This new Waze feature helped me take flight with an unexpected sidekick

Calling all How to Train Your Dragon fans — your morningcommute is never going to be the same. Following a wildly successful trilogy of movies, shorts, and TV shows over the last 15 years, the hype around the beloved franchise is back in full swing with the new live-action remake of the original 2010 animated film screening in theaters.

Directed once again by Dean DeBlois — who wrote and directed the original — the new film stars Mason Thames as Hiccup, Nico Parker as Astrid, and Gerard Butler as Stoick the Vast, reprising his role as Hiccup’s father and Viking chief of Berk 15 years after the first animated installment.

Butler’s return to the big screen — and completely recapturing Stoick’s mighty and stubborn nature — was celebrated by both long-standing fans and skeptics alike. But the Scottish actor’s iconic voice isn’t stuck on Berk anymore, and it’s not just because he flew off on a dragon of his own.

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Navigate with Stoick the Vast on Waze

And don’t forget Toothless

Waze

On June 11, Waze announced its new How to Train Your Dragon experience, where you can navigate across town, the state, or even the country with Stoick the Vast’s voice guiding you along. Butler provided both his voice and unique character for Waze to make it happen, and can now play copilot (or backseat driver, depending on how you feel about his ‘fatherly’ advice) on your next roadtrip.

And the fun doesn’t stop there. If you’re familiar with Waze, you know that you can customize two other things: your car’s icon and your mood. Your car’s icon is only visible to you on the app, and you can change it to appear as an overhead view of Toothless the Night Fury as you drive. Meanwhile, your mood is what appears on the map to other drivers, if you have that setting enabled. As part of the How to Train Your Dragon experience on Waze, you can make the mood character sport a red mustache and horned Viking helmet to let everyone else on the road know what your favorite movie is. Then again, you might just love Vikings — regardless, it’s the best mood icon I’ve ever seen on Waze.

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I’ll admit it — the HTTYD movies get an annual re-watch in my household. Sure, it’s one of the greatest animated trilogies of all time, but it’s more than that. They make you feel connected to both people and fantastical creatures, no matter what age you are. They’re the kind of movie that parents are just as excited to see on the silver screen as their toddler sprinting through the movie theater lobby is, especially with the ab-inducing adult jokes that fly right over their radar. However, it feels like it’s been years since we’ve been treated to a movie that accomplishes this — we reminisce about films like Shrek, The Emperor’s New Groove, and The Road to El Dorado, not only for the marks they left on us as kids but also for how we continue to appreciate them as adults. These days, few movies manage to resonate with both kids and adults like they used to. Inside Out 2 is a recent exception, though I’d argue it doesn’t carry the same whimsy as being thrust into a brand-new world wit

So, how do you activate the How to Train Your Dragon experience on Waze? The first thing you can do is open the app and look for the banner promoting it. If you don’t see it, follow these instructions:

1. Open Waze.
2. Tap the hamburger-style menu icon in the upper-left corner of your screen.
3. Tap Customize your drive.
4. Tap the Featured banner if it appears as the How to Train Your Dragon promotion. If it does not, scroll down to “Entertaining” and scroll until you see Gerard Butler in a horned Viking helmet. Tap it.
5. There will be three options: Voice directions, Car icon, and Mood. Toggle the switch to On for all three options for the full experience.

How to Train Your Dragon live-action movie reaction

The critics have critiqued

Universal Pictures

After almost two weeks of showing in theaters, the polls and reactions are in and optimistic. Scoring a 77% on Rotten Tomatoes‘ Tomatometer, which is wildly impressive considering the size of the shoes it was set to fill. The first, second, and third animated films each earned 99%, 92%, and 90%, respectively. The film made $84.6 million domestically in its opening weekend, reached a worldwide gross of $252.9 million before the end of its first week, and saw a $350 million milestone not even two weeks after release — surpassing 28 Years Later, Elio, Lilo & Stitch, and Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning.

In an era where live-action remakes have a reputation for controversy and let-down, How to Train Your Dragon fans have praised director Dean DeBlois for staying true to the original, with more than half of the original dialogue and almost every single scene making the new cut. Some fans argue that the live-action wasn’t necessary, while others — myself included — were ecstatic to get the rare opportunity to experience their favorite movie for the first time again. That is, after we stopped white-knuckling the theater’s armchair when we realized that it wasn’t going to be ruined.

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