How to Train Your Dragon

Filmmakers take notes, this is how you do a live action remake

Within the first fifteen minutes I knew this live action remake understood the assignment. Rather than trying to shoe-horn in frivolous plot points, make thoughtless changes, or become a different movie altogether, “How to Train Your Dragon” maintains its original identity from start to finish. Many of the scenes throughout the movie are almost shot for shot identical to the original. Although some filmmakers may disagree, being able to introduce an extra layer of excitement, while maintaining the full integrity of the original story, is precisely what makes this live action remake excellent and kept me engaged the entire time.

It’s no secret that Hollywood has been skating by on nostalgia bait for some time now.

Studios and filmmakers have been incessantly churning out adaptations, reimagining’s, live action remakes, and everything in between with results ranging from merely mediocre at best, to outright egregious at worst. The remake and adaptation market has become so oversaturated with rubbish that when it was announced “How to Train Your Dragon” would be getting a live action film my first thought was, “Well let’s just hope they don’t mess it up too badly.” Which is a real shame, because this movie was awesome.

It often seems as though filmmakers forget, or don’t care to take the time to understand, why people love the stories their attempting to adapt in the first place. Thankfully, “How to Train Your Dragon” does not suffer from this same fate. The creators clearly put time and effort into maintaining the films heart and soul. The changes made to the dialogue, and a few small plot details in a few places, add an appreciated amount of depth to the narrative that was previously missing. The updates they chose to make were clearly intended to appeal to a slightly more modern audience, but the changes are small, organic, thoughtful, and ultimately add to, rather than distract from the movie itself.

One of the more noticeable changes is a subtly more expansive and diversified cast. This interesting deviation allows the movie’s overall theme and general message of “stronger together” to strike home a little harder. There are a great deal more women and people of color in the live action version, making the story’s world and setting feel more lived in and authentic. The film’s makeup and costuming also played in a key role in maintaining the films sense of authenticity, while still communicating the grandiose nature of the Viking culture, without bordering on outlandish. The cinematography contributed to this as well, was truly stunning, and complemented the gorgeous locations they chose for the setting in a way that captured the story’s elevated sense of adventure and wonder.

So yes, “How to Train Your Dragon” is well worth the nostalgia strings it pulls on because it successfully manages to recapture all of the magic and wonder of the original in an exciting new light. The sense of wonder explored through the seemingly impossible, yet heartwarming dynamic between a boy and a deadly dragon is at the heart of why the story is loved by so many.