How To Train Your Dragon live action remake fails to fly

Live-action reproductions of animated hits continue apace, despite their patchy track-record. It seems a point of principle for Disney, in particular, to remake all of them, despite most people with any taste begging them not to.

But Disney’s argument is hard to refute. Sometimes these things make a fortune.

While Snow White, Dumbo and Pinocchio failed to fly, this year’s Lilo and Stitch, against all odds, has been a massive hit – despite being a totally unnecessary carbon copy of a relatively recent original.

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The original was directed by a lively duo called Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, who went on to make another massive success for Dreamworks – How To Train Your Dragon.

Dragon was nominated for two Oscars in 2011, and DeBlois went on to make two sequels, the last in 2019.

So why – a mere six years later – has he made a live-action version of the first film? I have no idea. Judging by the trailers it’s pretty much the same movie.

The justification of past remakes was that the originals were mostly old-fashioned pen and paintbrush animation, and modern audiences preferred the digital 3D variety, the type Pixar had made so popular.

But How To Train Your Dragon was already digital. And how different are the digital effects of this movie from the digital animation of the first film?

In fact, the similarities between the two movies far outnumber any differences. Same writer-director –DeBlois – same design and same big star – Gerard Butler played Viking chief Stoick in both movies.

We open on a village of Vikings who live next door to a village of hostile dragons.

The one difference in this version is the Vikings are a wee bit more diverse-looking than last time. There’s a Chinese Viking, an African Viking, Latino Vikings and – yes, a strapping Māori Viking, played by Julian Dennison.

Our spindly hero, Hiccup, has been something of a disappointment to his father the chief because of his lack of interest in dragon killing.

But comes the time when even Hiccup has to go to dragon-slaying school, along with his mates, led by the feisty Astrid.

After a bad time at dragon school, Hiccup wanders among the fiords where he suddenly finds a young, wounded, black dragon.

This strikes him as a good one to practice on.

But to his shame he just can’t do it. And to his surprise, the dragon – a weird cross between a black panther and a gigantic tadpole – takes a liking to him.

So, Hiccup tends to the dragon’s wounds and calls him Toothless.

Hiccup hides Toothless from the village and in his spare time trains his dragon in the fine art of flying.

This is clearly not something you can keep to yourself for long - particularly not from someone as sharp as his dragon-school rival Astrid. Astrid is far less dragon-friendly than Hiccup. We’re Vikings, she says. Vikings kill dragons, end of story.

And the story – based on a series of English children’s books by Cressida Cowell – continues from there.

If you haven’t seen the original film – I hadn’t – it seems a good enough tale, well told. Until you see any footage from the original, which is clearly superior.

Live action – particularly live-action blended with digital effects – is frankly a lot busier and more chaotic than pure animation, which has the luxury of selecting what it needs.

This is particularly noticeable when it’s fast cuts of dragons milling around a bunch of hairy Vikings, and the massive film crews milling around the new giant sets to make it happen.

So much is added for a live-action remake of a well-loved story - money on sets, effects and later a massive publicity campaign.

But in fact, all the good things about How To Train Your Dragon were already there, surely.

The only thing missing in its revival was the one thing that a copy can never produce – originality.

Listen to Simon Morris review the latest films in At The Movies, available here or on Sundays at 1.30pm on RNZ National.