What I Learned from 'How to Train Your Dragon' ... the Live Action Remake

You want to know the most important skill you need to have a successful career in Hollywood?

It’s not writing ability (though it helps).

It isn’t about how well you can format a screenplay either …

And it sure as hell ain’t being a great assistant (trust me, decision-makers don’t give two shits about that).

Nope, it’s networking. How good are you at meeting people? At making them remember you? At getting them to like and want to work with you?

At the end of the day, Hollywood is a sales business. And you have to be good at selling yourself.

Which is why I ended up going to my fair share of parties in my twenties. Not because I wanted to go, but because I was supposed to be there to “network.”

Except I sucked at it. No joke, I was downright terrible.

I would so much rather be doing anything else than making small talk with a bunch of people I don’t know, and whom I will likely never see again. Truly, I’d rather be in a dentist’s chair listening to Creed while I get my molars drilled to the nubs than do that.

With this in mind, I want you to think back to 2015 and imagine young Spike, red solo cup in hand, fifty pounds overweight, and zero fashion sense, standing awkwardly in a corner of a crowded room at someone’s house in the Hollywood Hills, desperately looking for something to do other than talk to people I didn’t know. I weaved through a sea of other twenty-somethings much better at this than I was, dodged a chatty-Kathy who certainly would have locked me up for hours, and stiff-armed an annoying intern I had met earlier that evening, before ducking into another room of the house. And it was there I found it. The answer to my prayers. It was playing on a TV at the far end, in beautiful high definition:

How to Train Your Dragon. The original version. In all its animated glory.

Seriously, this movie was so good, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I was transfixed. It was love at first sight. I think I spent the rest of that party parked on the sofa, not talking to anyone, totally in love with this film.

That might have been the first time I saw HTTYD, but it certainly wasn’t the last. In fact, I’ve probably watched this movie hundreds of times in the decade-plus that it’s been out. It has quickly moved into my top five movies of all time and has become a constant reference point when I’m trying to teach young writers about good story structure.

To me, it is flawless. A movie that does everything right. Literal perfection in cinematic form.

So, you can probably guess that when I heard a live-action, shot-for-shot remake was coming out, I had loads of feelings about the matter.

At first, I swore off watching it; I had literally no notes on the original … How could they make it any better? And I kept that stance for a long ol’ while.

But when I offered to take my Dad to a drive-in theater for his birthday (an admittedly cool experience), he asked for the date when they were showing … Well, I don’t need to say it. You can probably already guess.

Sigh …

The fact of the matter is, I watched it. A remake of one of my favorite movies of all time. And while my eyeballs didn’t burst into flames upon viewing, I do have some thoughts about the decisions that were made. And hopefully, my musings can teach y’all a thing or two about filmmaking in the process.

Without further ado, let’s dive in:

MUSIC MATTERS A LOT MORE THAN YOU REALIZE

While this isn’t something you can utilize when writing scripts (I’m a staunch proponent of the idea that you DON’T specify music cues in spec stage), I also couldn’t help but notice how differing music cues between the versions changed huge emotional moments. And honestly, not for the better.

My favorite scene from the original is the “first flight.” Essentially the midpoint; this is where Hiccup and Toothless go flying together for the very first time … and of course, everything goes horribly wrong. While testing out their new partnership, Hiccup gets separated from his dragon, who can’t fly without him. Both enter a freefall which, should they not succeed in reuniting, will result in certain death for our heroes.

Let’s put aside the master craftsmanship of this scene for a second and just focus on the tension (literally, the scene contains every element needed to be successful, but I digress). One of the things that makes it so great is the music. The orchestral melody as the pair fly around. The gradual build in power as they gain confidence in one another. And the utter devastation when the trouble starts. The music leads the emotional journey of the viewer through the scene, and as the pair tumble through the skies, the music keeps us on the edge of our seats.

In the live-action version, the filmmakers decided to … mess with perfection, for some reason? The music here is entirely different, and, in my opinion, it’s not nearly as impactful. I promise this isn’t just my internal bias talking here … Legit, this scene fell flat and didn’t deliver the way I expected it to. And I would argue a majority of the reason why is because the music didn’t slap.

As screenwriters, we like to believe that we hold the ultimate power over the audience. That our scenes will be effective because we write in the proper amount of tension, conflict, emotion, and stakes. But the facts are that’s not entirely true. There are way more elements that influence the impact of a scene than just our skill on the page.

Music, as proven here, plays a bigger role than we probably want to admit.

THERE WERE SOME CHANGES THAT *GASP* I LIKED

While, yes, I do consider the original HTTYD film a masterpiece, there were some sections where I thought the new one beefed up a bit. Namely, giving Astrid a deeper and more emotionally charged backstory helped to make her character more well-rounded and real.

In the animated version, Astrid is portrayed as a savant. The “naturally gifted” dragon killer who the whole clan believes will be a success. And she gets angry at Hiccup when he starts winning the dragon trials and stealing her thunder. She’s the “all-star quarterback” in every high school story ever … the character who wins because they’re just “the best” for no good reason. It’s a perfectly reliable trope, but the new movie found a way to improve upon that.

In this version, her motivations run deeper. During one tense scene, she explicitly calls out Hiccup’s privilege as the son of the chief. She doesn’t have the blessing to come from such lineage. Her family is nothing … becoming a top-tier dragon killer is not only a way to keep her village safe, but it’s a way to secure her family legacy.

Sure, some might call it “woke” to bring privilege into a fantasy story. But it worked for me, and I actually liked Astrid’s character a lot better because of it.

IT’S DAMN NEAR IMPOSSIBLE TO CAPTURE LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE TWICE

I’ve seen the original film at least a hundred times in my life. I can tell you with great certainty, what every single shot, every angle … hell, maybe even what every line of dialogue that comes next is.

So, I can tell you that the live-action remake is basically a shot-for-shot remake. Yes, there are some differences. There are dialogue tweaks, added or extended scenes, and slightly different angles at times … but it’s 85% the same movie.

And it isn’t nearly as good. Flat out. No argument. It’s just not the same.

Again, I don’t say this as someone who was always going to hate this version. I say this as an objective analyzer of narrative storytelling. This version missed out on the magic.

Because it’s damn near impossible to capture lightning in a bottle twice.

Back in 1998, acclaimed filmmaker Gus Van Sant directed a shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock’s Psycho. Vince Vaughn starred as Norman Bates. But every line, every shot, every angle was the same as the original.

It’s close to unwatchable—while the first one still remains a highly engaging film decades later.

Cinema is a group project. As much as we, as writers, want to believe it’s our baby, at some point, our child is going to grow up. It’s gonna go off to college. It’s gonna make friends that we don’t know and whom we can’t control. And those friends are going to influence our child in ways we may not like.

Those friends are the director, the actors, the costume/set/production designer. And they won’t always make choices that are best for our beloved baby.

Filmmaking is a team game. Only when everyone is executing their job at a high level are you going to get a great result. And sometimes … very rarely … when everyone does their job to perfection … you get a masterpiece like the original HTTYD.

It doesn’t happen often. Which is why we should treasure the times it does.

Sort of like how true friendship between people … or a boy and his pet dragon … should be treasured, too.

Godspeed y’all, and happy writing.

*Feature photo: How to Train Your Dragon (Universal)