How to Train Your Dragon is a timeless classic that emerged at the beginning of the 2010s. Everything from the script, to the visuals, to the gags was perfect in the animation, which begs the question – why bother with a remake?
It’s almost as if production companies are so pressured to churn out content that their safety net to fall back on is adapting animation to live action… most recently seen in Lilo and Stitch.
This live-action remake is incredibly faithful to the animation – an awkward, clumsy young Viking, Hiccup (Mason Thames), befriends the feared Night Fury dragon after he couldn’t kill him. Thames plays a convincing Hiccup, but the most impressive performance is no doubt from Gerard Butler who plays Stoic, the chief of the village Berk and Hiccup’s pernickety father. Butler reprised his role after voicing Stoic in the original and his cartoonish demeanour transcends both animation and live-action.
It would be safe to say that had John Powell not returned as the composer then there would have been an uproar. Credited for creating one of the most iconic scores in movie history, Powell gave us all what we wanted – ‘Test Drive’. The flight sequence where Hiccup successfully manoeuvres his beloved dragon, Toothless, through cavernous landscapes and choppy ocean waves had the same rollercoaster momentum of the original. The growing bond and trust between Hiccup and Toothless will make even the most nonchalant of viewers shed a tear or two. The beauty and power of this scene was well communicated – yet it felt just a smidge flat, as in the back of our minds we all knew that, despite this being a gorgeous scene, we have quite literally seen it before.
This film tried to do the same thing as the animation, and whilst its replication was to a tee, that’s pretty much all it did. The problem is, is that animation can make even the most ludicrous or unimaginable landscapes and action sequences seem tangible. Not to mention people tend to favour originals, often becoming territorial and protective over its storylines, so the remake will inevitably never square up to the 2010 animation.
You may be wondering what the point in all this was. Dean DeBlois’ second stab at this film introduces a younger audience to the beloved tale whilst also profiting off a recent generations’ nostalgia. Perhaps more importantly, the lines “They’ve killed hundreds of us… and we’ve killed thousands of them” resonate just as much today as they did a decade and a half ago. Post 9/11 war on terror was represented by the dragons’ ability to threaten from the skies. Now we turn to the missile attacks that are scattered across the Middle East.
The remake may not have challenged the original, but it made for a damn good viewing, with perhaps even more imbued meaning than ever before.
