Watched Riders of Berk.
It was rather painful and I understand why.
They basically reverse a LOT of what happened in the movie including
-1) Hiccup is no longer considered an adult (Even though that whole ritual IS a ritual meant to signify that you are an adult)
-2) Hiccup is untrusting of his father, again...
-3) Everyone basically forgot everything about what happened in that movie.
-4) Dragons were let to run around but weren't actually adopted by the populous... essentially making them more like vermin.
-5) SEVERAL IQ drops... In fact Dragons drop from being Semi-intelligent (if not fully intelligent) back to animal intelligence.
The problem I have is it sort of reverses a lot of what happens in that movie.. and even what happened before.
Honestly what is with TV show continuations of movies and basically ignoring the movie they are based on in order to create conflict?
The second episode is weird too... It is an entire episode of GREAT ideas that don't work because the characters involved arn't the same characters from the movie so to speak (With HUGE IQ drops). It even had a great premise too.
I don't know how to describe it as it is the ONLY time I ever seen this happen in a show. Where there is a great premise for an episode and the characters suggest nothing but GREAT ideas that should work but don't because they show keeps inventing flaws the character never had before.
Instead of being vague I'll just say what happens.
The Blacksmith from the movie basically has no job now that there are no more dragons to kill and the premise of the episode is that Hiccup is trying to find him something to do. It actually makes a lot of sense and is a good set up. Afterall we are dealing with someone whos livelyhood and what they love to do is taken away from them (even though they forget he can make more then weapons and thus could find work doing non-weapons... but yeah they stupified him). The first idea is that he could be an aid for the Chief, which is a great idea, but he was turned into a baffoon so it didn't work. Their second idea was to use his knowledge of dragons for the academy, a great idea afterall other then Hiccup no one knows more about dragons then he does, but again he is stupid now so it doesn't work. Then they come up with the plan of actually using his skills and having him make saddles something he MORE then should be able to do and he still fails.
It is like the episode is INVENTING reasons why he cannot possibly succeed.
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Now as far as the show itself is concerned with respect to its OWN merits... to the point where I'll just pretend the movie never happened (and you might as well given all the changes they made)
It is an alright thing to watch if it is on TV. It sort of lacks anything really special to make you want to go out and watch it.
It doesn't really explore dragons too much, it doesn't explore characters too much (Episode 2 is essentially retconned immediately), It doesn't explore or flesh out the setting too much, the action is weak, and most of the characters are just incredibly stupid and confound every single issue, and the drama is artificial and forced.
In otherwords it is just your standard everyday mediocre cartoon that somehow features dragons. It isn't that I am surprised it is that... well... this show done right could have been kinda cool. Maybe I kinda wanted a cool dragon training cartoon. >_>