This movie is a remake of the 2010 animated movie How to Train Your Dragon. That means it’s time once again to play Spot the Differences!
Although there are some changes that I personally don’t like, I think they did a great job overall. (Still, the original was better.)
DreamWorks did less revamping than Disney has been doing in their live-action remakes of animated classics. It may be that few changes seemed necessary because 2010 wasn’t that long ago (the live-action Cinderella movie was made 65 years after the 1950 original), or it may be because DreamWorks made a conscious decision to change as little as possible, or it may be both. (Often it’s both.)
So what did change, and why?
You probably don’t want to read this post if you haven’t seen the new movie, and it won’t make sense at all if you haven’t seen the new movie or the old movie. Instead, please enjoy this photo of the counter where I bought gelato after exiting the cinema.
Better story logic
There weren’t any plot holes as big as “Ariel signed a contract with Ursula so she clearly knows how to read and write and could have just written a note to Eric to say that she was the one who rescued him from drowning,” but the story logic of How to Train Your Dragon did improve in a number of ways.
The trainees are the fire brigade.
In the original movie, the group of young people who undergo dragon training with Hiccup in the ring of fire are maybe already running around fighting dragons during the attack at the beginning of the movie, which doesn’t make sense if they haven’t completed the dragon training yet. Hiccup is jealous because he isn’t allowed to help too. In the new movie, Hiccup’s voiceover introduces them as the fire brigade. He’s still jealous of them, but their status is more clearly defined as intermediate between him and the Viking adults.
Hiccup’s “fighting” techniques are more ambiguous.
This is a huge change. In both movies, it’s kinda strange that Hiccup’s father heard about how successful he was in dragon training, but didn’t hear about the nature of that success. In the original movie, the trainer and other trainees could clearly see Hiccup using nonviolent techniques. They were confused about how he knew what to do, but not about what he was doing. In the new movie, it’s not obvious to them that he isn’t actually fighting (see the list of his four techniques below), so it makes more sense that the chief would assume his success was of the conventional violent type.
Nonviolent technique #1: Hiccup uses an eel (which smells bad).
I don’t remember the order of the techniques, but the order isn’t important. Anyway, in both movies, Toothless refuses to eat an eel; later, Hiccup carries an eel into the ring and uses it to get one of the dragons to back off. In the original movie, my impression was that the dragons identified the eel by its colors, so Hiccup had to show it to the dragon in the ring. In the new movie, it seems the dragons identify the eel mainly by smell. The new movie only shows us the eel Hiccup is carrying after he has already pushed the dragon most of the way back to its cage. The people standing behind Hiccup probably can’t see the eel at all. At first I thought maybe this change was made because there is no real-world eel that looks bright and stripy like the one in the animated movie, so they made it a normal-looking eel that smells bad, for the sake of realism. But now I think the change was made because of story logic: the goal was to make the technique less obvious to the other characters.
Nonviolent technique #2: Hiccup uses a plant (but it’s a dandelion).
In the original movie, Hiccup observes Toothless rolling happily in a field of a certain type of grass. The effect is like catnip for a dragon. Hiccup takes some of this grass into the ring and uses it on a dragon during training, and the dragon likes it just as much and stops attacking. In the new movie, there is no dragon catnip. Instead, Hiccup notices Toothless sneezing in a field of dandelions, and takes a dandelion into the ring during training. The dragon’s sneezes use up the limited number of fire-spitting attacks. At first I thought the change was made because the effect of the dandelion is more intuitive to the kids in the movie’s target audience than the effect of catnip, or because the grass is like a drug, and Drugs Are Bad. But now I think the change was made because it’s a good defensive tactic to make the dragon sneeze and use up its attacks. Hiccup might plausibly want to make dragons sneeze even if he weren’t trying to avoid fighting them, so the technique isn’t suspicious.
Nonviolent technique #3: Hiccup scratches the sweet spot (and the dragon collapses).
In the original movie, Hiccup finds a particularly good place to scratch Toothless, which makes Toothless react with obvious happiness. In the new movie, this special scratching makes Toothless relax to the point of collapsing. Thus, when Hiccup uses this technique in the ring in the new movie, it seems as though he has done something really powerful to disable the dragon—especially because he uses the technique out of sight behind a wall. This change, more than the others, made it seem like the purpose of the changes was to hide Hiccup’s techniques from the other trainees.
Nonviolent technique #4: Hiccup uses a reflection (but not as obviously).
In both movies, Hiccup uses something metal to make a spot of light, which a small dragon chases. He uses the light to lead the dragon back to the cage. In the original movie, I think maybe it’s more obvious that he’s holding up something (a hammer or knife?) to create a reflection; in the new movie, he’s walking towards the dragon holding a shield (and using the metal stud in the center of the shield to make a reflection), so maybe the trainer and the other trainees just see him pushing the dragon back in front of him, and don’t see the reflection he’s making or how he’s making it, just as they didn’t see the eel.
The wisewoman keeps score.
In the original movie, there’s an old woman who doesn’t say anything but who approves of Hiccup and chooses him as the winner of dragon training. Maybe this seemed a little too arbitrary. In the new movie, she watches the dragon training carefully and keeps score.
The wisewoman advises the chief.
The wisewoman has a larger role in the new movie in general. The chief consults her (and she consults some oracle bones) before deciding to sail away to try to find the dragons’ nest. You could conclude that this change was made to show that the Vikings listen not only to a man boss but also to a woman boss because men and women are both important. Or you could be distracted by the superstitious use of bones to make decisions, like I was. However, upon reflection, I think the change was specifically made to show that the chief respects her advice, so that when she makes a surprising decision about the winner of dragon training, it is clear that her decision matters.
It’s possible to fail dragon training.
In the new movie, when dragon training begins, the dialog indicates that the twins have been through dragon training before and have failed to pass multiple times, and are embarrassed and defensive about being held back (and thus being older than the other trainees). This raises the stakes for Hiccup. Participating (and surviving) is not enough. Trainees are expected to reach some minimum standard, or they have to repeat the training.
Worse story logic
Arguably the following story changes also made the story better, but I have mixed feelings about them (at best).
The chief can choose anybody to be heir.
This is a huge change. In the original movie, it seemed certain that Hiccup would become the next chief. The question was whether he would be a good one. In the new movie, it is not certain that he will become the next chief. The dialog indicates that in Hiccup’s cohort, the chief is most impressed with Astrid and is considering choosing her as his heir instead of Hiccup. This change was probably intended to raise the stakes for Hiccup, but I don’t think it actually does. If Hiccup can relinquish the responsibility of being chief to someone else, he’s off the hook, and that’s a relief, even if it’s also a failure. If he has to be chief, he’s obliged to live up to the Vikings’ expectations (which to his credit, he eventually does, albeit in his own way). Surely the stakes are higher if he’s fighting his own image of himself as inadequate than if he’s competing with a peer—especially if in some sense he would prefer to lose! The fact that Astrid could become chief also drastically changes Hiccup’s relationship with her. In the original movie, she wanted to be a good fighter for the sake of being a good fighter, and didn’t care whether Hiccup succeeded (or even existed) as long as he stayed out of her way. She was proud, sure, but she was independent, not combative or resentful. In the new movie, her motivation is totally different, and she seems like much more of an antagonist to Hiccup. This makes their interactions during dragon training less lighthearted and flirty, and also makes it way less plausible that she joins him as an ally and supporter shortly after she learns his secret.
Astrid compares her background with Hiccup’s.
The new movie puts an anti-privilege screed into Astrid’s mouth. She angrily declares that Hiccup was only allowed to begin dragon training because his father the chief desired it, whereas she “came from nothing.” It’s an interesting contrast, but I’m not sure it belongs in this movie. Why amp up real reasons for bitter conflict, when she’s not supposed to be an enemy?
Astrid seems… I dunno, meaner?
The Astrid in the new movie is less confident, cheerful, and independent. I don’t know if it’s the dialog and story elements (as described above), the fact that she’s not a cartoon, the casting, the hairstyle, the acting, or (probably) a combination of several of these things, but I like the Astrid in the original movie better.
Hiccup’s “not so fireproof” eureka moment is missing.
In the original movie, Hiccup sees Toothless shoot into another dragon’s mouth and observes that dragons are “not so fireproof on the inside,” which gives him the idea for how to beat the huge dragon in the climactic battle later on. Arguably, a dragon should be fireproof on the inside, but this didn’t strike me as a logic problem or plot hole. In fact, I really missed Hiccup’s moment of realization in the new movie. In the new movie, in the climactic battle, there’s no sense of Hiccup going, “Now I can put to use something that I learned in my own secret observations.” It’s just a battle. Since Hiccup is supposed to be a cerebral sort of hero, I was disappointed.
Hiccup gets his cheatsheet back.
In both movies, Hiccup’s first successful flight with Toothless almost ends in disaster when he drops his cheatsheet. In the original movie, I don’t think he gets it back, which to me means he learned to stop anxiously overthinking. In the new movie, he somehow grabs the cheatsheet out of the air again. Maybe people didn’t believe Hiccup could operate the admittedly very new and unfamiliar tail mechanism successfully without the cheatsheet, but I find it even harder to believe that he could snatch the cheatsheet back out of the air after dropping it, and like I said, I think it’s better for his character not to need it as much as he thinks he does. Another change for the worse is that the music during the resulting plunge is silent, or at least a lot quieter, which is far less dramatic.
Astrid is flown to a rock.
In the original movie, Toothless grabs Astrid and puts her at the top of a tree. In the new movie, he puts her on a rock spire just off the coast. I think this change was made either because the rock spire was easier to film/animate, or because it looks more dangerous. I think the tree scene was funnier; it’s not clear that they needed to or should have put Astrid in (more) danger. Toothless could at least have left her on the top of the rock spire, which is 100% what I was expecting him to do, and would have been hilarious, rather than leaving her hanging off the side of a cliff! To be fair though, I think probably a big reason I dislike the change is that water makes me disproportionately nervous. There was no water under the tree.
There are Black and Asian Vikings.
Including Black and Asian actors and explaining that the Vikings of Berk came from all over the world to hunt dragons, (to show that representation is more important than faithfulness to the 2010 movie—or to common notions of what real Vikings were like), was more distracting than including mixed-race and non-white actors with no explanation (to show that anybody can be hired to play any role). The explicitly Black and Asian Vikings didn’t have any plot role—or any dialog, if I recall correctly—so they came across as useless new token characters badly shoehorned in. Maybe including these characters in the new movie establishes them in a way that provides the foundation for (or ties into) a television spinoff that focuses more on them and their people? That would make their addition make more sense.
Other differences
There’s less cartoonishness.
I’m happy that in the new movie the trainees and their dragons are less cartoony in their appearance and behavior, but I miss the stronger emotional expressiveness of the original movie’s Hiccup, Toothless, and Astrid. I guess you can’t have everything.
Hiccup makes a model of Toothless.
In the new movie, Hiccup is playing with a model of a night fury when his dad barges in to congratulate him on his dragon training success and give him the Viking, uh, breast hat. My first thought was that this change was made because the model is harder to hide and more incriminating if his dad sees it, so it raises the stakes. It might also have been added to show that Hiccup has engineering skills. I don’t think the change was necessary, but I don’t see any problem with it.
The dragon book has a special alcove.
In both movies, there’s a book that contains all the known dragon lore, and the trainees are supposed to read it. In the new movie, the trainer introduces the book as the Vikings’ most precious treasure, and unlocks it from a special box in a special alcove. Frankly, I was misled. The emphatic way the book was described sounded like strong foreshadowing that Hiccup would accidentally destroy the book and get in trouble—which didn’t happen. Maybe in the new movie, the book was supposed to sound more authoritative to make Hiccup seem crazier.
One twin is fat.
In the original movie, there was one extra-large-size trainee, Fishlegs, the guy who spouts dragon statistics. In the new movie, they made the girl twin fat too. I’m not sure why. It could be deliberate female body-positivity, or just a random casting decision, but I imagine it was purposely done to make the twins less similar—though it’s far from obvious that twin characters should be dissimilar, especially since they were quite similar in the original movie. In the new movie, there is (what I think is) a new joke about the twins: “Even our mother can’t tell us apart.” This is something that identical twins might say, but it doesn’t make sense for opposite-gender fraternal twins! If one twin is thin and one is fat, the joke is even more obviously sarcastic.
Snotlout gets a subplot.
In the new movie, there were several bits of dialog showing how hard one of the trainees was trying to impress his very-not-attentive dad. In the original, the dad was a minor character, but if their relationship was fraught, I don’t remember it being emphasized, I just remember Snotlout being annoying. I like that in the new movie we can kinda understand the reason why he’s going around awkwardly boasting all the time, and I like how he proudly explains the etymology of his name.
The island of Berk has a different backstory.
In the new movie, Hiccup’s initial voiceover says the buildings of Berk are all new. At first I thought this meant they had just rebuilt everything because dragons burned it all down in a raid. But I think the statement is actually meant to be an indication that this hasn’t been the Vikings’ home for generations, it’s a relatively recent settlement: a temporary place where they came (from all over the world, see above) specifically to hunt dragons. I’m not sure how I feel about this new backstory. Whether it turns out that the change makes sense overall will depend on where they take the story in the next two movies, which I guess I hope they make.
We don’t see the trainees leaving Berk on their dragons.
I think in the original movie, we see the trainees fly off to help their parents. In the new movie, we only see them riding dragons when they arrive at the dragons’ nest. Maybe this makes their arrival more dramatic. Or maybe it saves time. Or maybe the moviemakers didn’t want to do the filming and CGI for so many dragons and humans since the scene wasn’t super important. I imagine making this movie was kinda like making two entire movies, one using CGI and one using people. But actually, it was probably harder than making two separate movies would have been, because all the bits have to mesh well. In addition, there’s the challenge of making improvements to the original without wrecking anything or upsetting people too much! And they say Hollywood is trying to play safe by doing remakes… I have a hard time imagining that this project ever felt safe! Seems like a huge challenge and a huge risk.
(Box office says: it’s a hit! My opinion: good. They earned it.)
