A Childhood Classic Gets a Redesign

The recent trend of recreating animated films continues as a new movie makes its way to theatres. Before came Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, and now, How to Train Your Dragon. 

The original film quickly became a smash hit among children and tweens; sequel after sequel was made, along with several TV shows. The DreamWorks films collectively earned over $1.6 billion at the box office, and even four Oscar nominations (Variety). Now, the directors have decided to take the next step in the franchise. 

During the Super Bowl commercials, the studio released a trailer for the How to Train Your Dragon remake. It features actors such as Mason Thames as the protagonist Hiccup, Nico Parker as beloved character Astrid, and Gerard Butler as Hiccup’s father, Stoick the Vast (IMDb). The trailer generated mixed reviews; on one hand, the live-action remake seems relatively true to the source material, with the same plotlines, settings, and the dragons look the same. On the other hand, this similarity calls into question the necessity of a remake in the first place. Ramapo art teacher Mr. Quirk says, “What I have seen of the previews for its live action counterpart looks good, but I personally thought the original is just fine as it is. I feel the same way about Aladdin, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, and the Lion King compared to their original animated versions. Some of them I find artistically and visually impressive, like the live-action Aladdin, that are honestly really good and do incorporate some new ideas, but do we really need it when the original animated versions are classics outright?” 

Dean DeBlois, who directed both the original and new films, claims that at first he was skeptical of live-action remakes. However, when he saw an opportunity to work with the characters and world he loves again, he could not say no. He commented, “With the rushed production schedule and the limited resources that we had on that first movie for DreamWorks, there were things that we skipped past that we could have maybe done a little more justice to — some of the characters, some of the depth of relationships and the immersive action,” and also emphasized that he always felt the character of Astrid was “was a little underserved” in the original film (Hollywood Reporter). From what has been reported, it seems like the How to Train Your Dragon film will allow audiences to explore plotlines and characters from the original film that were not fully realized. Ramapo senior Madeline Klecha said “I’m excited to see what they do with it.”

The live-action How to Train Your Dragon releases in theatres June 13, 2025 – a nostalgic way for countless fans to kick off summer.