Praise – Dreamwork’s How to Train Your Dragon Live Spectacular

The Dragons are here! The Dragons are here! And by dragons, I mean the most realistic, unbelievable fire breathing dragons that you have ever seen. When the show calls itself spectacular, it is not exaggerating. I honestly have never seen anything quite like it.

While I know that I am supposed to rave on and on about the how cool the dragons were (and they were), I was more mesmerized by the interactive video based background. I am not even sure what the actual term to describe it might be. It is basically a white background. [You can see it in my son’s picture] that transforms into various interactive scenes in which the actors engage. Drawing, climbing, dancing, dreaming is all done in this IMAX style experience. It isn’t just the background, it is also the entire arena. The floor becomes fire then water and then grass in just a matter of seconds. There are parts that make you wonder if you are looking at it in 3D.

Our seats were on the 2nd level which gave us a perfect view to the dragons. I was a little concerned that Lu was going to be scared but as soon as the first dragons appeared in the sky she started clapping. My son had that big open mouth smile of amazement. It is truly a bit difficult to describe how realistic they looked. Just like the movie. They might even be a little larger than I had envisioned.

Now, I would love to say that the show went on without a hitch, but I would be doing a disservice to my readers. There was a technical glitch when Hiccup tried to fly off on Toothless and unfortunately that led to a 45 minute break. Originally they asked us to stay in our seats but after about 15 minutes, people started getting up and walking around. We were a little worried that the show was going to be canceled but they worked hard on getting it fixed. I can say that despite that we were out way past our bed times, it was worth staying until the end.

I don’t want to give any of the big secrets away. There are so many great parts of the show however, my favorite is by far the flying parts. There is just something magical about a 2 ton dragon flying by and breathing “fire” that just makes me feel like a kid again.

Both my kids gave it two thumbs up! Eph said it was the “coolest show ever.” While Lu told me that she wanted to get her own pet Toothless. I told her that we would just have to keep our dog for now.