The How to Train Your Dragon Remake Is Learning the Worst Lesson from Disney
No one asked for this.
The 2020s have been weird for millennials, even when it comes to pop culture. In the past few years, everything we grew up on has become new again. The revival has mostly manifested as bar-for-bar live-action adaptations; Disney has pushed that agenda for nearly a decade, and now its animation contemporaries are following suit.
DreamWorks doesn’t have as robust a catalog as Disney’s, but its output in the past 30 years is nothing to sneeze at. The cream of its crop has raked in critical acclaim and box office fortune alike. Chief among its exports is the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, which spawned a handful of films, shorts, and shows. Though the animated saga ended in 2019, its legacy endures. In 2025, Universal will bring a slice of the franchise into its theme parks, and reboot the films in live-action for good measure.
Fifteen years after the first How to Train Your Dragon, Universal is rolling out a doggedly faithful adaptation. Dean DeBlois — one-half of the writer-director duo behind the original animated trilogy — returns to helm the upcoming remake, and his influence can definitely be felt. But of all the recent live-action reboots, How to Train Your Dragon feels the most like a shot-for-shot repackaging of its predecessor. Based on its first trailer, Universal has taken inspiration from Disney’s live-action remakes, even though it really shouldn’t have.
Loosely based on Cressida Cowell’s best-selling books, How to Train Your Dragon follows the misadventures of Hiccup Haddock, a member of an isolated, dragon-hating Viking community. As Hiccup’s something of a bumbling outcast — a fact that severely disappoints his chieftain dad — he aims to prove himself by defeating a wild dragon on his own. Once he encounters a notorious “Night Fury” in the wilderness, however, he realizes that dragons might not be as dangerous as centuries of legend would have him believe. The relationship he forges with the dragon, dubbed Toothless, will challenge every tenet of his society.
There’s no doubt that DeBlois’ remake will deliver the same vibes as the animated film, and with key members of the cast and crew returning, it’s clear the new How to Train Your Dragon is aiming for maximum fidelity. Gerard Butler — who voiced Hiccup’s father, Stoick the Vast — reprises his role, while composer John Powell is set to deliver a new(ish) version of his iconic soundtrack. For those who grew up listening to the sweeping themes of the original Dragon score, it’s hard not to get swept up in the nostalgia again.
That said, it’s disappointing to see Universal indulge in such a tedious trend. Apart from making piles of money, live-action remakes don’t serve much purpose. Animation is a medium with its own visual language, and recreating it shot for shot tends to produce bland, soulless products. That Universal is shelling out millions to create a “fully credible, photo-real” version of Toothless just feels disingenuous. It’s clear the team behind the film is passionate about recreating the magic, but what’s “fully credible” about a carbon copy? So far, our biggest question is why we should bother to pay for a ticket when we could just watch the original again.
