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The Internet loves a good debate, and so do I. In fact, I was all-in on a recent variation of the famous “Chuck, F–k, Marry” game fans were playing with DreamWorks movies on X (formerly Twitter). That is until I realized most people don’t actually love the animated movie I consider to be the best of all time.
An animation fan took to X recently to ask fans if they had to delete one DreamWorks franchise from memory forever, which they would choose. OK, I saw where this game was going, and I expected a lively debate. Here were the choices:
Delete one franchise FOREVER pic.twitter.com/ojBZeIUOfEApril 9, 2025
And if you don’t want to pull up that tweet, the franchise options were as follows:
- Shrek
- How To Train Your Dragon
- Kung Fu Panda
- Madagascar
DreamWorks is a solid studio, and in my humble opinion there’s not a gigantic slouch in the bunch, but to me there are two timeless animated classic franchises and two franchises that are more appealing to young folk than audiences of all ages, both from humor and storytelling standpoints. I expected some discord amongst fans, but there was one outcome that thoroughly surprised me: The surprising number of “chucks” How To Train Your Dragon got.
Once people started responding to the viral thread, a lot of the comments about who they’d prefer to “delete forever” looked almost exactly the same:
- “How to Train your Dragon and it’s not close.”
- “How to Train my Dragon easily.”
- “How to Train your Dragon, and it’s not even remotely close.”
- “Who even watched this? (shared a HTTYD picture)”
- “How to Train Your Dragon is so easily the worst here and the only correct answer.”
Someone even circled the picture of How To Train Your Dragon and commented, “What ever tf this one is?’ thereby indicating they didn’t even know what the movie was. This was devastating to me.
Sure, there were some outliers who would have cut Shrek or Madagascar, and there was actually a considerable amount of Kung Fu Panda hate in the thread, but at least most people knew what the Jack Black panda move was. Reading the comments, I’m not sure I can say the same about Dragon, which I guess I’m hoping will change now that How To Train Your Dragon is getting its own land at Epic Universe.
I Did Not Expect So Much How To Train Your Dragon Hate
I recently saw the new How To Train Your Dragon Live Action and it is gorgeous. The aerial views we see on the big screen with the dragon riding are serious cinematic moments. The story hits new humor beats and the same emotional beats. (Seriously, people cry during the HTTYD movies, in a good way!) The movie still has one of the most surprising-but-lovely endings of all time. Theoretically I’m old enough that I grew up during the Shrek era of animated movies, and that is the movie that should play hardest on nostalgia for me, but I love the 2010 dragon movie way more. That’s an especially unexpected outcome given I was already an adult when it came out.
I love Shrek. I think the actors are A+ in that franchise and I’m glad we’re getting Shrek 5 next year, but for that movie to get few detractors –and more so for Madagascar to land few detractors– felt so wild to me. I would honestly mark Dean DeBlois’ classic as the best animated franchise of all time from start to finish. In addition, the first movie may be my favorite animated movie of all time, though it has some minor competition from Beauty and the Beast and a few Disney classics.
Thank goodness a few other people seemed to be on the same page and were equally as shaken up as I was the Toothless-led franchise took the brunt of the shrapnel:
- “If you picked How to Train your Dragon then you were born to be sent down the mines, to plow fields, to grind wheat. You were never meant to be allowed.” opinions as your betters knew they would be of no value.
- “How are people saying How to Train Your Dragon when this is the easiest Madagascar setup of all time?”
- “Anyone saying How to Train your Dragon is dead wrong.”
Look, not as many people even use X these days, as people have headed to Threads and Bluesky, and even of the people who do, the people who comment is an even smaller sample size. Therefore, it could just be that the number of people who use X regularly overlaps with a larger number of How To Train Your Dragon haters.
But I will say, if you are less familiar with these movies, it’s totally worth it to see the live action version when it hits the 2025 movie release schedule this summer on June 13th. I had a (dragon) blast.