Disney kicked off the trend of remaking animated movies in live-action in 2015 with Cinderella, and it is still going strong. The latest animated feature to get a live-action do-over is How To Train Your Dragon, based on the 2010 movie about a sensitive young Viking who wants to be a mighty dragon-killer but find he doesn't have the stomach for it, so he befriends one instead. Watch the trailer above.
That young Viking, Hiccup, was voiced by Jay Baruchel in the original movie, and will be played by Mason Thames in the remake. Gerald Butler, who voiced Hiccup's father in the original movie, will play him in the new movie, which is neat.
The trailer looks...like a remake of How To Train Your Dragon. The visual design is very similar to the animated movie, especially the look of the dragon Toothless. The scene where Hiccup extends his hand and almost makes contact with Toothless' snout is giving off an especially strong sense of déjà vu.
Then again, maybe I'm giving the remake too little credit. The tone seems different. Looking back at the trailer for the original movie, there was a lot more whimsy, quite a few more jokes, and a lot more personaltiy in the expressions, in that exaggerated way that only animation can provide. The remake looks a bit more grounded and serious, although I'm sure it's still keeping things pretty light; this is still How To Train Your Dragon, after all.
I also like that the trailer for the original movie proudly proclaimed that it's "in 3D," because this was a year after Avatar and every movie was doing that. Anyway, the writer and director of the How To Train Your Dragon remake — Dean DeBlois, who has been involved with the franchise since the beginning — talked to The Hollywood Reporter about what the remake will bring to the table. “With the rushed production schedule and the limited resources that we had on that first movie for DreamWorks, there were things that we skipped past that we could have maybe done a little more justice to — some of the characters, some of the depth of relationships and the immersive action,” he said. “It’s a reimagining that holds quite faithful to the story and yet finds moments where we could enrich character relationships, give a bit of depth, give a little bit of mythology that might have been lacking in that original.”
In particular, DeBlois thinks that Hiccup's love interest Astrid, voiced by America Ferrera in the original movie, “was a little underserved” the first time around. “Nico Parker plays Astrid, [and] that feeds into this idea that she has come from a different culture, that she is a descendant of one of those prized dragon-fighting warriors that were collected by Vikings in different places," he explained. "She hopes to be chief of this tribe one day. She’s got great ambition, and what’s nice about it is that it creates a conflict between she and Hiccup.”
The How To Train Your Dragon remake will land in theaters on June 13.
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.