The upcoming How To Train Your Dragon film is already guaranteed to have a sequel, creating the impression that both of the original movie’s follow-ups could get their own live-action adaptations as well. That’s not surprising, at least in regards to the confirmation of a live-action How To Train Your Dragon 2, considering that the second movie is an excellent follow-up to an incredible film.

While How To Train Your Dragon 2 might have managed to live up to the original in some ways, the new live-action remake has an uphill battle to prove its worth, though first reactions to How To Train Your Dragon have been positive. The success of the live-action remake could impact the direction of its sequel. How To Train Your Dragon‘s live-action adaptation has to be careful when balancing changes to the story with faithfulness to the original, but a live-action How To Train Your Dragon 2 has the additional challenges of being both a live-action remake and a sequel, which are two things that audiences often expect the worst from.

How To Train Your Dragon 2 Should Be An Original Story, Not An Adaptation Of The 2014 Movie

The First Live-Action Being A Close Remake Doesn’t Mean The Sequels Have To Be

Between the films, television shows, holiday specials, video games, and even the books that the movies were inspired by, the world of How To Train Your Dragon has been used to tell many stories. There’s no doubt that 2014’s How To Train Your Dragon 2 is one of its best, but there are many other stories that a live-action How To Train Your Dragon 2 could tell instead.

Telling a new story with How To Train Your Dragon 2 could also allow them to take advantage of the fact that Gerard Butler is returning to the world of How To Train Your Dragon as Stoick the Vast. As Stoick is killed in the original How To Train Your Dragon 2, telling an original story could allow them to carry Stoick’s character over into the third film. While changing the story would be removing one connection to the original animated film series, it would be preserving another connection.

If How To Train Your Dragon 2 tells an original story, it could also pull more from the books that the animated films were originally inspired by. There are a lot of major differences between the books and the films, from Toothless’ species of dragon to Astrid not appearing in the novels. There are also characters from the novels who never really appear in the animated franchise, so the live-action sequels could pull some additional inspiration from them.

The Biggest Problem With How To Train Your Dragon’s Live-Action Adaptation Is That It’s Telling The Same Story Too Soon

It’s Only Been 6 Years Since The Original Series Ended

It’s only been about fifteen years since the original How To Train Your Dragon was released, so it doesn’t feel like there’s any reason for a remake to exist at this point. The last movie in the series, The Hidden World, was released only about six years ago. The films take place over the course of many years, so this could be used as an excuse to draw out the wait before creating sequels to the live-action film, but that does risk letting the hype of the first remake die down before sequels are considered.

It would be impossible not to compare the live-action remake with the original How To Train Your Dragon, and that will remain true for the sequels even if they tell an entirely different story. Telling a new story does run the risk of making audiences complain that they’re telling a worse story, but audiences are going to go in expecting to see a worse version of the animated movies regardless.

This would be true no matter how long it has been since the release of the original films, but they feel new enough that if people want to see a recent adaptation of the story of the How To Train Your Dragon films, they’ll probably just go watch the animated ones. Telling a new story could offer the chance to dive deeper into the world of How To Train Your Dragon and could make the adaptation feel at least a little more worth it, even if it’s still very early for a How To Train Your Dragon adaptation.

It’s Easier To Do Something New With How To Train Your Dragon 2

The First Live Action Film Needs To Establish The Story Before It Can Be Changed

The new live-action remake is creating an opportunity for fans to visit an entirely new version of this world. The first How To Train Your Dragon established the series as a classic and one of Dreamworks’ best, so it’s understandable for the live-action’s creators to want to stay close to the original. Adapting How To Train Your Dragon is risky because changing too much from the original film would feel like underutilizing a great story, while sticking too close might make fans question why they would choose to watch a remake over the original.

However, once the first live-action film has established the series, it leaves the creators of the live-action version of the franchise a lot of room to play with. A new story that just happens to start from the same origin of a Viking boy connecting with a dragon could be just what the live-action How To Train Your Dragon remakes need to really feel worthwhile, and it could help stop comparisons between the new live action films and the originals.