My favorite score/scoring moments from How To Train Your Dragon (2025)
Track names & time stamps, when they apply, are included with each list entry.
And I do plan to keep reblogging this every time I think of a new one.
First and foremost: The Family Motif. The new motif that John Powell created for this film is maybe my favorite thing about it? It's a beautiful melody that draws from the flying motif + a few others (I hear definite similarities to main melody of "Flying With Mother"), it's the tune of "You Are My Homeward" which has been on repeat in my car for weeks, and every time it shows up in the score I start yelling with delight. Also, I have seen people calling it Hiccup & Stoick's motif. I was doing that for a bit too, until I was reminded that John Powell wrote the HTTYD score with motifs not for characters, but for ideas. With that knowledge, I am confident in calling it the family motif based on its usage in the film, which will likely be a good 60% of this list 😂
The tiny snippet of the flying ostinato that we hear at Toothless's first appearance in the film ["This Is Real Berk", 6:33-6:56]
The flute (which is primarily Hiccup's instrument in both the 2010 film and this one) picking up the melody in "He's Not That Boy" as soon as Stoick says Hiccup's name on-screen. The melody, I will also note, is the family motif ["He's Not That Boy", 0:44]
The choral "ah"s that happen when Hiccup & Toothless are falling during "Test Driving Toothless" that sound like the choral "ah"s that happen at the end when Hiccup & Toothless are falling into the fire (shoutout to @windmilltothestars for pointing that out while we were watching!!) ["Test Driving Toothless", 1:49-2:07]
They switched the instrument that plays that very menacing arrangement of the flying ostinato when Toothless is staring down Hiccup at their first meeting from the bagpipes to a fiddle. I'm not sure why they did it, but I really like it. Also, it definitely doesn't sound like a regular fiddle - string players please correct me, but if I had to guess, I'd say it might be a hardanger fiddle, and that would be especially fun and fitting because the hardanger fiddle is a Norwegian instrument and present-day Norway is one of the places where the seafaring peoples collectively known in the modern day as "vikings" came from. ["Searching the Woods", 3:07]
The final swell of the music in "A Romantic Flight" happening as Astrid is gently putting her hand on Toothless (which the camera is focused on).
The score as Hiccup is making his way to the cove for the first time is a mixture of the flying motif and the family motif. Neither are quoted in full, and neither quite resolve, which makes sense, because Hiccup hasn't reached Toothless yet - flight and family are what he is currently walking towards. He doesn't know it, but the score does. Aaahhhhh. ["Sketches of a Wounded Dragon", 0:00-0:42]
The first bit of music in the score under the "you're not my son" scene, literally right as Stoick is shoving Hiccup into the Great Hall, is the family motif, but it sounds Wrong - the interval at the end of the phrase has shrunk to a minor 2nd, and the whole thing is harmonized in a more minor way than usual. In addition, we only hear the first phrase of the motif - it plays, then trails off, plays again, then trails off; struggling for resolution, but unable to get there. ["You're Not My Son", 0:07-0:30]
The slow, majestic, choral arrangement of what I believe is generally understood to be the battle/warring motif that appears in the score when Stoick & Hiccup are talking about Hiccup starting dragon training, right around as Stoick is saying "When you carry this axe, you carry all of us with you" ["Home in the Ring", 0:36-0:50]
In the scene where Hiccup & Astrid are talking before Hiccup goes into the ring for his fight with the Monstrous Nightmare, the family motif makes an appearance in the score as Hiccup refers to his dad. That's nice and all, but the part that makes me start y e l l i n g is how the motif crescendos as Astrid says "So I'm going to stick by you. Come what may" (see: this meme I made the other day). ["Waiting to Enter the Ring", 0:41-1:43]
Instruments that are more prominent in this version of the score than the 2010 one: Harp, choir, drums. I love this decision.
The way that the score goes away when Hiccup first sees his leg and he takes his first step in silence, with the music only coming back in when he falls and Toothless catches him.
