After debuting an excerpt of the film during the Super Bowl, Universal Pictures has released the full trailer for How to Train Your Dragon, a live-action remake of the beloved animated film from DreamWorks Animation.
As an animated trilogy, How to Train Your Dragon centred on the growing relationship between a young, clumsy Viking teen and aspiring dragon hunter named Hiccup and Toothless, an injured dragon he saves. Meanwhile, the female lead, Astrid, progresses from someone prejudiced against dragons to a warrior bonded to one.
Writer-director Dean DeBlois’ film stars Mason Thames as Hiccup and Nico Parker as Astrid. Also in the cast are Gerard Butler, Nick Frost, Julian Dennison, Gabriel Howell, Bronwyn James, Harry Trevaldwyn, Ruth Codd, Peter Serafinowicz and Murray McArthur.
This live-action feature is based on the 2010 animated film that DeBlois had co-directed with Chris Sanders, itself inspired by the book series from Cressida Cowell. DeBlois, Marc Platt and Adam Siegel also serve as producers.
During a trailer-unveiling event, DeBlois discussed the origins of the new movie (as relayed by The Hollywood Reporter). “With the rushed production schedule and the limited resources that we had on that first movie for DreamWorks, there were things that we skipped past that we could have maybe done a little more justice to — some of the characters, some of the depth of relationships and the immersive action,” he said. “It’s a reimagining that holds quite faithful to the story and yet finds moments where we could enrich character relationships, give a bit of depth, give a little bit of mythology that might have been lacking in that original.”
DeBlois explained that he always felt the character of Astrid “was a little underserved” in the original film: “Nico Parker plays Astrid, [and] that feeds into this idea that she has come from a different culture, that she is a descendant of one of those prized dragon-fighting warriors that were collected by Vikings in different places. She hopes to be chief of this tribe one day. She’s got great ambition, and what’s nice about it is that it creates a conflict between she and Hiccup.”
The director also explained his desire not to make the dragons too anthropomorphic. “The challenge has been upon our animators to do exactly what our DreamWorks animators had to do, which is watch a whole lot of dog, cat and horse videos and find those cues that we humans interpret as being the attitudes that we want to be expressed, so that we don’t sacrifice personality,” DeBlois said. “With every dragon, there’s a sense of reinvention because some of them were cartoonier than others.”
Watch the trailer for How to Train Your Dragon below.
