Distant Relatives: The General and How to Train Your Dragon

Robert here with my series Distant Relatives, which explores the connections between one classic and one contemporary film. This week we continue the admittedly pointless but always fun Keaton vs. Chaplin debate and contrast it with the Dreamworks vs Pixar animation debate. The important thing is to remember that you can love all of these films and it's not a competition.

Last week I started off with Modern Times representing the Chaplin collection and WALL•E as the Pixar film and declared them the "frontrunners" in our non-competition based on the fact that more people could identify Chaplin's Tramp and WALL•E than could Keaton or Dragon's protagonist Hiccup, which seems like a fair assessment. But that's about as far as I and many others are willing to go. Quality is a different question. Indeed the days of Chaplin towering over Keaton as a matter of fact are long gone, and probably were never really that significant to begin with (indeed Keaton was awarded a lifetime achievement Oscar before Chaplin). And let's not forget that the first Best Animated Feature Oscar wasn't awared to the Pixar powerhouse, but a Dreamworks film. If Chaplin and Pixar represent old-fashioned, sentimental storytelling, then Keaton with his stone-faced subtlety and Dreamworks with it's clever revisionism (think twisted fairy tales in Shrek or villian protagonist in Despicable Me) are, and have frequently been declared the more "modern" sides to this debate.

Men with Certain Talents

One immediate difference that viewers of The General and How to Train Your Dragon will notice from their Chaplin/Pixar counterparts is that these films' heroes, Hiccup and Johnny Gray have serious talents. They're not just characters of coincidence. Nor do they have only their determination to guide them. Oh, they have determination but their possession of a singular specific talent that elevate them above others in their world is a characteristic simply not found in last week's films. These abilities are thus: Keaton's Johnny Gray is a train engineer, and clearly an industrius one at that. Hiccup is something of a Dragon engineer, possessing the ability to train and ride the creatures that his people are at war with. 

In fact, both films are set during a time of war, In Dragon it's a war between those mythical monsters and Hiccup's people, the vikings. In The General, it's the American Civil War.

Unconventional war heroes and r-e-s-p-e-c-t after the jump.

Both films begin with our protagonists desire to fight, excell and triumph in war. But neither can. Hiccup is too small. Johnny is deemed too valuable as an engineer (I know, he's that talented of an engineer), although no one remembers to tell him. So, rejected and egos bruised, both have no choice but to prove themselves in other ways. It's worth it to pause here to note that while Modern Times and WALL•E had prominent socio-political messages, both The General and How to Train Your Dragon do not, even though both easily could. Sure, Dragon eventually lands its characters in the camp of peace and cooperation, but it starts them in a war of defense not aggression, and the turn comes not with the acceptance of pacifism but the realization of their enemy's motives. As for The General, consider that setting a film during the Civil War, with a protagonist as a proud rebel would be a wading into marketing nightmare territory today. But in The General, it's barely an issue.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

However, fighting their war is only part of our heroes' overall goal. There's also a contest under way for respect. And while, in Keaton's case, it involves the love of a woman, it's not your typical romantic plot. At the opening of The General, Johnny Gray already has the girl. His desire to prove himself to a loved one is more similar to Huccips' goal of winning his father's approval than Chaplin's or WALL•E's attempts to woo perfect strangers. In fact, for both Johnny and Hiccup, there are three dramatic paths: asserting their talent, fighting their battle, and winning the respect of an individual all converging at a single climax.

Where these two films differ is where they, in fact, each share more with their contemporaries. Dragon, like WALL•E offers a far happier, world-altering finale, solving all potential problems. The General, like Modern Times prefers a contextual happy ending as a larger conflict continues on. Yet unlike those other films, sentimentality seems to be eschewed in favor of practicality. Neither Johnny nor Hiccup have much time to pause for a romantic present, since there's lots of work to be done. Both The General and How to Train Your Dragon end with our heroes winning the respect they deserve. Which is appropriate since that's exactly where our "underdog" filmmakers in this competition find themselves too. Asserting their great talents and proving themselves just as good as anyone else, maybe even better... that is, if it really mattered anyway.

Other Cinematic Relatives: Sergeant York (1941), North by Northwest (1959), Escape From New York (1981) The Harry Potter Series (2001-11), Avatar (2009)

Comments

[Stubby Holders]

This is great and interesting blog. I love the article and it is fun to read. It is hard to train a dragon..LOL