Are you familiar with the word “cryptid?”  It is a term that refers to an animal that many believe to be real but its existence has never been scientifically proven.  Most often, the creatures associated with this category are the Loch Ness Monster or Sasquatch, to name a few.  There is speculation that the Bible has its own examples, like the leviathan that swallowed Jonah, or the race of giants known as the Nephilim, who had to be cleared from the Land of Canaan by the Israelites.  There are also those that believe there are more fantastical beasts around, like unicorns.  This includes the flying fire breathers you see in How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019).  I am guessing that part of the reason why people like this last of an inexplicably popular animated trilogy has to do with interest in cryptids.  Reality is somehow boring, I suppose they would argue, and dreaming up a world in which there are such potentially deadly critters is more interesting.  Such thinking leads to wild explanations as to why we cannot see them, and today’s film is one such explanation.

When you are the third in a series as is How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, you seemingly do not have to explain what is going on with the early action.  Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (voiced by Jay Baruchel), on his famous Night Fury dragon named Toothless, leads a group of his fellow riders against a fleet of hunters.  Him and his companions have come to free the captive wyvern, but somehow the jet-black Toothless misses his ghostly white counterpart, which is later referred to as a Light Fury.  While Hiccup leads the newly freed back to their overcrowded Viking settlement known as Berk, we meet the villain of the month for this franchise: famed dragon hunter Grimmel the Grisly (voiced by F. Murray Abraham).  In the aftermath of Hiccup’s raid, Grimmel confers with his lieutenants.  Conferring turns to blame, angered by their disruption of his quest to kill all fire breathers for the sake of mankind.  What piques his interest is them telling him that Berk’s young chief rides on the back of a Night Fury.  This particular breed has been a focus of Grimmel’s for years, and he had thought he had eradicated them all but the female Light Fury.  Thus, his plan is to use the Light Fury to lure away Toothless so that he can complete his life’s work.  In Berk, the person who knows the most about Grimmel is Eret, son of Eret (voiced by Kit Harington), a former dragon hunter.  Though Hiccup is confident that they can handle this new threat, he does take seriously Eret’s warning not to underestimate Grimmel.  Hiccup realizes the need for caution following the Light Fury’s first incursion near Berk, and Toothless immediately falling in love for the female wyvern.  When revisiting the site where they first met, Hiccup detects a trap, meaning Grimmel has already made it to their island. Remembering a tale of a secret land full of dragons told to Hiccup by Stoick (voiced by Gerard Butler), Hiccup’s late father, the new chief comes up with a plan of resettling Berk and all their dragons in this new area.  When the denizens grumble, Hiccup is backed by his girlfriend (they were engaged in the last film, though this one leaves it unclear) Astrid Hofferson (voiced by America Ferrera).  With this, they all take to the skies, headed west in search of their new home. Grimmel arrives at the old Berk location, but deduces their direction and is able to get the Light Fury to follow.  He also understands that they will have to stop at some point to rest.  When this happens, the Berkians feel they have reached a suitable place to rebuild.  Hiccup is against this, but then he sees Toothless interacting with the Light Fury, giving his best friend directions on how to woo the female.  This appears to work, but Toothless is disappointed when he cannot fly off after the Light Fury.  Hiccup creates a more permanent tail wing that Toothless can use on his own without the need of a rider, and soon the dragon takes to the skies to find his mate.  When he does, he and the Light Fury make their way into the eponymous place.  While they are away, Hiccup’s mother, Valka Haddock (voiced by Cate Blanchett), spots Grimmel’s fleet heading in their direction.  Hiccup attempts to capture Grimmel to force the hunter to cease his activities, but it turns into a trap from which Hiccup and his compatriots barely escape.  Indeed, the ever-talking Ruffnut Thorston (voiced by Kristen Wiig) is captured.  She inevitably annoys Grimmel with her motormouth to the point that he decides to free her, though with the idea of following her back to New Berk.  As this takes place, Astrid and Hiccup head out to find the Light Fury and Toothless, hoping to bring them back.  They end up discovering the entrance to the hidden dragon world, but then need to be saved from it by Toothless.  The Light Fury follows, but they return to New Berk just as Ruffnut gets there, having essentially brought Grimmel and his minions with her.  Grimmel takes the Light Fury and Toothless, forcing Hiccup and the others to mount a rescue operation.  They are, of course, successful.  Still, Hiccup reaches the decision that has been coming the entire movie: that it is time to let Toothless and the others go, freeing them depart for their true home.  Soon thereafter, Hiccup finally marries Astrid.  A few years go by and Astrid and Hiccup take their children in a boat out to the entrance to the dragon world.  There is the Light Fury and Toothless with their own brood.  We conclude with a happy reunion.

I was happy to be done with the series by the end of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.  Please do not take this as an indication of emotional investment, but I was disappointed in the development that the dragons and people had to live separately.  Throughout the trilogy, the wyverns are depicted as being at least semi-sentient.  No matter their intelligence level, if they were real, they would have the same right to life as any of us.  With that pro-life stance comes the understanding that it is possible to live in harmony, no matter one group’s mystical powers.  It is all nonsense, of course, but it felt almost like segregation; dragons must live with dragons and people must live with people.  Yet, there is an extra wrinkle to this narrative.  Hiccup narrates to us the idea that these winged beasts could one day return once humans learn to be better.  The notion of a powerful being leaving only to return at some undefined point in the future has Christian parallels.  It is the promise Jesus made to us before His Ascension.  I get that when it comes to Western culture, it is difficult to tell a story that does not have some roots with our foundational ideas.  Whether some like to admit it, Christianity is fundamental to our lives in ways that even the most learned scholar, or a dope with a computer like myself, can describe.  Theologians have struggled over the centuries in exploring all the ways Faith can be incorporated into our lives, and thus includes how we perceive the world around us.  When Hiccup says that dragons will return, that is him trying to find a way of justifying a natural phenomenon happening to him in the moment.  He has no evidence this will happen, and neither does the movie offer any clues as to this eventuality.  Faith works in a similar way, though we have more concrete sense that this will one day occur.  It has been handed on to us over the centuries by people who were witnesses, and it keeps our hope going to this day.

Ultimately, it is a message of hope on which How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World ends.  I cannot complain about children being given such a message, even if it involves a load of crap that I could do without.  In other words, it is not for me, but you could do worse.