Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon

As with so many animated films, How to Train Your Dragon created this short film I presume to go on the DVD as an extra. The plot is that the gang of children set out in search of a completely mythical dragon called the Boneknapper – a dragon only known via the highly dubious stories told by Gobber. While the main parts of the short are CGI, the stories snap into a nicely effective cartoon style which I liked as it differentiated it from the "reality" of the rest of the film. I can understand why some would see these sections as "cheap" because they clearly are less expensive to produce, but this didn't mean that this was the motivation – it worked as a device for me, not as a cost-saving.

The plot is simple and most of the laughs do come from the exaggeration in the story-telling in the cartoon sections. It isn't great but I did like the "and what came rising out of the water/volcano/ice" bits as they were out of nowhere and consistent. The rest of it comes and goes pretty quickly though and I certainly don't think the short is worth making an effort to seek out and it certainly doesn't stand up to the standard of the main film. But as a throwaway extra on a DVD? Sure, why not?