Outdoor Movie Idea: How to Train Your Dragon
The DreamWorks Animation film How to Train Your Dragon would make a great selection for your next outdoor movie screening! Outside of the Shrek series, it is one of DreamWorks’ most successful animations. It quickly became a favorite of children everywhere, so screening it under the stars with your Open Air Cinema Elite system would guarantee a large turnout — and would tell your community that you’re up on what’s cool. Alternatively, How to Train Your Dragon is a perfect choice for a backyard cinema screening on your OAC Home system with your family, as it’s a movie the entire family will enjoy. And if you have the resources, why not screen the animation in 3D as an outdoor movie, as some venues have done with 3D outdoor screenings?
How to Train Your Dragon is set in a mythical Viking world where a young teenager named Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III (Jay Baruchel) is on a quest to be accepted as a Viking warrior. Hiccup’s tribe prizes strong dragon slayers, so the young Viking sets out to capture his own dragon to impress his tribe (and a certain young Viking girl). Hiccup captures a dragon, but is uneasy about killing it, and so decides instead to befriend it and let it live.
Through this new friendship, Hiccup realizes that his people’s view of the dragons may be entirely wrong — that they might be able to understand the dragons in a different way. But his forward-thinking views aren’t shared by his tribe, and Hiccup finds himself caught between the traditions of his people and a group of dragons he has grown to love and appreciate.
The film is fun and endearing, and promotes values of appreciation and equality that are powerful messages for your community. How to Train Your Dragon is a great pick for a Halloween movie in October, and would provide great opportunities for costume contests, concessions, and other activities that further the theme of the event and galvanize your community. Overall, we give How to Train Your Dragon five stars for its potential as an outdoor movie — this one would really rock under the stars!