groups, the dragons are now hidden away permanently in what amounts to a safe, sparkly, gilded cage, away from the sun and the open skies, and any progress humankind has made towards understanding them is effectively discarded while New Berk has lost their primary means of defense, meaning that the next big villain showing up will have nothing to fear.
  • The fact that this is supposed to take place in the "real world" meant that dragons and humans will never coexist in time, making the sacrifices of Hiccup and the people of Berk a "Shaggy Dog" Story. The fact that dragons as a whole are gone from the world means that Hiccup also unknowingly did exactly what Grimmel wanted to do in the first place if not even more, just not in the way the latter intended.
  • The fact that ALL dragons have retreated to the Hidden World due to the lack of dragons in present day meant that the allies of Berk in the TV series just lost their own dragons as well. Should they ever go to Hiccup to ask why, they will not be happy about the answer.
• Estrogen Brigade: Not that these movies weren't already popular enough with teenage girls and young women already, but this movie looks to take it to the next level. Much like bearded Steve Rogers, the sight of Hiccup with a beard has rendered many fans near-catatonic.
• Evil Is Cool: Many enjoyed Grimmel the Grisly for being a ruthless, persistent Egomaniac Hunter of dragons, and for outmaneuvering the protagonists at multiple turns.
• Fan Nickname: The white female Night Fury-like dragon was given the nickname "Light Fury" by fans, although it soon turned out that this was what her species is actually called. Some have also taken to calling her "Nubless", "Luna", and less charitably, "Girl Toothless".
• Fanon Discontinuity: There are some fans who like to think that this movie never happened due to a variety of things that they view as contradictory to the previous movies. Many do not like how the dragons and humans separated, or comments made by the directors, such as how Hiccup and Toothless do not keep in touch after the latter leaves, going out of their way to destroy their friendship just so that they do not have to make another sequel and pretend that their words were never spoken. Complaints of Esoteric Happy Ending and Broken Aesop took up the bulk of the complaints by the film's detractors.
• Foe Yay Shipping: There are some fans who ship Grimmel and Hiccup due to being foils to each other.
• Genius Bonus: Toothless's goofy and flirtatious dancing is based on the mating dances of birds-of-paradise, namely the six-plumed and superb birds-of-paradise, as well as the canopy feeding behavior of the black heron.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The Hidden World released a couple months before Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), while coincidentally, How to Train Your Dragon 2 released a couple months AFTER Godzilla (2014). Given that Toothless is the king of the dragons, whose dorsal spines glow blue in his powered-up mode, it's a surprisingly appropriate comparison.
    • He also gains the ability to manipulate electricity from storms, not unlike a certain three-headed dragon that Godzilla's facing against in King of the Monsters.
    • And both franchises center around a Hollow Earth populated by a multitude of species unknown to the surface!
  • Can also be seen as Harsher in Hindsight. T.J. Miller is one of only four of the main actors from the films to reprise his role in the television series. Due to Miller being involved in a number of controversies the previous year, his lines as Tuffnut have been dubbed over before the film's release by Justin Rupple, thereby making him the only one of the original cast to not reprise his role in this film.
    • One of which was making a bomb threat which got him arrested. Ironically, Tuff and Ruff are known in-series for their fondness for blowing things up. Yikes.
  • The film also draws many parallels with Thor: Ragnarok. Toothless channeling lightning? Many jokes were made. Becomes also Harsher in Hindsight when the village of Berk has to be abandoned and both Thor and Hiccup state that Berk/Asgard is not about the land, but about the people.
    • Further cementing the parallels is that Valka's voice actress, Cate Blanchett, has played Hela in that film.
• Ho Yay:
  • Gobber, previously confirmed by Word of Gay, is rather attracted to Eret, praising his physique and acting somewhat touchy-feelie, while Eret is mostly confused. In the end Gobber accidentally throws his bouquet prosthetic (It Makes Sense in Context) at Hiccup's wedding, Eret catches it, looks confused for a second and then shrugs acceptingly. Yeah.
  • Tuffnut's eagerness to help Hiccup on his relationship with Astrid becomes rather suggestive. Tuffnut constantly pulls Hiccup's face into his "full, thick, and manly beard" against his will and is extremely touchy feely with him. He is also seen eagerly pulling Hiccup aside for some "boy talk" on two occasions and is upset when the moment is ruined by Grimmel's trap. He gives him the nickname "Hickey", slaps his butt without hesitation, and shows his support for Hiccup' decisions by shouting "I'M WITH HIM! WHO ELSE?!" and is upset when Ruffnut steals his line. Near the end of the film he pulls Hiccup into a hug saying "Now THAT'S marriage material!"
  • Though Snotlout is clearly more attracted to Valka that doesn't stop him from slapping Hiccup's butt.
• I Knew It!:
  • Many artists and fanfiction writers had already depicted a potential love interest for Toothless as pale/albino years before the first reveal of the character, with many even predicting the "Light Fury" name.
  • Many thought that Toothless' love interest would look way more cute or distinctively feminine than Toothless, which in regards to the first official poster is exactly what happened.
  • Many guessed that Hiccup would have a beard in the third film. The first trailer reveals that he does have one during at least one point in the film, either later on or as a Framing Device.
  • Many predicted T.J. Miller would be replaced as the voice of Tuffnut, especially since, unlike Deadpool 2, there was enough time to replace him. Sure enough, once the early reviews came out, it turns out they did.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • The plot of dealing with a villain whom Hiccup underestimates and gets outsmarted by but manages to beat with the help of his teammates while regaining his confidence can feel somewhat repetitive to people who have watched the Netflix series and Cartoon Network run, which both had quite similar plot threads in few points.
  • The "Toothless gets captured, exploited, and then set free so he and Hiccup can save the day together" twist has also featured in the climax of all the three movies.
  • Fans of the animated series have also accused Grimmel of being simply an Expy of Viggo.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Given the Light Fury's color scheme, many Blue-Eyes White Dragon jokes have been made. It helps that, in the backstory of Yu-Gi-Oh!, the dragon is female, or at least was the protective spirit of a woman.
  • Fans joked that Toothless's offspring would look like pandas or cows, which ended up being Hilarious in Hindsight when it's revealed that their children are indeed a mix of black and white, though looking more like bicolor kittens.
  • lemme smash ^explanationA common joke that is brought up whenever the subject of dancing Birds of Paradise are brought up. With Toothless's mating dance resembling that of said birds, crossover jokes were inevitable.
  • Many jokes have been made comparing the film to Avengers: Infinity War, with Toothless summoning lightning being compared to Thor's thunder mode, and Hiccup's beard being compared to bearded Steve Rogers.
  • Along with the references to Steve Rogers mentioned above, Hiccup's older appearance has prompted comparisons to John Krasinski^note With the line "identity theft is not a joke" frequently being quoted. and Jake Gyllenhaal. And PewDiePie.◊
  • Toothless Presents Himself ^ExplanationA three-panel exploitable used as an object-labeling meme, originating from the scene where Toothless awkwardly attempts to introduce himself to a confused Light Fury, with Hiccup — playing the Romantic Wingman role — providing cues and silently cheering him on from afar. It is mainly used to represent similarly embarassing scenarios ocurring in real life, in particular those caused by following bad advice or committing a Fee Fi Faux Pas, as well as doing something that is supported by a minority party but weirds out the majority of people.
• Moe:
  • The younger Hiccup shown with Stoick in flashbacks is adorable.
  • Zephyr and Nuffink, Astrid and Hiccup's daughter and son, are very cute in an Adorkable way.
  • Like their parents, the babies of Toothless and the Light Fury are quite the adorable dragons.
• Moral Event Horizon: Good luck guessing when Grimmel crosses it, though it was as late as when he tried to off Toothless himself, ignoring the other hunters who believed he would let them at the Night Fury.
  • It could have also been when he burned down Hiccup's house and an entire section of Berk, threatening to destroy everything Hiccup loved if he didn't surrender Toothless to him.
• Portmanteau Couple Name: Meatlug has a new baby that Fishlegs co-parents with her he named Fishmeat.
• Romantic Plot Tumor: Toothless and the Light Fury meet, court, and fall in love within the space of several days. He not only chooses her over Hiccup, but orders the hundreds of dragons occupying Berk to submit to Grimmel rather than risk her life.
• Spiritual Adaptation: This film has more than quite a few parallels with Berserk (particularly the Fantasia arc), what with our protagonists wearing dragon armor that wouldn't be out of place on Grunbeld, a darker and more adult tone compared to its predecessors, a few similar themes, the plot revolving around a trip to a paradise-like place (Casca's mind in the case of Berserk, and the titular Hidden World in this film), and finally and not least, Hiccup in his dragon armor looking a lot like Guts in the Berserker Armor.
  • As cited in Hilarious in Hindsight, this film is also as close as you can get to an animated film version of Thor: Ragnarok.
• Strangled by the Red String: Fishlegs and Ruffnut end up together at the end of the movie, even if she never showed any interest in him during the second movie and they barely interact with each other in the third one.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: As this reddit post points out, the writers seem to have deliberately either ignored or changed numerous elements of the franchise to allow the plot of The Hidden World to happen. Some examples are:
  • Having Toothless suddenly go back to be a wild being, ignoring his Character Development, significantly downplaying his intelligence and changing his motivations for coming back to Berk at the end of the Gift of the Night Fury short from him not wanting to fly without Hiccup to him simply not finding a suitable mate.
  • Changing the relationship between Vikings and Dragons from one that is advantageous for both groups to one where the dragons are described as wild animals who need to be free (including Cloudjumper, even if he was the one who chose his rider and not the other way around) and the vikings are said to rely too much on their dragons, even if the movie doesn't show the audience any evidence of this.
  • Renouncing the series' message about how friendship and collaboration make us stronger and replacing it with a more generic one about finding your strength inside yourself.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Following his ambiguous fate at the end of the second film, Drago Bludvist was originally intended to return for the third instalment, but this was ultimately scrapped and Drago is completely absent from the film ^note his Bewilderbeast is shown living in the Hidden World, but Drago himself does not appear at all, confirming him to be dead. Grimmel casually mentions how Drago's defeat was made public among other warlords, but Drago's ultimate fate is not further elaborated on.
  • The Night Furies. They were teased in all the other entries of the franchise but the movie reveals that with the exception of Toothless they all have been killed. We will never see Toothless interact with another Night Fury and we know almost nothing about the species.
  • Grimmel himself. He is positioned as an evil counterpart to Hiccup, and his backstory is interesting and exciting, reinforcing his similarities to Hiccup, and the cartoon itself positions him as an incredibly dangerous, cunning and intelligent adversary for Hiccup. However, as with Drago, his backstory is brought up once and not explored in detail, his similarities to Hiccup are also brought up once, and all of his actions, succeeds only through coincidence and the Idiot Ball being grabbed by other characters, rather than through his intelligence or cunning. The fact that he doesn't try to manipulate the Berkians into turning them against Hiccup, as stated below, or any other similar tricks Grimmel might have demonstrated, doesn't help matters. Apart from Ruffnutt, we don't even see Grimmel interact with the other riders or the other main dragons as well.
  • The Light Fury, despite being billed as a new main character, is only portrayed as a Satellite Love Interest for Toothless with all the baggage that it would carry. Her past and motivations, if she has any, could have gone a long way to explain and justify why she is hostile towards humans and wants Toothless to leave with her, but this is never fleshed out; she is, by the creators' own admission, there simply to "lure Toothless" to the Hidden World and have his children. Not surprisingly, this undeveloped portrayal winded up turning her into the single biggest Base-Breaking Character of the entire film franchise.
  • Valka has even less screentime than the second movie, meaning we see almost nothing of her relationship with her son, her reintegration into human society, how she is dealing with Stoick's death or her reaction to the dragons leaving — even Cloudjumper, her companion of 20 years.
  • Grimmel's Deathgrippers. Drugged into compliance, they're both natural predators and the embodiment of everything ugly about humankind's treatment of dragons. They're given very little attention and Toothless unceremoniously electrocutes them in the climax, and they fall to the ocean never to be seen again.
  • Hiccup only has Gobber, Valka and the other riders helping him get the dragons back in the final battle, while the other Berkians simply stay behind and watch. Eret joins the fight once the dragons are freed, but appears in a single scene where he is decked in an armor and is recognizable more or less only by his mount.
  • The Warlords serve as Drago Bludvist's successors and are implied to have been in conflict with Hiccup and Berk for the past year. These characters could have been an intimidating threat even without Grimmel, and the fact that at least one of them is from outside the Barbaric Archipelago could have been used to show how the rest of the world views Berk and its peace with the dragons. Instead they are relegated to minor joke villains while Grimmel serves as the Big Bad, and they are sidelined during the climax with their final fates left ambiguous.
  • As this review points out, even if the other riders have more screentime compared to the previous movies, they are still mostly used for funny scenes and lack of any real Character Development unlike Hiccup and Toothless.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • We see glimpses of Berk as a dragon-human utopia only for half an hour before the Berkians are forced to leave to search for the Hidden World.
  • Near the beginning of the film Gobber warns Hiccup that one day, he's going to pick a fight he can't win. While this intends to foreshadow the threat that Grimmel poses, said unwinnable fight never actually occurs, with the climactic victory against Grimmel and the warlords being accomplished with no casualties whatsoever.
  • At the end of the second movie, Hiccup declares that Berk will be the voice of peace and change the world bit by bit, and in this film, Grimmel acknowledges that Hiccup's ideals of peace with dragons could spread. But Hiccup is never shown even trying to do this, not with the warlords (who inexplicably vanish at the end) or anyone else. It's rather disappointing after Hiccup was able to do the same with Berk in the first movie, and Eret in the second.
  • Mixed with Malignant Plot Tumor, the fact that the movie doesn't seem capable of deciding why exactly the dragons need to leave: it not only introduces multiple and sometimes contradictory reasons, but it also never completely develops them, causing the final separation to come across as sudden rather than the logical conclusion of the events shown in the movie.
  • Instead of simply separating, Toothless could have attempted to make the Hidden World's dragons accept the humans, making it the perfect Hourglass Plot to cap off the trilogy.
  • The movie almost immediately skips to the reunion between Toothless and Hiccup, not showing us the consequences of the dragons' departure, or its emotional impact on Hiccup and the other riders. It also doesn't reveal what happened to the other characters after all those years.
  • The Hidden World itself. For a location that serves as the title of the movie, and as the driving force for half the plot, from abandoning Berk to the Dragons leaving, the world itself is only seen for less than 5 minutes and never seen again after Toothless takes Hiccup and Astrid out of it.
  • Even though the Berkians have held a grudge against the dragons in the past and Grimmel still holds a grudge against the latter, we never see Grimmel have a direct confrontation with the Berkians. Given The Chessmaster he is and how many problems the dragons have been causing, it would've been interesting to see him try to get them to go back to their old roots and possibly even turn them against Hiccup.
  • Grimmel sees Hiccup as an insignificant leader to the Berkians. Seeing as how Grimmel has a habit for taunting Hiccup for his idea of humans and dragons coexisting together, it would have paid to see Grimmel also insult Hiccup for feeling that the latter has what it takes to be a good leader as a way to demoralize Hiccup, or worse, anger Hiccup into performing reckless attacks or maneuvers which could favor Grimmel in some way.
  • In almost every scene, Grimmel has seen Hiccup with Astrid. It would have been interesting to see what would happen if Grimmel realized that Astrid is someone Hiccup cares for and actually target her right in front of him. Whether it's trying shooting her with Deathgripper venom, attempting to capture her as well when capturing Toothless and the Light Fury, or siccing his Deathgrippers and/or the controlled Light Fury on her.
  • It is established that Eret and Grimmel have crossed paths before. However, in present day, we never see them interact with one another. Whether through dialogue or fighting each other.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: While the movie tries to present Hiccup as being too selfish and dependent on his friendship with Toothless, quite a few fans have pointed out that Hiccup not only doesn't act differently from the previous entries of the franchise, but also that he openly encourages Toothless to go after the Light Fury and he almost immediately accepts that Toothless doesn't need him anymore and that he needs to let him go.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • We're supposed to cheer for Toothless and his love life, but he abandons both Hiccup and his flock of dragons when they need him most over the Light Fury and condemns them to enslavement to save her once she's taken hostage. This made Toothless come off unwilling to sacrifice his own wants for the good of those he leads, which Hiccup was presented as in the wrong for and had to overcome.
  • When Berk's dragons are shown being caged at Toothless's direct command, this includes several hatchlings. Toothless endangered hatchlings to save his love interest.
  • While the film tries to present Astrid as a loving girlfriend who's worried about her boyfriend, she mostly comes across as unnecessarily rude and jealous of Hiccup and Toothless' friendship, especially after a deleted scene revealed that she considered Hiccup too focused on Toothless to think about marriage. Even in the film proper, she chides Hiccup for ever expecting Toothless to come back, comes up with the idea to go looking for him nonetheless, and then blames Hiccup when this goes awry.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The whole movie is gorgeous to look at. The sequence at the titular Hidden World, in particular, looks essentially like a Design Student's Orgasm come to life.

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