I can't like or love How To Train Your Dragon. Not because it's bad, but because it's existence is an indictment of the movie industry right now.
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They're really just repackaging old movies and selling them back to us at this point aren't they? As much as nostalgia for a time when my generation maybe had hope things could be better is as bankable as its ever been, the pilot light for that particular furnace died for me a long time ago. You can thank Disney for that one. Because when you start making live action versions of movies that were made this century, so much so that you keep an original voice actor for one of the main parts for The Lion King. It can't hit the same. So I wasn't exactly enthralled to see that another studio was following Disney's lead to recreate one of its animated hits in live-action. This time it's Dreamworks bringing us How To Train Your Dragon. From the same filmmaker as the first film. Even starring an actor who's now playing a character he voiced in live action. And of course it didn't matter. Big box office success. Going to get a sequel. I hate it here. So let's get into why this movie isn't bad on its own, but it is bad for the business.
The Setup
Taking place in a Viking village of Berk, the story follows the son of the town's cheiftan, Hiccup, who feels out of place. In a town whose resident's are expected to be warriors trained to fight off and kill as many attacking dragons as possible, Hiccup's lack of physical prowess and general distaste for fighting have made him something of an outcast. But that all changes when Hiccup finds the feared Night Fury dragon and tries something different. He tries to connect with his one time foe. A connection that could upend Hiccup's life and life in Berk forever.
There's a good chance that if you liked the original movie, you'll like this one. Because it is note for note the same. The only major changes are in casting, minus Gerard Butler who came back to play Stoic again, and the visual style which leans a bit more heavily in less dynamic colors and textures to ensure that our CGI dragons and locations are convincing, which they are. Great job by the effects team here. They did a phenomenal job. And none of the actors of phoning it in or merely trying to recreate their previous performance minus Butler, who admittedly got it 100% right the first time around.
Also this movie's message is timeless. It's movie-long argument to avoid violent action first and push for understanding to unite against shared enemy with teamwork and ingenuity. Compassion as a weapon against systemic issues. Love it.
So why don't I love this movie.
As the title indicates I've seen this movie before. Like this exact movie.
In previous articles, I've opined that the best case scenario for these live-action remakes, hell any remakes are to do something drastically different.
The Fly is a great example. While the original Fly movie was a bit of B-movie schlock, blended with elements of body horror, David Cronenberg's reimagining is a damning indictment of scientific hubris, perfectly blended with modern R-rated body horror. So much so that it has overtaken the original film as the definitive version of the material.
But most of these live action remakes are more or less copy pasting the original film, including songs, scenes, and story beats, and just putting a product that ages poorly compared to the original on screen.
So much so that when a movie does anything even mildly different, see The Jungle Book changing up the original film's ending to match modern sensibilities and insights, really stands out (in both good and bad ways). As someone who grew up with the music from the Disney Renaissance films, I cannot tell you how obvious and painful the new song additions are in these live-action remakes. They all feel like first drafts.
So much so that when a movie does anything even mildly different, see The Jungle Book changing up the original film's ending to match modern sensibilities and insights, really stands out (in both good and bad ways). As someone who grew up with the music from the Disney Renaissance films, I cannot tell you how obvious and painful the new song additions are in these live-action remakes. They all feel like first drafts.
And unfortunately, How To Train Your Dragon might be the most copy-pasted movie of the bunch. I understand why. The writer and director of this movie is the same as the original animated movie, and there's so many individual shots and moments that work so well, that if you wrote them, storyboarded them and had them animated and approved in editing, it would be hard to pivot in a different direction.
It's also a limiting factor because now, as someone who saw the original, I'm waiting for moments I already know are coming. Basically every time a signature scene in the film occurred, I was waiting for a shot that stuck in my head, and sure enough there it is whether it was the first "touch" between Hiccup and Toothless or the last action image in the finale.
It's also a limiting factor because now, as someone who saw the original, I'm waiting for moments I already know are coming. Basically every time a signature scene in the film occurred, I was waiting for a shot that stuck in my head, and sure enough there it is whether it was the first "touch" between Hiccup and Toothless or the last action image in the finale.
With the only novelty being that it's mostly different actors and visual textures this time around.
Because, and this is just the reality of movies like this, your effects heavy blockbuster can never match the visual dynamism of animation. The contrasts are too extreme. The bright elements are too bright. The character details can always be more exaggerated than anything you'd see in a real actor because...well you're technical not trying to make anything look real, you're creating a world from whole cloth. You can do what you want.
At some point you're going to hit a limit and lean into the desaturated look that a lot of effects heavy movies lean into, because you're trying to hide the rough edges between a location, a CGI character, and an effects background.
While the craft on display is impressive and everyone is clearly doing their best, the reality of this movie is that, at it's core, it's a cynical creation.
It's a live action remake of a movie made less than two decades ago, specifically designed to cash-in on nostalgia and a pre-existing IP that likely got more resource investment than 2-3 of Dreamworks last few projects because it was deemed a sure thing. A guaranteed money maker in the ChatGPT economy where regurgitating a less dynamic version of what we've already seen is preferable to anything risky or new.
I'm not mad at the creators behind this movie. What frustrates me is what this movie says about the state of movie-making. That the only way to get a live-action, family friendly movie made, is to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make the same exact movie we made 15 years ago because anything else is deemed "too risky."
I can't like or love this movie. Not because it's bad, but because it's existence is an indictment of the movie industry right now.
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