Visual effects have advanced to the point where things only previously brought to life through animation can now be portrayed in live-action, such as How To Train Your Dragon. Cressida Cowell’s book series spawned an animated trilogy — 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon, 2014’s How To Train Your Dragon 2 and 2019’s How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.
After Disney used this advanced VFX to bring its animated hits such as The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and, most recently, Lilo & Sтιтch, to life in live-action, Universal and DreamWorks Animation teamed up to deliver a live-action version of How to Train Your Dragon that was just as successful as its animated predecessor, earning rave reviews.
The film was also a box office hit, taking in $262.9 million domestic and $635.7 million worldwide from a $150 million budget, besting the original animated film ($217.5 million domestic and $494.8 million worldwide from a $165 million budget). Now that its theatrical run has come to an end, How to Train Your Dragon has arrived for streaming on Peacock starting this weekend.
An ᴀssist And Inspiration From Game Of Thrones
While this is the first DreamWorks Animation тιтle to get the live-action treatment, Disney has flourished in recent years with live-action pH๏τography and realistic visual effects for animated elements. Although Universal and DreamWorks were no doubt inspired by Disney’s success, it’s possible that the success of HBO’s Game of Thrones may have paved the way for this project as well.
While dragons don’t exist on this real planet of Earth, they do exist in the fictional realm of Westeros on HBO’s Game of Thrones, where dragons play a crucial role. The series debuted in 2011, a year after the first animated How to Train Your Dragon, which depicted dragons quite realistically through these effects techniques. Director Dean DeBlois revealed in a THR interview that GoT was an inspiration.
“Game of Thrones definitely brought dragons back into the cultural conversation in the way that we had started with [2010’s] How to Train Your Dragon. So there was great potential in seeing these individual species brought to life in a very credible way, and that was immediately appealing to the studio and to me,” DeBlois said.
A Cast Of Characters Brought To Real Life
There are many benefits to animation, including the flexibility that can be afforded with voice actors. For example, nobody batted an eyelash when Jay Baruchel was cast to voice 16-year-old Hiccup when he was 28, nor did they do so when America Ferrera signed on for Astrid. However, that flexibility is much more rigid when it comes to live-action characters.
This particular production did an incredible job with age-appropriate characters, with 18-year-old Mason Thames playing the 16-year-old Hiccup, and 20-year-old Nico Parker as his partner Astrid. It was also quite a brilliant move to have Gerard Butler return as Hiccup’s intimidating father Stoick The Vast, Cheiftan of Berk and Hiccup’s father, after he voiced the character in the animated films.
The cast is rounded out by Nick Frost as Goober (voiced by Craig Ferguson in the animated films), Gabriel Howell as Snotlout (Jonah Hill), Julian Dennison as Fishlegs (Christopher Mintz-Plᴀsse), Bronwyn James and Harry Trevaldwyn as twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut (Kristen Wiig and T.J. Miller), and Peter Serafinowicz as Spitelout (David Tennant).
A Beloved Story In Live-Action
Fans clearly resonate with this story, both in live-action and animation. Both versions take place on the island of Berk, where generations of Vikings were taught how to slay the vicious dragons that have attacked from above for centuries. Hiccup lacks his father’s physical prowess, but it’s his empathy and compᴀssion that become his greatest strengths.
Hiccup forms a bond with the dragon Toothless, proving that dragons aren’t all to be feared in this wonderful story thats now streaming on Peacock.
