The biggest strength of the How to Train Your Dragon franchise is undoubtedly its characters and their relationships with one another, and hopefully, the live-action remake will accomplish something similar. While the new film seems to pretty much be a sH๏τ-for-sH๏τ remake, there are several How to Train Your Dragon characters that could be slightly improved upon, including one of the series’ most consistent presences, Astrid.

Whether or not the new film will be able to recapture the magic that the original animated classic had is still very much up for debate, as many live-action remakes unfortunately tend to just feel like a lesser version of the original. How to Train Your Dragon has one of the original directors leading the project, meaning that it is very likely to stay very close to his original vision for the animated version. So, although Astrid was always great in the original trilogy, there are a few ways that DeBlois could improve her arc while keeping her character intact.

Astrid’s Character Shift In The Original How To Train Your Dragon Happens Fast

Astrid’s Change In The Original Movie Happens Very Quickly

Astrid’s How to Train Your Dragon arc is pretty simple, where she went from being dismissive of Hiccup’s apparent lack of ability to understanding that his true strength was in his empathy and ability to look past Berk’s old hatreds, along with his ingenuity. She serves a solid purpose in the movie, being her own character while also helping to further Hiccup’s story, but her switch from antagonistic to friendly does happen very quickly within the narrative, and could benefit from being expanded on a little bit more.

In the first half of the movie, Astrid is very hostile towards Hiccup, seeing him as a weakling, but when he starts understanding more about dragons and succeeding in their classes, she becomes jealous as well. However, as soon as he takes her for a ride on Toothless, her atтιтude completely shifts, and she becomes more friendly and flirty. While the switch makes sense, as her perspective on him would obviously change seeing what he did with Toothless, she seems almost like an entirely different character as soon as that scene happens.

The New How To Train Your Dragon Can Afford More Nuance To Astrid’s Changing Worldview

Astrid Could Be Given More Time To Develop In The New Version

While Astrid’s journey throughout the movie should be kept intact, as it is very important to the story of How to Train Your Dragon, there is certainly room to expand her role and dedicate more time to exploring her character development. Any new scenes or subplots shouldn’t take too much time away from Toothless and Hiccup, as their relationship is the heart of the story, but Astrid is a character who has persisted across all three animated movies. Therefore, giving her more time to shine would only make sense.

Any new additions don’t even need to be all that impactful, but small moments here and there that would showcase a more gradual change would make her arc that much more interesting. If the new version of Astrid showed some signs of change before her first flight, even if they were minor, that would help her larger character changes down the road feel more earned. She could also have some more moments of anger after their first flight, before she cools off and eventually joins up with Hiccup’s cause.

We Understand Hiccup, But How To Train Your Dragon Has Never Fully Delved Into Astrid’s Mentality

Astrid Felt Very Much Like A Side Character

As Hiccup was the main character of How to Train Your Dragon, he was easily the most well-developed character, with unique and individual arcs across each of the movies. While Astrid was a solid character throughout, the movies never really looked too deeply into her character, and she was mostly relegated to playing a supporting role. Again, Hiccup and Toothless are the main characters, but if the live-action filmmakers want to make changes, Astrid would be a prime candidate to experiment with.

Astrid and Hiccup’s relationship was very sweet throughout the animated trilogy, opting not to delve into trite relationship drama, ensuring that they were always uplifting and supporting each other. That was a breath of fresh air, as too often movies try and manufacture issues in romantic relationships for the sake of drama. However, that had the side effect of making Astrid feel like much less of a character herself, existing mostly to be Hiccup’s girlfriend, which hopefully the live-action How to Train Your Dragon franchise will be able to fix.