'How To Train Your Dragon' - More Like 'How To Do Your Live-Action Remake'

The live-action How To Train Your Dragon was practically a shot-for-shot remake of the original…and it was the best live-action adaptation of an animated classic that I’ve seen since the 2015 Cinderella. 

It feels like Disney has been trying to crack the secret recipe to that live action hit since they did it the first time, and they haven’t quite been able to—but Dreamworks just blew them out of the water.

The issue with some of these live-action films now is that they sometimes feel like the studio is apologizing for a kids’ film being for kids; adding more historical context and realistic settings, making the conversations and emotions more complex, creating overly-realistic looking animals, etc.

This one didn’t do that—director Dean DeBois figured out the real opportunity this film subgenre presents.

The Secret Live-Action Sauce: Leave The Script Alone (Mostly)

Live-action remakes are entirely about art and performance. They’re a chance for a studio to show off how good it is at everything besides making up a story—and Dreamworks definitely understood that assignment with the live-action version of How To Train Your Dragon.

This was, in fact, basically the exact same film. I’ve seen the original more times than I can count since it came out (when I was in the eighth grade), and I can confidently say that I was delighted by the movie specifically because I wasn’t distracted by plot changes, or trying to integrate a bunch of new details.

I loved knowing exactly what line was going to come next, because it made me more able to appreciate the choices the actors were making, the way the scene was being directed—and how beautiful and real-looking those dragons were.

I’ll admit it: I nearly cried when I first saw Toothless. This is the wonder of film in general—seeing something that we know can’t be real, but being so thoroughly convinced by our own eyes that we can believe it anyway. I did genuinely forget, in several places, that those actors were not actually acting with a real dragon.

(Apparently there were, in fact, puppets involved in the filming. I will have to write an entirely separate article about that, because I have WAY too much to say.)

An Acting Showpiece

There was a lot of beauty in getting to see Gerard Butler act out Stoick in real life, and casting him was probably one of the best decisions they could have made, because it highlights exactly what they were doing right: This is an actor who has already played this part—but never like this.

He said his lines very similarly, but never exactly the same, and you can tell that his performance was affected by the actors around him (an entirely different experience than recording for live-action movies, which is often simply done solo.) Those who enjoy watching the craft of acting will enjoy noting what changed and what stayed the same between the two performances.

The actors in this film are doing what so many little kids do after they watch these movies; putting themselves in the middle of the story and really feeling what it would be like inside of it.

Helping Kids See Themselves in the Story

Making a live action version of an animated movie is like helping kids to take that next step and picture it even better—especially when that movie makes sure that the people they cast as children and teenagers actually look like children and teenagers (and even offers an explanation when a couple of them looked undeniably older.) This makes it even easier for kids to see themselves in the story.

That was clearly the intent of the original animation, which made sure the five kids spanned the range of awkwardly-shaped teens—from peach-fuzz mustaches to gangly limbs. This is most notable on Astrid’s character who, in both films, despite being the love interest, is still very obviously fifteen, and dressed practically, not to make her look desirable.

The few new things that they did add also didn’t attempt to change or complicate the story, or make it more “realistic” or more tied to a true historical place. Instead, they mostly had to do with giving the kids characters more personality—Snotlout got to have his own little emotional subplot with his father, and they gave Astrid a clearer motivation for wanting to be the best.

This movie doesn’t apologize for being for kids—as a matter of fact, these few additions, if anything, gave the kids in the audience more story to grab onto, and I’m excited to see where they go with each of them in the next film.

Live-Action Remakes Are Just Professional Film Tributes

Live-action remakes of animated films are finally beginning to find their footing as a subgenre, and Dreamworks and DeBois understood the assignment better than anyone has so far. They’ve figured it out: Give the audience the story they love, and use it as a chance to show off everything your studio can do when it comes to sets, costumes, casting, acting, and special effects, and everyone will be happy.

It’s a tribute to something beloved, just like countless young actors, directors, animators, and writers create and post online every day—the only difference is that in this case, it’s being done with a fantastical budget and full ownership of the IP.

The most impressive thing I can think of to say about the live action version of How To Train Your Dragon is that they made making a good live-action adaptation look easy—and we all know for a fact, by now, that it is not. They got to the heart of the story, they left the majority of the script intact, and the only details added were there to reinforce story elements that were already there in the first place.

Congratulations Dreamworks: You and the 'How To Train Your Dragon' Team Finally Got It Right

They say “don’t mess with success,” and until now, the only way I could think to apply that to live-action animated remakes is as advice to simply Not Do Them—and I was almost beginning to agree—but How To Train Your Dragon (2025) showed us all that there’s another way to interpret that.

You can, in fact, remake a movie without “messing with” it. Sometimes, people just want a fancier version of the thing they know they love.

One writer for the LA Times (in what I thought was far too cynical a review) essentially asked “why bother” remaking this movie—and my answer is simply for the joy of it. That’s how so many of our greatest movies came to be—and there was definitely a lot of joy in that movie, and in that theatre where I saw it.