As I drove to Universal recently, I had many questions aboutHow to Train Your Dragon.
A triumphant, emotional, exciting masterpiece.
So, to remake it makes you wonder Why do we need this?
We set off to answer some of your burning questions about How to Train Your Dragon.Image: Universal
Was it happening just for the money?
Would fans actually get something out of it?
Questions like: what advantages does a live-action remake have over animation?
© Universal Pictures
Why didnt they change the look of the dragon Toothless?
Would composer John Powell be redoing his iconic score?
Read answers to those and more below.
Image: Universal
To start, DeBlois said that he wasnt the biggest fan of live-action remakes in general.
Explore more of the mythology of the Viking world.
All that kind of stuff.
Concept art from Epic Universe – Universal
The scene certainly reminded us of the original movie, but had more meat on the bone.
And we wanted to honor them in live action as best we could, DeBlois said.
And as the scene played, complete with that iconic music, all those emotions came back again.
Watching that scene also meant directly taking on two of my big burning questions.
But finding how much to retain versus how much to reinvent was a bit of an evolving process.
DeBlois said the team drew lots of inspiration from the words of iconic special effects artist John Dykstra.
He told the team to imagine the animated movie came after the live-action movie, according to DeBlois.
But from afar, I still feel like thats the same creature.
Like, for example, the dragon hes got to defeat has fire over its entire body.
Its excessive and cool at the same time.
For my last question, I had to approach the director afterward.
They did a presentation for us about a year ago, he said.
And they basically said, This is what were building.
Its based onHow to Train Your Dragon 2, the animated movie.
So its about the world as dragons have already moved in.
Theyve already made all sorts of accommodations for them.
And that its skewed a bit younger.
And I got the sense like I wasnt supposed to give notes.
[Laughs] They were underway, they were building it.
They had their own deadlines.
So Im really curious to see it.
And the fact they are opening so close to each other is, apparently, just a nice coincidence.
I like the timing of it.
At one point, we were going to come out on the same day that it opened.
I thought that was a cool idea, he said.
I am curious to see it and go back to the oldLilo & StitchandMulanstomping grounds.
But I dont know much more than what people posted on YouTube.
The film opens June 13.
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