A Warning For The Live-Action ‘How To Train Your Dragon’ Post-Credits Scene

The live-action remake of How To Train Your Dragon is finally here, and it’s quite spectacular. My review isn’t out quite yet, but I saw the movie Thursday night and I’m pleased to report that it’s excellent.

The film stars Mason Thames as Hiccup, Nico Parker as Astrid Hofferson, Gerard Butler as Stoick the Vast and Nick Frost as Gobber. It brings back the adorable and mischievous dragon, Toothless, as well. The film was directed by Dean DeBlois who also co-wrote the screenplay.

Like so many films these days, How To Train Your Dragon also includes a post-credits scene. Obviously, don’t read ahead if you don’t want spoilers, but take this warning spoiler-free: It is not – I repeat not – worth sticking around to watch. This is quite disappointing, but it’s the only thing I was disappointed with in the movie, so that’s not too bad.

The scene comes at the very, very end of the credits. There are no mid-credits scenes. You’ll have to wait through several minutes of credits before the scene begins. The scene itself is just about two seconds long. All we see is Hiccup with his crude sketch of Toothless as he examines the Book of Dragons. He taps his fingers, as though thinking about something (perhaps drawing a better illustration of the Night Fury in the book). Then the scene ends.

It’s quite literally nothing, just a callback to a scene we already saw earlier in the film. As far as secret scenes go, this ranks among the worst, least satisfying I’ve encountered. I was hoping for something funny, or perhaps a tease for the sequel. Just about anything would have been better than this. There is no point holding your bladder or sticking around.

On the other hand, the rest of the movie is great and you should absolutely go see it at the movie theater. I’ve already pre-ordered the 4K Blu-Ray steelbook on Amazon. I can’t wait to watch it on my massive LG OLED screen, where I suspect it will look even better.