After 15 years of watching Disney achieve massive success with their mediocre live-action remakes of popular animated movies, Universal is entering the fray with How To Train Your Dragon. Adapting the iconic 3D-animated film from 2010, this live-action version is shepherded by franchise creator Dean DeBlois – which might make viewers expect that he’s taken care of his original creation. Unfortunately, that certainly isn’t the case. Universal has truly copied Disney when it comes to their first live-action remake, dragging an incredible story down by creating a soulless shot-for-shot copy of a fantastic animated movie.
[Warning: minor spoilers for How to Train Your Dragon ahead.]
How To Train Your Dragon has nothing new
The new How To Train Your Dragon is an almost identical recreation of the animated film when it comes to scenes, character designs, and personalities (for the most part). What it doesn’t copy is any of the heartwarming affection at the center of the story. There’s nothing new here at all, which is shocking to see since even Disney’s live-action remakes try to add something or change something from the original story, whether for better or worse.
There are a few slight differences, including one new section of an existing action sequence that lasts less than one minute. That sequence is the biggest difference you’ll find between the animated and live-action films, except for when the live-action version is butchering your favorite characters. Other small changes include a few supporting Viking characters for Stoick and a new dynamic between Snotlout and his dad.
The only other changes of note are the naming of the dragon competition (which makes it sound like a reality TV show) and Astrid getting stuck on a rock by Toothless instead of up a tree. That is how minute the changes are, and it’s incredibly frustrating to see Dean DeBlois squander an opportunity to add anything new, especially when he’s been going around in interviews calling the animated film a trial run for an actual movie.
The cast of How To Train Your Dragon doesn’t really know what they’re doing here. Nico Parker and Gerard Butler are the biggest standouts, faithfully bringing their characters from the original film to life. In Butler’s case, it makes perfect sense, since he played the animated version of Stoick the Vast as well! However, even their characters pale in comparison to the originals.
Everyone’s delivery seems stilted and awkward, like they haven’t bought into the world they’re trying to immerse the viewer in. Parker captures Astrid’s warmth well towards the end of the film, but isn’t as effective at portraying the mean-girl persona she starts out with. Despite that, she’s easily the best young actor in the film.
The other actors portraying Hiccup’s dragon-training companions don’t fair as well. Julian Dennison is miscast as Fishlegs, Gabriel Howell is surprisingly entertaining as Snotlout, and Bronwyn James and Harry Trevaldwyn aren’t even playing Ruffnut and Tuffnut. The latter two are funny in a different way from the animated film, but completely lack Ruff and Tuff’s crazy personalities, which are the defining traits of their characters.
Nick Frost is another disappointment as Gobber the Belch. He serves the same role as the animated character but without any of the warmth and affection for Hiccup. The film tries to portray it but fails utterly; Gobber only seems like a teacher instead of an uncle or surrogate father for Hiccup.
But the worst offender in the film is Mason Thames as Hiccup. Thames not only doesn’t look the part of awkward, dorky Hiccup from the animated film, but he can’t act like a dork either. His wooden performance sucks all the heart out of the character. Hiccup’s best moments from the animated film come across terribly in live action. Thames does do a decent job of portraying Hiccup’s bond with Toothless, so I don’t think he’s a bad actor . It’s got to be difficult to make any kind of connection when you’re acting with a CGI dragon. I just think he’s very miscast here, but there seems to be a reason why.
A sequel to this live-action adaptation has already been announced
A sequel was announced for this film two months before its release date in mid-June, a fact which makes one thing about How To Train Your Dragon crystal clear: Universal doesn’t care about adapting the first film to live action, what they want is the second movie in live action. How To Train Your Dragon 2 was a critically acclaimed sequel and the peak of the franchise at the box office, but you can’t get to it without adapting the first film.
Looking at this movie through that lens, it begins to make more sense. Mason Thames is horribly miscast as dorky young Hiccup, but he’s the perfect choice for grown-up popular Hiccup. He has great chemistry with Nico Parker once Astrid softens up, so an entire movie with that dynamic sounds much more appealing than their stilted conversations in this one.
There are numerous other tiny changes to the film that hint at this, including several more mentions of Hiccup’s mother (including a name-drop) and playing up Stoick’s hatred for dragons by making it more about how they took Hiccup’s mom from him than his general concern for the wellbeing of his people in the animated film. Stoick also seems to get a little bit more of a connection with Toothless, enough to make me think that his live-action death will be even more tragic than his animated one.
The new film also introduces the alpha dragon concept earlier through the Red Death. In the animated films, the first we heard of an alpha was when we met the Bewilderbeast in the sequel. There’s a lot of this table-setting for the sequel, to the point where it looks like the filmmakers are more concerned with the second live-action remake than this one.
The groundwork that’s laid for live-action How To Train Your Dragon 2 is relatively subtle. But when Universal’s filmmakers haven’t changed anything about the original movie except for little references designed to set up the sequel, and they announce that sequel months before their film releases, it starts to become evident that their focus isn’t on what they’re promoting. That lack of focus comes through in the finished film because you’d expect a shot-for-shot remake to at least copy most of the emotion from the animated film as well.
The dragons of How To Train Your Dragon
There are some good aspects of the new How To Train Your Dragon, namely everything about Toothless. He looks incredible in this film, from his faithful animated design to the impeccable CGI used to bring him to life. Hiccup and Toothless’ flying scenes were breathtaking in IMAX and were the clear standouts of the film.
The CGI as a whole in this movie is absolutely incredible. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen visual effects this real and polished. No aspect of the dragons looked fake. Their skin in particular was textured very realistically.
The dragon designs overall were kind of a miss, though. Toothless retains his cartoony features from the animated film, but no other dragon does, which makes for a strange difference. The goofy, adorable qualities of the other dragons are all stripped away in favor of giving them all giant, oversized horns for some reason. The Red Death is the worst example of this, as its gorgeous animated design is suddenly dominated by a big dumb horn that pulls all the focus away from its face.
Toothless gets huge green eyes that are super cute, but every other dragon gets little beady eyes. A better balance could’ve been struck between the designs, where maybe the exaggerated underbites of the animated dragons could be corrected for live-action, but their eyes retain some cute qualities. And they don’t all have huge horns on their heads.
It’s also a missed opportunity to not put different species of dragons in this film. In the original animated movie, there were only 5 or 6 dragon species. But many more were introduced across the next two films and many seasons of TV shows, so it’s baffling that the dragon nest doesn’t show off some other species. There are maybe one or two different dragons in the nest, but the vast majority are still the main species introduced in the first animated movie, and it’s another example of where the live-action remake chooses the easy way out of being a shot-for-shot remake instead of throwing a bone to fans by putting a dragon like the Whispering Death in the nest.
Final thoughts on Universal’s live action adaptation of How To Train Your Dragon
In the end, this live-action version of How To Train Your Dragon is kind of just a waste of time. It’s not as good as the animated version, it adds nothing new, and it’s actually worse when it comes to the most important aspect of the movie: its characters. This movie lacks tension not only because it’s a shot-for-shot remake, but also because the actors are stiff, and the movie is poorly paced, rushing through key moments that require time to breathe.
On the bright side, there’s nowhere to go but up from here! The young actors are likely to be better fits for the older versions of their characters and if the sequel can get Cate Blanchett and Djimon Hounsou back to play Valka and Drago respectively, it has the potential to be much better than this soulless remake.
Are you checking out the new live-action remake of How To Train Your Dragon this weekend? Let us know what you think of it on social media @MyCosmicCircus or @TheCosmicCircus.com on Bluesky!
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