Hal Kitchen
There has never been a good live action remake of an animated film. That’s my claim and I’ve yet to find anyone who could dispute it except by jumping through hoops. None of them are more than decent at best and no, Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings does not count as a remake of Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings, that’s just a fresh adaptation of the same source material. If this were a fresh take on the How to Train Your Dragon books by Cressida Cowell from new creative heads, I’d be fine with that. However any hopes of a fresh approach were already low—given that the creative heads behind the new “live-action” How to Train Your Dragon are almost the same as those behind the highly successful and very good animated trilogy—and entirely snuffed out by this new trailer. Every single shot is a photorealistic replica of one we saw already in the 2010 film, the characterizations are the same, in some cases even the actors are the same with Gerard Butler reprising his role as Stoick the Vast and looking remarkably like his animated counterpart.
So, yes. If their goal is to create an exact replica of the film we’ve already seen only with a more realistic (to whit, greyer) look, they certainly seem to be succeeding. Now explain to me why anyone should wish to see that?
I’m not married to the originals. I think they’re okay, being more of a Kung Fu Panda person myself. I never thought the comedy worked particularly well in How to Train Your Dragon. I think the story’s kind of predictable, and I hate Jay Baruchel’s voice work, he sounds so out of place. So a take on the story that doesn’t feel the need to be as cartoony and forcibly comedic might be appreciated, but in order for that to work you need something to replace it.
For better or worse, the original used humor to build personality, and if you take that out and replace it with a grittier, more realistic world, then you need something else to develop the characters with. The expectations for characterization and world building are a lot higher in a live-action fantasy than they are in an animated comedy and while the world Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois created was sufficiently in depth for the latter I’m unconvinced it will be for the former. I am not happy that Mason Thames appears to be giving the exact same performance as Baruchel, nor do I appreciate that the timing and composition feels so off. The rushed pacing of the iconic moment where Toothless first comes to Hiccup’s hand and the gaudy explosion of the theme music coming in too hard too soon, it just feels tacky.
The original How to Train Your Dragon, which came out in 2010 was co-directed by both Dean DeBlois, who directed the sequels and is returning to direct this remake, and Chris Sanders who is notably not returning to co-direct. For his part, Sanders just released one of the most acclaimed and successful animated features of the year in The Wild Robot. Live-action and animation are different mediums and directing for them requires different skill sets and different eyes. Some directors like Brad Bird have been successful in both mediums. They are the exception, as most successful animation directors stick to animation and most successful live-action filmmakers have achieved only modest success meddling in animation. I’m not saying Dean DeBlois will fail because he’s never directed a live-action film before (he did actually direct one live-action feature, a tour documentary for the Icelandic rock band Sigur Ros). This film is going to be extremely effects heavy and that will play to his strengths. However, directing live-action sequences with actors is completely outside of DeBlois’s wheelhouse. Maybe he’s the best man for the job for the material, but bringing him back instead of a seasoned live-action filmmaker suggests the studio are privileging recreating the original over anything else, and everything about this trailer confirms that fear.
Other than Butler in How to Train Your Dragon, the cast seems unusually spare on big names, suggesting again that they’re keen not to bring in any kind of outside expectations. The only other real established name in the cast is Nick Frost, well known for his performances in comedies like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. We don’t see him here, though he’s actually a great choice to play Gobber, having a good natural mixture of uncouth humor and guileless sentiment. Otherwise, the cast all seem decent choices. Mason Thames has really grown up since The Black Phone, and he’s well able to carry a movie. I just hope his Jay Baruchel impersonation eases off in the final film. Julian Dennison proved he could get laughs in Hunt for the Wildepeople, and he was the best part of Deadpool 2.
Of course, we can’t have the new trailer for a remake of something from somebody’s childhood without white men getting mad about a non-white girl being included, so Nico Parker’s here as Astrid. Do I even need to dignify the latest outpouring of misogynoir with a response here? If racists want to get mad about the very lightest of non-white skin tones infringing upon the realism of their fantasy land of dragon-riding vikings my condescension isn’t going to stop them. I don’t know what Parker’s going to bring to the role (she doesn’t appear in the trailer either) but white supremacy will survive it I’m sure.
How to Train Your Dragon is another The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast. It’s the exact same movie you know and love, except this time it’s “live-action”, which is to say, mostly still CGI except now there are some on-screen actors interacting with the animated characters. Toothless was always going to be the star of the show, and they can’t change his design to make him look more like a real dragon, whatever that might mean, because everyone is just here to see him looking the way he did in 2010 except shinier and less expressive. So this whole exercise feels even more than usually pointless. The John Powell score is back so it should at least sound the part, and Bill Pope’s a cinematographer to trust. But, what’s there to see if it’s the exact same story? If this is going to be worth watching in any way shape or form we’re going to need to see some kind of new tack. The original was bland enough. We don’t need a lukewarm retread of it, not unless we’re DreamWorks and want some of that live-action remake money Disney’s been printing.
