Biggest changes in the 'How to Train Your Dragon' live-action movie
Gerard Butler wouldn’t have been gutted to see someone else take his role in the live-action “How to Train Your Dragon,” but there would have been some side eye.
Though “it would've made me sad,” the Scottish actor thinks it might have been interesting to see another person’s interpretation of Butler’s Viking chief Stoick the Vast from the 2010 animated “Dragon.” He brings up a scene where Stoick’s son Hiccup takes a knife at a tribal ceremony and Stoick goes, “I would've chosen a hammer.”
Watching a “How to Train Your Dragon” movie he wasn't in, “I would've been like that: ‘I would've said that a little flatter,’ ” Butler says, laughing. “But I'm glad that it didn't come to that, because if I do say so myself, there is only one Stoick and it must be me.”
With his new “Dragon” (in theaters now), returning writer/director Dean DeBlois revamped the story of awkward Viking kid Hiccup (Mason Thames) and his best dragon pal Toothless to “keep the best of what worked and find opportunities to go deeper with the mythology (and) character development.”
Adds Thames: “The original wasn't broken, so you can't fix it. All we could do was elevate it.”
Here are the key differences between the cartoon and the live-action “Dragon”:
‘How to Train Your Dragon’ feels 'really raw' in live action
Going from animation to live action, DeBlois leaned into “visceral photorealism,” from the Vikings and their village to the dragons that Hiccup helps his people understand rather than slay. “It feels like you're there, like this place and these creatures could actually exist,” the director says.
That groundedness carried over to the human characters. “There's a lot of weight to it, with real people and a real-ish world with dragons,” Thames says, adding that scenes like the shouting matches between the empathetic Hiccup and his dragon-hating dad were “really raw.”
The experiential dragon riding is more immersive and realistic
Watching the original Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel) learn to saddle up and soar with Toothless entertained a generation of kid film fans. DeBlois learned when testing that movie how important the flying scenes were to the audience.
For the redo, the director wanted to expand the experiential quality of the sequences and “just dial it up a little bit more (and) find those moments where the camera work has a little more life."
The latest ‘Dragon’ has more appeal for teens and tweens
Making the first film, DeBlois says he always had DreamWorks head Jeffrey Katzenberg over his shoulder saying, “Don’t forget the 4-year-olds!” This time around, the studio encouraged him to add extra stakes, action and intensity to make his teen heroes more relatable: “If we’re going to do live action, let's make it feel dangerous, textured and emotionally complicated,” DeBlois says.
“Younger kids aspire upward,” he adds. “They want to see what their older siblings are watching. The reverse is not usually true. And there was just an opportunity with this movie to enrich the relationships so that they had a little more sophistication and texture and maturity. The story can withstand that all-ages approach.”
Warrior girl Astrid finally gets a substantial role
DeBlois always thought he could do more with Astrid (Nico Parker), Hiccup’s crush who’s at first annoyed by her dragon-training rival but then grows to like him. The remake was an opportunity to “learn more about her and where she came from and why Hiccup is this obstacle in her way and how she resents his privilege,” he says.
Casting the new Astrid (originally voiced by America Ferrera) proved difficult. Quite a few actresses looked like the animated character but none of them landed the dialogue, “which was designed to be really harsh to Hiccup – a takedown of who he was as a character,” DeBlois says. Parker was the only one who consistently was more like a sports team captain rather than mean-spirited: “It was like provoking you to be better, but it didn't have a cruelty to it.”
But adorable Toothless stays (mostly) true to the original movie
Animal references, from parrots and walruses to snakes and crocodiles, were used to design the various species of computer-generated dragons for the remake. However, DeBlois was very mindful that, because Toothless is the franchise’s most beloved and recognizable dragon, they couldn’t deviate too much from the original: “That would draw ire from fans and just be disappointing.”
When they tried to work in real-world animal vibes, “it looked less and less like Toothless,” DeBlois says. So instead, designers tweaked certain details, like twitching nerves under his skin and the iridescence in his scales. They also studied panthers and lions to utilize their movements as well.
“Toothless needs to feel like your dog or your cat,” DeBlois says. “So we tried to keep the design approachable and both ferocious but cuddly with lots of pet cues baked in there.”