How to train your dragon: the hidden world came out on February 22, 2019 and I only just watched it yesterday so to say I'm coming in late might be a bit of an understatement. I think the main reason I put off seeing this film is that I was rather critical of the second movie. My gripes in retrospect are pretty small (that sword would be next to useless in battle you would probably be better off with a burning log and powers from out of nowhere toothless). While I've shaken off some of that negativity it will probably come back at some point.
This negativity probably original came from the fact that I first read and still am a fan of the original books that these films take inspiration from. I say 'take inspiration' not 'based on' because the book and the movies are nothing alike. Luckily someone already made a video about how they are totally different beasts so I can just put the link here (expect some swearing) and not worry about explaining the difference.
Now before I dive into representation there are a few nitpicks I want to get off my chest. First off the movie felt like it was trying to do too many things at once and I feel that if they had paired it down and polished up what they wanted to focus on the end result would have been better. Secondly it felt like the charterers only overcame the villain by repeatedly basing their head against him, while thematically appropriate for horn helmeted vikings it's not nearly as satisfying as out thinking and out maneuvering a cunning villain.
On the positive side the performance of the villain (whose name I didn't bother to commit to memory) was very well done. The visual design and the body language add wonderfully to the smug calculating superiority that he exudes and the handful of scenes we get with him tell us that he is a force to be reckoned with. When he stated talking about how human are superior and thus are the ones worthy to dominate I had gotten my hopes up that he was making a twisted villainous commentary on the theme of the film, such as villain are want to do.
While 'being weak doesn't make you unworthy' is not the theme of this film, the series as a whole actually dose some good work with representing disability, just not with hiccup as you might think. Even though this film did better than the second one reminding us that hiccup is down a foot (that disregard of disability is another reason why I didn't like the second film) he isn't the series best disabilities representative. It's toothless.
In each film toothless passes with flying (HA) colors. He lost half his tail fin early in the first film leaving him unable to fly on his own. This inability to fly alone is used as a plot point multiple times in each of the films. However when most people think of toothless they don't think of that wounded dragon that can't fly by himself they think of that awesome black dragon that goes real fast and acts like a cat. His disability doesn't define his character rather his disability adds to it.
One of the aspects that makes this portrayal work so well is the aspect of interdependence. Toothless enables hiccup and hiccup enables toothless. I feel that if writers focused less on making their characters independently competent and more on being competent as a group they will find it easier to portray disabled characters.
While this film doesn't represent other under represented groups (it falls one question short of the Bechtel test) I can't help but respect it for giving us a mascot that almost everyone instantly recognizes on site that has been a quiet example of how to properly write disabilities.
I love that you thought Toothless is a mascot for disabled individuals. He makes a great mascot anyway, which I believe is your point, nothing specifically drawing to his disability in his character, but overcomes because of his character. I Love Toothless as a character alone, and my heart pulls for him as an individual. I love that he had the ability to choose for himself as well, regardless of any interdependence in the past.
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