Directors remaking their own movies is part of a long and storied tradition in Hollywood. Hitchcock remade his classic suspense film The Man Who Knew Too Much with a glitzy Hollywood budget and cast. Olivier Assayas recently turned his film Irma Vep into a TV series. And famously, Michael Haneke directed an English shot-for-shot remake of his disturbing 1997 Austrian thriller Funny Games. But Dean Deblois, who helmed the acclaimed animated fantasy trilogy How to Train Your Dragon, may be the first to take his remake across mediums. And he does it in the midst of a creative and cultural tipping point for the Hollywood remake machine: do we really need another live-action remake of a beloved animated classic?
The new How to Train Your Dragon doesn’t quite have the answer to that question, but it does offer an interesting alternative to the string of half-baked Disney live-action remakes that lose the magic of the original by veering too hard into reality: what if the new remake was literally just the original, but in live-action?
That’s right, How to Train Your Dragon is really just a shot-for-shot remake of the original animated film, right down to its most famous image (you can’t beat the first time Toothless reached out to Hiccup) and even its line deliveries. It takes “loyal” adaptation to the extreme, with Deblois employing many of the same techniques, crew, and cast members on the new film.
Like the 2010 Dreamworks original, How to Train Your Dragon follows the story of Hiccup (Mason Thames), the son of Viking chieftain Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, reprising his role from the animated films). Hiccup has always been an outsider in the rugged village of Berk, which is plagued by invading dragons, which terrorize the villagers and steal their livestock. But Hiccup finds himself to be more of an outsider when he shoots down a mythical Night Fury dragon one day, and chooses to help and train it instead of slaying it. When his growing knowledge of dragons makes him a surprising star in the class of young dragon-fighting recruits, Hiccup must choose between saving his new best friend, Toothless, and earning the pride of his father.
DeBlois, who also wrote the screenplay for How to Train Your Dragon, makes a handful of smaller changes to this remake — the group of young dragon-fighting recruits are fleshed out and given a little more personality, while the Viking tribe on Berk is intentionally diversified. But for all intents and purposes, DeBlois approaches How to Train Your Dragon with an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. It’s evident in the return of composer John Powell, who barely tweaks his soaring, majestic scores that made the original animated film feel like such a terrific successor to Steven Spielberg’s best children’s fantasy films like E.T. The scenes are blocked almost exactly the same too — with the flying scenes especially coming across like a slightly punched-up Playstation remaster of the original. It’s evident too in the barely-changed script, with the cast directed to deliver the lines almost exactly the same as they were in the animated original.
But it’s especially evident in the casting of Butler as Stoick. After the actor made such a great mark as the character in the animated trilogy, giving the tough, battle-worn warrior a touch of vulnerability, Butler brings the same depth here, attacking the role with an enthusiasm that outpaces the rest of the cast, practically chewing up both the comedic and dramatic scenes. Though Butler is far and away the most dedicated actor here, How to Train Your Dragon has a real find in Mason Thames as Hiccup. Though Thames hews a little too closely to Jay Baruchel’s original line deliveries (albeit, with a bit more of a mainstream YA sheen) as to set himself apart in the first half of the film, he slowly comes into his own, showing a real wide-eyed guilelessness and likability. Nick Frost is also a great comedic force as dragon-fighting trainer Gobber the Belch, while Julian Dennison brings his trademark oddball charisma as the dragon stats nerd Fishlegs. The only change that backfires for the film is with Nico Parker’s Astrid, who is given more motivation to be the tough star of the dragon-fighting recruiters, but loses her edge once she settles into being Hiccup’s love interest.
At risk of sounding like a list of nitpicks about what was changed or not changed, How to Train Your Dragon’s ultra-loyal adaptation achieves more than just reminding you of how great the original is (though it does plenty of that). In sticking so close to the original, it also manages to recapture the magic of the original — which, in turn, feels refreshing compared to many Disney remakes’ need to over-explain its mysticism or give a modern “girl power” rebrand to its princesses.
There’s nothing cynical about the way that How to Train Your Dragon lets long stretches play out without dialogue, letting its gorgeous visuals and lovable character do the talking. It feels achingly earnest in a way that the best family films do — and you can imagine a new generation of viewers coming to this How to Train Your Dragon and embracing it as a formative film. The feeling especially comes out in the flying scenes, which play like a full-circle moment for DeBlois — for the animated film, he hired famed cinematographer Roger Deakins as consultant to make the scenes feel as close to live-action as possible, and here, he gets to finally see that original vision come to fruition. This is where the film soars (pun intended), as Hiccup and Toothless find unabashed joy in the wonders of flight, with the film’s contemporary VFX — particularly the adorable cat-like design of Toothless — matching to the beauty of the original.
When compared to the deluge of unimpressive live-action remakes, How to Train Your Dragon is certainly the least offensive one. Sure, it doesn’t bring anything new to the story, but neither does it try to improve on an original that was already practically perfect. Does it justify its existence? Not really, but it also doesn’t feel like a waste of 125 minutes. At its worst, it’s a tired retread of an already-perfect film, and at its best, it’s a fascinating experiment in the live-action remake realm. But whether it succeeds at that experiment or not, there’s one thing that’s undeniable — the new remake still has the stirring, Amblin-esque magic of the original.
