It’s been nine years since DreamWorks Animation’s epic adaptation of Cressida Cowell’s book series How to Train Your Dragon set new standards of excellence in terms of storytelling, complexity of characters and masterful cinematic CG animation. This month, the third and final chapter of the trilogy about the adventures of a likeable young Viking named Hiccup and his majestic black dragon Toothless reaches its inevitable conclusion.

Directed and written by the brilliant Dean DeBlois, who masterminded the trilogy from the beginning, How to Train Dragon: The Hidden World is the culmination of a decade of exquisite craftsmanship and the technical marvels created by the team at DreamWorks Animation. Not surprisingly, the film sparkles with numerous instances of sheer magic, and it manages to deliver a conclusion that is satisfying, believable and dazzlingly powerful.

The Hidden World picks up a short time after the second movie, and we find Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) having to lead a relocation of the entire tribe and all the dragons after the arrival of a new villain named Grimmel (a menacing F. Murray Abraham). Meanwhile, Toothless finds himself distracted by a beautiful, shimmering female white dragon known as Light Fury, which adds much levity — and a beautiful sequence of poetic flight featuring the romantic pair.

The creative wheels to plan the third movie began turning right after the first film became a huge hit for the studio, says DeBlois during a recent interview. “I was asked to come up with ideas for the sequel,” he notes. “I am not a huge fan of sequels if they don’t have a real purpose, but we had enough unanswered questions and possible storylines to create a story with three distinct acts that told the evolution of these characters. After the second movie was released in 2014, I started working on outlines and treatment the fall of that year. I went through a full draft of the script, and development art was being done at the same time. Then in the spring of 2016, we had a draft that we felt good about, and we’ve been working on it since then.”