After watching the 2025 remake of How to Train Your Dragon and reading people’s reactions on Reddit, I conceived a desire to see the movie on an IMAX screen. Siqi humored me, and we bought tickets and went and watched the movie again, at a slightly-father-away theater.
See below for a detailed save-the-cat beat sheet plot summary of How to Train Your Dragon (2025). Beware SPOILERS.
Beat sheet plot summary of How to Train Your Dragon (2025)
I wrote this detailed plot summary based on my memory of the two viewings. I should have written it after the first viewing so I could check some details when I watched it again—but that’s not what I did, so it’s possible I have some details out of order. I’ve written dozens of movie plot summaries, just not, you know, super recently, for the most part, so it’s harder than it used to be, I guess… Anyway, enjoy!
Opening Image
This is Berk. Vikings have lived here for generations, but all the buildings are new because the village keeps getting burned down by dragons.
Setup
Hiccup is the teenage son of the Viking chief Stoick, and wants to make his dad proud, but he’s not exactly a big strong tough guy. He’s a geeky inventor. He works for the smith, Gobber. Rather than kill dragons using bodily strength, Hiccup wants to kill them using machines of his own design. Gobber says Hiccup needs to “stop all this,” and gestures to all of him. If he can shoot down a night fury, he’ll earn everyone’s respect. Astrid, on the other hand, is a fierce warrior whom everyone already respects. She’s the leader of the teenage fire brigade, and much more like the child Stoick always wanted. Hiccup has a crush on her, but she doesn’t like Hiccup any more than anyone else does.
Catalyst
Hiccup’s machine actually does shoot down a night fury. However, nobody sees it, and Hiccup gets cornered by another dragon and has to be rescued by his dad. This rescue results in some extra damage to the town, and Hiccup wasn’t supposed to be running around outside in the first place. His dad is angry and embarrassed, and isn’t interested in hearing about the invisible night fury he supposedly shot. He also tells Hiccup to “stop being… this,” and gestures to all of him.
Theme Stated
Gobber tells Hiccup, “Stop trying so hard to be something you’re not.”
Debate
The Vikings hold a meeting in which Stoick reminds them that they are the descendants of dragon hunters who came to Berk generations ago from all across the known world (including the Far East, the Silk Road [the Middle East], and the sunbaked shores of Bláland [North Africa]) to find the dragons’ nest. They can’t give up (even if they lose limbs) because that’s not who they are. He asks the elder whether there is a chance they can find the dragons’ nest before the ice sets in. She consults some bones and nods her head. Stoick says, “That’s all I need.”
Hiccup goes looking for the night fury he shot. He finds it immobilized by the weighted rope weapon he shot it with, but unfortunately it’s not dead. If he wants credit for killing a dragon, he still has to kill it with his own hands. Or rather, his tiny knife. He looks in the dragon’s agonized eyes and can’t do it. He starts to walk away, but turns back and cuts the ropes so the dragon can escape. It turns and roars at him angrily, but doesn’t spit fire or hurt him in any way. Then it clumsily runs off into the woods.
Break into Two
Before the adults sail away, Gobber convinces Stoick to let Hiccup undergo dragon training (the “Trial of Flame”). Stoick gives Hiccup this “good news” right when Hiccup tries to tell him he’ll never be able to kill a dragon. Stoick doesn’t listen. Hiccup will join the dragon training while the adults hunt for the nest.
B Story / Fun and Games
Dragon training begins. Some of the other trainees mock Hiccup, and suggest that he’s only allowed to join the training because his father is the chief. One makes fun of his name; but Hiccup points out that his name is Snotlout. (This, however, is apparently an honorable name meaning one who beats the snot out of—dragons, presumably, but he isn’t allowed to finish the sentence.) The other trainees are Fishlegs, a large and cheerful teen who is obsessed with quantifying dragons’ capabilities, Tuffnut and Ruffnut, male and female twins who are older than the others because they were held back (i.e., they didn’t complete dragon training successfully—though Tuffnut says “held back” means they were too valuable to let go). And Astrid, who is aiming to be chosen as “top slayer,” the one who will get to kill a dragon in the ring in front of the whole village. The elder, who will choose the top slayer, watches the training.
In the first session, Gobber lets loose a gronkle, and the trainees grab shields. Snotlout, Fishlegs, and the twins are quickly eliminated, leaving Hiccup and Astrid. Astrid does well but Hiccup nearly gets himself killed, and is only barely saved by Gobber, who says that “a dragon will always go for the kill.”
But the night fury didn’t kill Hiccup when he freed it. Hiccup returns to the forest where the night fury fell. He finds scales that fell off, and sees the night fury trying to escape a hollow. He makes a drawing of the night fury in a little notebook, realizing that the night fury was injured in its fall from the sky and has lost half its tail fin.
Eating around a blazing fire on a watchtower, Gobber describes how he lost an arm and a leg, Snotlout vows to avenge him by chopping off dragon arms and legs, but Gobber says instead he should attack the wings and tail, because “a downed dragon is a dead dragon.” Hiccup sneaks off. Astrid notices.
Hiccup takes a fish to the hollow to feed the dragon. He kicks his knife into the water, which makes the dragon relax. He offers the fish and notices that the dragon is “toothless,” but the teeth come out again immediately. The dragon vomits up a piece of the fish to share with Hiccup, which he has to eat a bite of, to cement his new and fragile friendship with the huge creature. He succeeds, and gives the rest back to the hungry dragon, now named Toothless. Hiccup tries to touch Toothless, but Toothless runs away.
Gobber shows the trainees the Vikings’ most hallowed possession, the Book of Dragons, which contains everything they know about them, and leaves, telling them to study the book. Snotlout and the twins refuse to do any reading, and Fishlegs has read it a million times and made cards. The four of them leave. Hiccup awkwardly tries to talk to Astrid, and even suggests that Vikings might be wrong about dragons, and might in fact be part of the problem. “Are you actually insane or do you just act that way?” she asks. “Is there a third option?” he replies. She also says he lives in a different world and takes everything for granted, whereas she “came from nothing” and, moreover, has her eye on his house (the chief’s house), i.e., she wants to be the next chief. Hiccup does not object to this idea, which further confuses her, and she leaves, too. Hiccup looks through the book about dragons and sees that they’re all described as “extremely dangerous, kill on sight.” The night fury page, which he compares with his drawing, is blank because no one has ever seen one.
Back in training, Hiccup asks if there’s another dragon book that contains more information. Gobber scolds him for not focusing on evading the nadder that’s loose in the ring. Astrid overcomes it, and scolds the other trainees for lack of seriousness. “Our parents’ war is about to become ours. Figure out which side you’re on.”
Hiccup goes back to Toothless, who won’t let him approach, and draws the dragon’s face in the sand. Toothless picks up a huge branch and “draws” too. Hiccup walks through the drawing, being careful not to step on the lines, because doing so makes Toothless frown and growl. He winds up just in front of the dragon, holds up his hand, and turns away. Toothless reaches out his nose and touches Hiccup’s hand. It’s a forbidden friendship, though…
The adult Vikings have sail into an ambush, losing many men and women and ships to the attacking dragons before they can retreat.
Hiccup designs a new tail fin for Toothless and builds it using materials from Gobber’s workshop. He carries it to the hollow along with a huge basket of fish. Toothless flinches when Hiccup holds up an eel. While he’s eating the other fish, Hiccup attaches the new tail fin. Toothless suddenly takes off into the air with Hiccup sitting on his tail (then crashes in the pond in the hollow). The new fin works, but needs controls to open and close.
Hiccup, drenched, stumbles in to dinner, where Gobber is saying that the Vikings are only as strong as their weakest link. (Hiccup, obviously.)
But then, in the ring, Hiccup uses an eel to overcome a zippleback. The other trainees are puzzled. At dinner, the other trainees gather around him to ask about it.
Hiccup makes a saddle and tries riding Toothless again. They crash in a field of dandelions, which make Toothless sneeze. Hiccup carries dandelion fluff into the ring and overcomes a gronkle by making it sneeze. The other trainees badger him about this impressive technique. Snotlout claims he “uses it all the time, but how did you learn it?”
Hiccup makes a reflection on a hammer and Toothless chases it like a cat with a red dot from a laser pointer. In the ring, Hiccup uses a shield to make a reflection to lead a terrible terror back to its cage. The entire village is now pestering him at dinner. Astrid angrily throws axes at a tree. She sees Hiccup disappear into the woods.
Midpoint
The adults return from their unsuccessful raid. Snotlout’s dad ignores him. Gobber tells Stoick that his “parenting troubles are over.” Several people walk by and say they won’t miss Hiccup. This makes it seem like Hiccup is dead! Stoick says, “Hiccup is… gone?” Gobber says, “Yeah—most afternoons. But who can blame him? It’s hard leading the life of a celebrity.”
Hiccup scratches Toothless under his chin, and Toothless keels over. In the ring, Hiccup does the same scratch on a nadder, knocking it over, to Astrid’s immense frustration. The village elder chooses Hiccup as top slayer.
Hiccup and Toothless are finally ready for a test drive. At first, Hiccup uses a cheatsheet, but it blows away and he falls out of the saddle and he and Toothless plummet towards the rocks in the ocean. He gets the cheatsheet back, gets back in the saddle, throws the cheatsheet away, and intuitively pilots Toothless successfully away from the rocks!
Bad Guys Close In
In his corner of Gobber’s workshop, Hiccup plays with a model of Toothless in flight. Stoick barges in and sternly growls that he knows Hiccup’s secret. Hiccup starts to panic, but Stoick just means the secret of how Hiccup has been overcoming dragons in training. He gives Hiccup a Viking hat, one half of his mother’s breastplate, to keep him safe in the ring, where he will face and kill a dragon in front of the whole village.
Hiccup runs away to the hollow, planning to leave Berk with Toothless. But Astrid has followed him, and she sees that he is keeping Toothless as a pet. She objects and storms off. But she doesn’t get far before Toothless, with Hiccup on board, kidnaps her and strands her on a rock spire in the ocean to make her listen. She climbs aboard and Toothless executes a series of not-gentle flight maneuvers until she apologizes. Then she’s able to enjoy the ride. She even agrees not to betray Hiccup’s secret.
That is, for a while. Before they can return home, Toothless changes direction and Hiccup and Astrid find themselves in the midst of a flock of dragons all carrying food. Maybe they’re going to be dragon food themselves! The dragons reach an island and enter a volcanic crater, where they drop their food offerings into a huge pit, which contains an absolutely enormous dragon. This dragon is apparently very hungry; it even eats other dragons. Toothless manages to fly Hiccup and Astrid safely away as the dragons leave the nest.
Upon their return, Astrid punches Hiccup (“That’s for kidnapping me”), then gives him a kiss (“That’s for everything else”).
All Is Lost
The next day, Stoick tells the village how proud he is of Hiccup for being chosen as top slayer. Hiccup tells Astrid not to risk her life helping him fight the dragon if anything goes wrong in the ring, because she has his father’s respect; in other words, if he dies, or is disgraced, she shouldn’t die or be disgraced with him, because she should be the next chief.
Hiccup faces a flaming monstrous nightmare. He refuses to fight it. Stoick angrily makes a noise that scares the dragon, who attacks Hiccup. Astrid tries to help him, which goes against Hiccup’s instructions and Stoick’s commands. Toothless hears the fight and scrambles out of the hollow to go and save Hiccup, blasting the roof of the ring open when he arrives. Toothless almost kills Stoick, but holds back when Hiccup tells him to, and is captured by a whole horde of Vikings. Somehow nobody is injured at all, not even Toothless. Stoick just says “put him with the others.”
Stoick is angry and hurt that Hiccup has “thrown his lot in with them,” even though they took Hiccup’s mother. Stoick says, “You’re not my son.” In trying to defend the dragons’ behavior, Hiccup accidentally reveals that Toothless took him to the dragons’ nest. Stoick hatches a plan to use Toothless to guide the Vikings to the nest and attack. He doesn’t listen to anything Hiccup says about the nature of dragons or the danger of attacking the nest where the huge dragon is.
Dark Night of the Soul
Toothless is chained up and put on a Viking ship. The Vikings sail past the wrecks of other Viking ships that have come too close to the dragons’ nest. They land on the shore of the dragons’ island and prepare for battle. They don’t know how outmatched they are—but Hiccup does. In one day, he’s lost his dragon, his father’s respect, and his self-respect, not to mention all the Viking dragon fighters who are about to be slaughtered.
Astrid finds a desolate Hiccup alone on a hill overlooking the ocean. She asks him why he didn’t kill Toothless, since anybody else would have. He says he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, because he looked into his eyes and saw that the dragon was “just as afraid as I was… I looked at him and saw myself.” Hiccup is ashamed that he is the first Viking who couldn’t kill a dragon. Astrid says, “First one to ride one, though. What are you going to do now?” “Probably something stupid.” “You’ve done that.” “Then, probably something crazy.” “That’s more like it!”
Break into Three
Hiccup and Astrid lead the other four trainees into the ring. (Snotlout refuses to listen to Hiccup until Astrid tells him to.) Hiccup pairs each of the trainees with one of the dragons they’ve been fighting.
Finale
The attack and defense installations in place, Stoick declares that “However this ends, it ends right here, right now.” Then he signals the beginning of the attack. Catapults throw rocks that break open the side of the volcano. Stoick boldly enters the opening. A fireball lights up a passage full of dragons. They stream out and fly away into the sky. Someone shouts, “The nest is ours!” But Stoick says, “This isn’t over!” Then the mountain splits open and the huge dragon comes out and spits fire at the Vikings’ ships. Stoick tells everyone to retreat to the other side of the island; he and Gobber try to buy the others some time by provoking the dragon with a catapult.
To the astonishment of the Vikings, the trainees show up to the fight riding dragons! They assess the huge dragon’s characteristics (Fishlegs), annoy it (the twins), and make noise at it (Snotlout and Fishlegs), though this backfires and Snotlout is stranded on the huge dragon’s face, where he attacks its eyes, finally earning his father’s approval. He leaps off and gets caught in mid-air by the twins, or rather, their dragon. Astrid drops Hiccup off on the ground to rescue Toothless, but he can’t free him from the chains. Fire destroys the ship where Toothless is chained, and he sinks into the water, where Hiccup tries again, unsuccessfully. Stoick shows up and drags Hiccup out of the water, then dives in and frees Toothless. On the shore, Stoick tells Hiccup he’s proud of him, and Hiccup says “That’s all I need,” and flies off to do battle. He and Toothless rescue Astrid, who bravely leapt into the mouth of the huge dragon to free her dragon’s tail.
Hiccup and Toothless lead the huge dragon into the sky and shoot holes in its wings while attempting to dodge frighteningly large gouts of flame. When the artificial tail fin burns up, Toothless dives, leading the huge dragon behind him, then turns and shoots into its mouth, igniting the dragon’s own gasses. The dragon crashes into the volcano and explodes. Hiccup gets knocked out and falls off Toothless. Toothless dives to save him.
Conclusion
As ashes fall like snow, Stoick is frantically calling out for Hiccup. He sees Toothless lying on the ground and thinks Hiccup is dead. The adult Vikings (including Gobber) and the trainees (including Astrid) and their dragons all begin to mourn with him. But Toothless lifts up his wing and reveals Hiccup lying there. Stoick grabs his body and listens, and says “He’s alive! Thank you for saving my son!” Gobber the amputee clarifies, “Well, you know, most of him.”
Epilogue
Hiccup wakes up in his house and Toothless happily licks him in the face. When he sits up, he realizes one of his legs is a wooden and metal prosthesis. He needs help from Toothless to take his first few steps. He goes to the door, glimpses a dragon, slams the door, then opens it again. He sees Snotlout on his dragon, and steps outside, where dragons are helping rebuild the village (rather than burning it down). Stoick says, “We’ve made a few changes since you’ve been out. It turns out all we needed was: more of this.” He gestures to all of Hiccup. Astrid punches Hiccup and then kisses him again. Gobber gives him a new tail fin for Toothless.
Closing Image
Hiccup and the trainees are flying around on their dragons. Hiccup says: “This is Berk. The food that grows here is tough and tasteless, and the people, even more so. But the great thing about Berk is the pets. While other places have puppies, and ponies, we have… dragons!”
IMAX theater at BONA Cinema at Xixi Intime Mall
