The How to Train Your Dragon remake risks following in the same footsteps as some of Disney’s less well-received live-action projects, but one Disney movie from nine years ago showcases how DreamWorks could avoid falling into the same pitfalls. Following its inclusion among the 2025 Super Bowl trailers, How to Train Your Dragon still looks like a sH๏τ-for-sH๏τ remake of the original. The cast of 2025’s How to Train Your Dragon may look somewhat different, but Hiccup’s blocking and movements are still essentially the same as they were in the animated feature from 2010. There’s still, however, room to build.
In 2016, Disney released a retelling of the 1977 musical movie Pete’s Dragon. Although Pete’s Dragon isn’t as popular as other Disney remakes from recent memory, it was received well enough by critics to earn 88% on Rotten Tomatoes. This is fairly considerable when compared to the 1977 film’s own Rotten Tomatoes score of 56%. Based on everything known about the cast and story of the How to Train Your Dragon remake, it’s worth looking at what Pete’s Dragon did right and why DreamWorks should follow suit if their upcoming film is to garner any critical favor.
Pete’s Dragon Cleverly Dosed Its CGI-Heavy Moments
Smart Filmmaking Kept The Movie From Feeling Too Cartoonish
Two of the biggest Disney remake criticisms How to Train Your Dragon could face are unnecessarily rehashing the exact same story and feeling too CGI-heavy to be called live action. Pete’s Dragon already avoided the latter due to the original being a live action/animation hybrid, but the remake still takes numerous pains to keep the dragon scenes from being too much like a cartoon. During most of Elliot’s appearances (renamed slightly from 1977’s Elliott), he appears in heavy shadow to mask the limitations of CGI. Extensive use of closeup sH๏τs also frequently keeps his more cartoonish features out of frame.
The Pete’s Dragon remake does already have an advantage in looking less animated, given its use of CGI rather than the original’s 2D animation. However, the film’s also at a slight disadvantage due to the fact that the тιтular dragon appears onscreen considerably more often in the remake than the original. But while the original simply kept Pete’s dragon invisible for most of the runtime, the remake cleverly uses its woodland setting to blend Elliot in with the background. This allows him to feel more like a natural part of his environment instead of a clumsily inserted mᴀss of pixels.
Pete’s Dragon Made Smart Changes To The Source Material
The Original Story Would Never Have Worked As A Modern Film
Disney’s 2016 Pete’s Dragon makes almost innumerable changes to the plot of the original film, all of them for the better. It was never believable that the townspeople in the original would side with two villainous hucksters and a family of child enslavers, but Karl Urban’s Gavin is a down-to-earth man who’s legitimately terrified of the Millhaven dragon. It’s not until after he has the town’s support that he realizes catching a dragon might earn him a few dollars and a reputation. But perhaps the best changes of all are those made to the film’s protagonists, Pete and Elliot.
Pete was originally a random orphan who seemed smart enough to know that Elliott should remain invisible yet naive enough to go around telling people about his dragon anyway. The remake’s Pete only befriends his dragon after losing his parents and essentially becoming a feral child, giving him a lot more character and explaining his naivety. Meanwhile, while Elliott with two T’s was a Mary Poppins-style enтιтy who helped children in need, the remake’s Eliot is simply trying to survive while longing for companionship. These revisions ground both characters while also emphasizing the movie’s theme of finding your own family.
Why Pete’s Dragon Is So Underrated Despite Its Positive Reception
Remaking A Less Beloved Property Is A Double-Edged Sword
Despite all of its virtues and the many ways in which it continues to tower in quality over Disney’s more recent outings, Pete’s Dragon still rarely seems to come up in conversations regarding the declining state of Disney’s remake machine. One of the most reasonable expectations for this is simply that not many have seen it. Pete’s Dragon raked in significantly smaller box office returns than The Jungle Book remake earlier that year, and low earnings don’t generally translate to evergreen popularity. Pete’s Dragon arguably boasts one of the most memorable end credits songs in a Disney film, but that only gets a movie so far.
That’s not to say that Pete’s Dragon wasn’t ultimately successful. Thanks to its relatively small production budget, even doubling the film’s estimated expenses to account for marketing would still leave the film with a modest profit. But Alice Through the Looking Glᴀss made almost $150 million more than Pete’s Dragon in the same year despite getting far worse reviews. The fact that Through the Looking Glᴀss’s box office returns ultimately still lost the studio money against its estimated marketing budget is irrelevant to the fact that it still became more of a talking point.
Marketing budgets aren’t as frequently reported as production budgets, so it can be difficult to estimate whether a movie’s operating at a profit or loss unless box office numbers swing to a high or low extreme.
The stark difference in box office returns between Pete and Alice can easily lead to one of two conclusions. Either Pete’s Dragon failed to gain traction because Disney didn’t prioritize its marketing, or the property demands so little recognition in the zeitgeist that even people who experienced the first live-action Alice would still rather see a second one than see Pete’s Dragon. Fortunately for DreamWorks and Universal, How to Train Your Dragon isn’t likely to experience either of those problems. This could mean great things for the film’s critical success if it can incorporate the right lessons from Pete’s Dragon.
In What Ways How To Train Your Dragon’s Live-Action Movie Should Be Similar To Pete’s Dragon
There’s Still A Chance It Won’t Be The SH๏τ-For-SH๏τ Remake It Looks Like
There’s not much room for How to Train Your Dragon to improve on the critical success of the original, which already achieved a 99% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That said, it can still make use of what little wiggle room it has. A big lesson to learn from Pete’s Dragon is the sheer value of marketing, and current criticisms of How to Train Your Dragon’s trailers suggest there’s already a lot of room to grow in this area. The trailers seem to depict How to Train Your Dragon as a sH๏τ-for-sH๏τ remake, but that isn’t necessarily the case.
Star Nico Parker (Astrid) has previously stated that the How to Train Your Dragon remake will have its own separate idenтιтy from the original. If that’s the case, the trailers need to start showcasing that before its release on June 13, 2025. It’s hard to improve on Hiccup’s backstory, but showing more depth behind his love of engineering or his relationship with Berk as a society would be a start. And while it makes sense for the filmmakers not to redesign Toothless, the film could still get away from CGI-related criticisms by simply altering its approach to other dragons’ designs.
Adding new dragon types or designs would help visually differentiate How to Train Your Dragon from its source material. Pete’s Dragon was a great visual departure from the original, but this is an even bigger concern when using CGI in the adaptation of a movie that was fully CGI to begin with. Additional dragon species would also enhance the film’s sense of world-building, inviting audiences to experience a fresh take on an old universe. However the film approaches this, it’s clear from recent remakes that critical success depends on adding at least something new to the original formula.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes (Pete’s Dragon 1977/Pete’s Dragon 2016/How to Train Your Dragon)
