How timeless is How to Train Your Dragon? The first film debuted almost 15 years ago, and the themes of prejudice and misjudgment could not be more relevant today than ever.
Just look at how some toxic people on the internet reacted to Nico Parker’s casting as Astrid. However, thankfully, trilogy director Dean DeBlois is here to bring the classic story soaring back to life at a time when the world needs its message most.
The latest trailer for the highly anticipated live-action remake has officially debuted, and it looks remarkable. As you can see it’s an almost perfect scene for scene reimagining of the story of friendship that we all know and love. And you can check it out right here:
We were recently invited to see the trailer at an incredible event with DeBlois, where he treated us to a special preview of three additional scenes.
“Of course this comes from the mind of Cressida Cowell and her many books. Also based on the animated movie, of which I’m very proud, that Chris Sanders and I wrote and directed together. So there are iterations that have lent their strengths to what we’ve tried to do here today,” DeBlois began in an intro to us. “I have not been the biggest fan of live-action movies that have been made of animated films. Sometimes because I feel like they’re made to replace the animated movie. And from the start we wanted to make sure that wasn’t our intention here. That if we were going to do this in live-action, we wanted to find a reason for being. And to me, with a rushed production schedule and the limited resources we had on that first movie for Dreamworks, there were things we skipped past that we could have done a little more justice to. Some of the characters, the depths of relationships, and the immersive action. And I’m very proud of that movie — of all three movies — so never to disparage the wonderful work that went into it that I, myself, Chris Sanders, and the entire animation crew put into it. But here’s another presentation of that story. It’s a reimagining that holds quite faithful to the story, and yet finds moments where we can enrich character relationships, give it a bit of depth, give it a bit of mythology that might have been lacking from the original. And all in hopes to make it feel like it enriches the experience, and gives you that much more emotional connection to the characters. And a sense of being and established folklore to this world. And those were the intentions. In short, it’s like if the animated movie was still in its test preview screenings, and we still had money and still had time, where would we put those efforts? So there’s no throwing out the baby with the bathwater. That’s the lane I chose. And I think, in executing it in live-action, we’re hoping to bring all the strengths of that medium to this story.”
DeBlois set up the first scene we saw; a recreation of one of the dragon training sequences in the original film. “This was an opportunity to give a little bit more to the character of Astrid. I always felt she was a little underserved. And I love the idea in expanding the mythology of the story, that we could make this tribe exist on the Isle of Berk with a purpose. In other words, as the Vikings sailed far and wide, they collected the best dragon fighting warriors they could find, with the purpose of eliminating dragons for the good of all their cultures and tribes. That meant they arrived on the island of Berk because it was key spitting distance from a dragon’s nest. Generations have gone by. They have not found it. So this pressure has fallen upon their chief, Stoic the Vast, played by Gerard Butler. And the dwindling enthusiasm and commitment he’s facing upon his fellow warriors. So as they set off to find the dragon’s nest, he employs his right hand man, Gobber, the village blacksmith, to train a bunch of new recruits to become the next generation of dragon fighters. Among them we have Hiccup, who’s not really committed to the idea, since he’s just found and befriended a Night Fury in the woods. We have Astrid, who is kind of the star team captain – the gem of her generation. She takes this all very seriously. And it makes her the perfect test case, because if Hiccup can change her mind about dragons later on, he can change everybody’s. So this is the sequence that allows room for her to really show her stuff. And reinforce the Viking idea that they have to choose a side in this war.”
He discussed the VFX were done solely by the company, FrameStore. Then showed us the training sequence against the Deadly Nadder – a blue dragon that shoots spikes from its spiney appendages. For fans of the series, folks will know this will become Astrid’s loyal dragon, Stormfly. Right off the bat I can tell you the effects in this are brilliant so far. And the scene played out very closely to the one in the original film. Hiccup, played perfectly by Mason Thames, is inquiring about Night Furies with Gobber (a spot-on Nick Frost), while Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut and Tuffnut scramble to survive. Astrid, the most proficient of the trainees, manages to save Hiccup from the Nadder’s attack at the last minute, and chides the rest of the recruits about their dedication to the cause.
DeBlois went into the casting a bit. “Mason Thames brings his own qualities to the role that in a way ape Jay Baruchel, but still embody the sense of innocence and awkwardness that accompanies his age. He was 15 when we cast him. So he grew up with this character and shares a strong connection to Hiccup. And it shows…Nico Parker plays Astrid. That feeds into the idea that she has come from a different culture. That she’s a descendent of those prized dragon warriors that were collected by Vikings from different places. And she hopes to be chief of this tribe one day, so she has great ambition. And this creates a conflict between her and Hiccup, since he’s kind of a kid of privilege, being the son of the chief. But it gives her something she really has to sacrifice at the end when she decides to stand by Hiccup and convert to this new way of thinking. So not only is she kick ass in several scenes, she has a greater depth, greater transition, and greater arc throughout the story.
The twins are played by Harry Trevaldwyn and Bronwyn James. We cast them because they have that great comedic energy. They’re a bit older than the other Vikings, so we played on both that and the fact that they’re not identical twins, for the story. They think they’re identical…they’ve also flunked dragon training many years in a row, which is why they’re the old standouts. The “Beavis and Butthead” of the dragon community. And then we have Julian Dennison playing Fishlegs. He eats up every scene everytime he’s on screen…the ultimate dragon nerd with all the stats and the attributes…and lastly Gabriel Howell who plays Snotlout. Snotlout is kind of in parallel to Hiccup, subject to the systemic problem on the island of Berk of just very heavy expectation from parents. And this desire to attain their admiration. So he lives for the validation of his father, and goes about it in a boastful way.”
DeBlois discussed that he wanted to give us a taste of the moments they stayed the closest to from the original movie, and chose these moments because they wanted to honor the original iconic scenes that fans will recognize the most. As such, the next scene he introduced was the iconic “Test Drive” sequence where Hiccup and Toothless take flight for the very first time.
Recalling when I first saw the sequence in theaters in 2010, I remember being absolutely blown away by it. And seeing it translated to live-action was admittedly equally as exhilarating, and made me, an older fan of the series, so incredibly happy and satisfied at the job DeBlois has done bringing his co-creation to life. This one is going to look spectacular in IMAX.
When describing the look of the dragons, DeBlois stated, “Finding how much to retain versus how much to reinvent was a bit of an evolving process. At one point we were talking to visual effects legend John Dykstra – he was one of the founding members of ILM – and he had a great kernel of wisdom that we kind of took on and kept to this day. [He told us to] imagine the animated movie came after the live-action movie. So everything in terms of dragon design that you’ve simplified and highlighted came from an actual animal that was filmed with real cameras and moved around as a creature of this natural world…so we were able to retain what we think might have been simplified in an animated design, but give it a more robust skeleton, muscles, scale, and details. But from afar still feel like that’s the same creature…The challenge has been on our animators…to watch a lot of dog and cat and horse videos, and find those cues that we humans interpret as attitudes they want to be expressed, so they don’t sacrifice personality. Hopefully we’ve managed to do that…because the dragons weren’t present for us on stage, we had these amazing puppeteers from a company called Stitches and Glue, who created foam heads and bodies from the digital assets of the dragons. And then they puppeteered them so that they disappeared and there was a dragon.”
The third scene that DeBlois debuted was a scene called “Hiccup’s Graduation.” He felt this one was important to highlight the relationships between Hiccup and Astrid, as well as his relationships with Toothless and Stoic. The scene was a close interpretation of Hiccup’s arena scene with the Monsterous Nightmare – a red dragon that sets itself on fire. Fans will remember this is the scene where he tries to reveal to the village that dragons are not what Vikings have thought they were for centuries, and an emotional turning point between Hiccup and Stoic. The Nightmare looked incredible. And unlike Toothless, felt more like a traditional dragon you’d see in a show like House of the Dragon, rather than what we’ve seen in animation. It also included interactions between Astrid and Hiccup that really strengthened their relationship, which is important given the eventual trajectory of the pair.
DeBlois discussed how the film still has two more months left to go of visual effects and animation. He mentioned John Powell is returning to adapt his score from the original movie for the live-action film. And his mission is to ensure that everyone who worked on the film is proud of it at the end of the day.
We were fortunate enough to get a few minutes with DeBlois after the presentation to ask him about the challenges of working on his first live-action film versus an animated film. He responded by saying, “I’ve been wanting to work on a live-action movie for most of my career. I love animation, but I wanted to add live-action to the toolbox. I didn’t want to be shut out from it. So I’ve done music documentaries. I’ve taken classes. I’ve watched every behind the scenes live-action documentary I could find. I’ve seen every season of Project Greenlight. I’ve just wanted to know as much as I could about it. And I’ve had a few false starts. There was a movie back in 2004 that had a flashing greenlight at Disney, that just fell apart. So it’s always been this challenge to try and get in there. And even for this one, when the SAG strikes happened, I thought this could fall apart even before it starts. But strangely, even though since 2019, when How to Train Your Dragon 3 came out, I spent 4-5 years just selling projects – original live action projects and writing drafts – but not getting any of them greenlit. Then all of a sudden Universal came to me with the idea of doing a live-action How to Train Your Dragon. It put my own conventions to the test, and I feel like a bit of a hypocrite. Because I felt live-action remakes are often disappointing replacements of the animated movies. But I also thought that I didn’t want to see anyone else do it. And this could be the opportunity to jump in for a big-budget movie with amazing craftspeople, working in a world that I know with characters that I love. So if we were going to do it, I wanted to be involved. So it was a crazy race to catch up, and learn as much as I can. I was honest with the crew, letting them know I was the rookie. But I’m a quick study, and I’ll always come at it from a story perspective. So it created an environment that was fun and respectful.”
As huge fans of the original franchise, as well as DeBlois’ work as a storyteller overall, we simply cannot wait to see the final product! And we support and love the ideas he and his team have come up with for this reimagining, including the idea that Vikings brought in the best and most fierce dragon warriors to Berk. Which adequately and smartly explains why it makes so much sense that Astrid and Fishlegs would be played by POC actors like Parker and Dennison. And we’ll support these terrific casting decisions regardless of what any Internet trolls have to say about it. Because we are all in on seeing this legend come to life!
How to Train Your Dragon soars into theaters June 13, 2025!
