Why The How To Train Your Dragon Remake Is Better Than The Original Movie According To Gerard Butler

Gerard Butler is re-entering the How to Train Your Dragon universe, reprising the role of Stoick after voicing the character in the beloved animated movie – and despite the rumblings surrounding the adaptation, Butler believes it actually surpᴀsses the original movie in some ways. When Universal initially announced that they would be remaking the original film for live-action, there were plenty of skeptics who wondered why this needed to be done.

The original trilogy is already widely loved, so what more could a live-action movie add to the film about a young Viking boy named Hiccup and his relationship with the dragon Toothless? It turns out, there’s a lot. The original animated film runs only 98 minutes, but the new live-action How to Train Your Dragon is over two hours, so director Dean DeBlois has clearly expanded the world in numerous ways.

When ScreenRant sat down with Butler to talk about the new adaptation, it went beyond simply adding more action or dragons. Butler told us how the movie dives deeper into its characters, including his own Viking chieftain, who, despite his name, finds deep emotion in the movie’s relationships.

Gerard Butler Explains How The Live-Action Movie Is Better Than The Animated

“You Feel More Deeply”

The live-action version of How to Train Your Dragon has not been without its early (and mostly unfounded) detractors. Some wondered why remake a movie in this way when the animated version already exists and that doesn’t even account for the backlash faced around some of How to Train Your Dragon‘s live-action casting. However, Butler thinks the live-action movie can succeed in some areas where the animated movie couldn’t.

“It was a chance to go a lot deeper and darker and more emotional into the smaller moments,” Butler says. “[We] go into the struggles that [Stocik] had as a leader and trying to reach his son and keep the tribe together. That’s all resting on him with nobody to share it with. There was a lot of power in that and I loved being able to affect the audience in that way.”

You’re really watching this powerful man go through a very uncomfortable metamorphosis…

Going into the live-action movie, Butler wanted to protect some things about the character regardless of the format: “The big, the bravado. His humor, his doting on his kid – all of that I loved.” Fortunately, the live-action How to Train Your Dragon live-action remake retains a lot of what made the animated movie so special, but there are some changes that Butler acknowledges.

“The cracks in [Stoick’s] armor, I think you feel more deeply. You feel more of the softness behind the roar,” Butler says of his character who is often, well, pretty stoic. “There was a pathos in this that I found more affecting when I was playing it and also in watching it. You’re really watching this powerful man go through a very uncomfortable metamorphosis,” he continues, saying that this part of the film is “ultimately beautiful” and “intense.”

Check out our other interviews with the cast and director of How to Train Your Dragon.