The world certainly isn’t aching for more live-action remakes. Disney’s offerings have ranged from the not too bad to the just OK to the downright terrible. But sometimes, a remake is more than a cash grab, and it comes just when you need it.
Such is the case with Dreamworks’s How to Train Your Dragon, whose animated predecessor arrived in theaters 15 years ago to much acclaim, earning Oscar nominations for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score. Its live-action reprisal, now in theaters, is well-suited for a return to the big screen, especially in IMAX: Its dragons are even more thunderous and fearsome than before.
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But it’s not just the change in form that makes How to Train Your Dragon worth the ticket price. Its central conflict, between a loving but misguided father and his brains-over-brawn son, feels particularly compelling today as conversations about masculinity dominate headlines and we recognize the importance of modeling manhood for the next generation.
Stoick the Vast, a Viking tribe chief and father to our hero, Hiccup, is not just a guy’s guy — he’s practically a mythical creature himself. He’s the type of dude who punches dragons with his bare fists and bangs his head against a rock until it breaks. So he’s more than a little disappointed when his son would rather invent things than fight dragons.
Hiccup, who shows both tenderness and grit in his decision to rehabilitate and train the deadly night fury dragon he happens to catch with a one-in-a-million shot, eventually proves to his father that manliness doesn’t have to mean scars or severed limbs, though, in Hiccup’s case, it ultimately does.
The new How to Train Your Dragon expands on this father-son dynamic, even adding a foil not present in the original. The character Snotlout, one of Hiccup’s peers, particularly known for his posturing, is shown to have a father who pays little attention to him, revealing that his seeming arrogance and petty bullying come from an insecure parental attachment.
Though the new How to Train Your Dragon is a near shot-for-shot remake of the original, repurposing most of its dialogue and character dynamics, it also adds some depth to the relationship between Stoick and Hiccup.
In the original, Stoick moves to resolve things with Hiccup before his son dives into battle with a giant dragon.
“I’m proud to call you my son,” Stoick says, to which Hiccup simply responds, “Thanks, Dad.”
In the remake, the moment is underscored by Hiccup’s new response, telling his father that that’s all the encouragement he needs.
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When various modern parenting forums are advising fathers and mothers to forgo “I’m proud of you”s, too codependent, in favor of “you must be proud of yourself”s, setting children up for emotional self-sufficiency, the moment is a touching illustration of fatherly and filial love. Sometimes, sons really do need to hear that their fathers are proud of them, and that’s what inspires them to acts of bravery.
How to Train Your Dragon could have benefited from a little more differentiation from its predecessor. After all, the 2010 film is based somewhat loosely on the first book in a series of the same name, meaning there were other angles for exploration. But fans of the original will be gratified to see a faithful adaptation of the animated version, and one that emphasizes the importance of fathers, Viking or otherwise.