Hollywood’s thousandth attempt to remake a perfectly good animated film is here. Universal Pictures has released its first teaser for the live-action How to Train Your Dragon, and the question that should be on everyone’s mind isn’t so much “how” to train your dragon, but “why” remake an animated classic that already looked spectacular in its original form?
The teaser presents exactly what you’d expect: sweeping drone shots of CGI-enhanced mountains, a Viking village that looks suspiciously clean for the Dark Ages, and Mason Thames stepping into the role of Hiccup. To Universal’s credit, they’ve at least managed to make Toothless look decent.
The CGI dragon appears to have escaped the uncanny valley that plagued similar live-action adaptations, though one has to wonder if “not looking terrible” should really be considered an achievement. The recreation of the famous head-pat scene suggests the studio knows which moments fans are expecting to see, even if those same fans never asked to see them recreated with real actors.
DreamWorks has made some interesting choices, including bringing back Gerard Butler as Stoick. They’ve also recruited Nico Parker (you might know her as Joel’s daughter from HBO’s The Last of Us) as Astrid and Julian Dennison as Fishlegs.
Astrid being played by a black person will not go down well with audiences, at least from a color-blind casting perspective. After Hollywood spent the last decade whitewashing with roles like Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell, it has recently decided to overcompensate, and in the worst way possible.
To be fair, I have no beef with Nico Parker. In fact, her performance in The Last of Us left an impression on me, which is saying a lot considering the star power on that show. That said, there’s a valid argument to be made about a black person playing a Viking role, especially when the source material clearly depicted Astrid as white.
My only hope is that Dean DeBlois’s involvement as writer and director will keep the story grounded. Having co-written and co-directed the original animated film and its sequels, he at least knows what made the story work in the first place. However, even this comes with a caveat: knowing what made an animated film successful doesn’t necessarily translate to live-action expertise.
Early marketing materials haven’t inspired confidence either, with initial stills drawing criticism for their washed-out color palette. Luckily, the recently released teaser shows somewhat more visual flair.
The original How to Train Your Dragon was a masterpiece of animation that spawned two excellent sequels, five short films, and two TV series. It garnered critical acclaim, Oscar nominations, and most importantly, told its story in the medium best suited for tales of flying dragons and Viking adventures: animation.
Universal has set a release date of June 13, 2025, giving audiences plenty of time to rewatch the original and come to the conclusion that this is just another entry in Hollywood’s “Things Nobody Asked For But We’re Making Anyway” catalog.
