How to Train Your Dragon - Should you Mess with Perfection?

Summary

In this episode of Movie Shelf, hosts Cory and Heather discuss the live action remake of How to Train Your Dragon, sharing their thoughts on the film's characters, animation quality, and how it compares to the original animated version. They also touch on the future of live action remakes and share insights on upcoming movies, all while enjoying a side of bacon.

Takeaways

The live action remake of How to Train Your Dragon stays true to the original story.
Character development in the live action version was appreciated, but some humor was missed.
The animation quality of the dragons was impressive and engaging for younger audiences.
The film's direction by Dean DeBlois added authenticity to the remake.
Cory and Heather both enjoyed the film, but the original animated version holds a special place in their hearts.
The live action version is longer than the animated one, adding more character depth.
Future live action remakes are a topic of concern for the hosts, especially regarding character integrity.
Upcoming movies discussed include Elio and Jurassic World Rebirth.
The hosts emphasize the importance of watching the original animated films for context.
The episode concludes with a fun segment connecting actors through their film roles.

Bacon Reminders

In this episode, connect Gerard Butler to Scarlett Johansson.

Transcript

I'm Heather. And I'm Cory. And this is Movie Shelf, where we talk about movies, movie trivia, and just about anything related to pop culture. We're glad you're here. In today's episode, we're talking about the new live action-ish remake of How to Train Your Dragon. We'll also talk about movies coming out, and of course, we'll enjoy a side of bacon. Mmm, bacon.

So, as we dive in about this movie, How to Train Your Dragon follows the story of a young Viking teen named Hiccup. He lives on the island of Berk and his village is continually raided by dragons. Hiccup also has the reputation of being different and often the cause of disaster, which is evident from the opening scene of the movie. If I was there, I would refer to him as being

AP. That's the acronym for Accident prone. Yes. Which Cory decided to give to me, ⁓ way back in our early days of dating, particularly when I turned on the lights of his ceiling fan and the light came crashing down on me. The globe detached and crashed on your head. Yes. And I felt so awful. You did. Cause you apparently had a broken thing up there.

Anyway, okay, back to Hiccup. But on top of all of this, this, you know, him being different, being a little disaster prone, all that good stuff. He is also the son of the chief. And in the movie, after his dad, the chief sets off for another search of the dragon's nest. Hiccup is sent off to dragon training.

all while he has secretly befriended a night fury dragon. So he's, he's training on how to kill dragons all while actually training himself how to, ride dragons. ⁓ yes. The most dangerous and fearful of dragons. Yes. The night fury. Yes. Okay.

So the movie stars Gerard Butler, is actually reprising his role as stoic the chief. It also stars Mason Thames or Thames. I apologize. didn't check on the pronunciation there as Hiccup. Nico Parker as Astrid. Nick Frost as Gobber. Gabriel Howell as Snotlout.

Julian Dennison as fish legs and Bronwyn James as rough nut and Harry Tebel Duane as tough nut so the only people I really recognize of course are Gerard Butler and Nick Frost and then we saw Mason in the Black Phone he was the main kid in that movie

And Nick Frost if you're not remembering Cory, he's he's the partner of like not partner, but the buddy of Simon Pegg like doing ⁓ The Dead and he was also in one of our episodes. He was the dad in fighting with my family. okay

let's kind of go and talk about some of our likes and dislikes. However, I want to preface that the filmmakers were already starting with an absolutely stellar story from the original animated version of this movie series. Yeah, so.

The original is one of my all time favorite movies. I mean, it is near and dear to my

I was almost on the line of, know, if you stay true to the content, yeah, you can't go wrong. But you know, if you try to change it too much, ooh, they could really bombshell it too. And so also though, in addition to...

one of the key voice actors reprising his role as Gerard Butler. This film is directed and written by Dean Del Bloy, one of the original directors and screenplay writers who's been involved in the entire series. So obviously it was made by someone who truly loves this content, this story and everything.

So it isn't, this isn't a re-imagining of the film. It truly is bringing the original to a new life. With that, Corey, what did you like or maybe not like about this new film? Okay. So let me just use it as an example. The, uh, the lion King. Yeah, that was not anything. There was nothing live in there, but it was too much.

shot for shot the same. And I think a of people were disappointed that they weren't wanting something a little more, but. Well, they definitely didn't have the scars kind of military hyena scene. Yeah. Yeah. Some of these left out of it, but, some, and some people may dislike about that with the dragon remake. However, I appreciated how loyal they were to the original story. Yeah.

I was thinking that, you know, maybe because we've seen this, the original film a lot, and going for what you said though, as spot on as this version, this live version was, there were some voice moments that, I would miss every now and then, particularly with gobbers. So in the animated version, he's voiced by Craig Ferguson and

And he is just a delight to listen to. And I found myself every now and then just missing a little bit of his tone and quirkiness. Some of the humor was not, come through. Like, when they were getting, when they made the decision, they're going to go find that. All right, let me go peg my undies. You know, that wasn't in there. Like, come on. Yeah. So I I think I just missed a little bit of that from, think, particularly from gobbler. The teens were fine. Astrid. would have liked.

Again, she was voiced by America Ferrera and she's got such a unique voice. So I would have liked for Nico's version to just have been a little, just a little more spunky. Cause like the animated Astrid, I think was very spunky and you know, and I think we just need just a little bit more of that from Nico. Nonetheless, still thoroughly enjoyed it.

I did appreciate the explanations. and I don't want to, I don't want to go too far down hole. A little bit of foreshadowing of, um, well, well, hold on. Let me just finish. Okay. I don't want go. I mean, I'll be on the same way. I don't want to too far down a rabbit hole, but there was, an element of diversity in the village, but I appreciated how they introduced it and explained it that they, that people came from all over.

on this hunt and survival from the dragons. so ⁓ the scene that, in fact, that whole scene was different of ⁓ Stoic rallying the troops to go on the final dragon hunt and saying, you came from the Silk Road and you came from here and you came from here. And so I appreciated that. And it also just brought a little bit of different element.

I appreciated that. And I, but I was also, I thought it was interesting that in the animated version, he, he throws kind of hiccup under the bus in that scene. Cause he's like, if you don't go, you gotta watch it. And, but he, didn't do that in this movie. So I appreciated that. cause I think maybe it just, worked, I guess a little bit better, ⁓ perhaps for the live version.

I think we both missed a scene in the big, you know, flying, the first kind of good flying scene and Hiccup does the hooray. And in the animated version, there's another moment there where Toothless does a celebratory fire flame. And they didn't do that. And it's just, it's just in the animated version, it's very iconic.

And so watching this version, was just like, didn't, they didn't do that. So I don't know if they just thought like, ⁓ that probably, you know, would burn them up a little too much. know, cause you know, do close does his burst and then they go through the burst and you know, so maybe they thought that would not be, or they just wanted to save his burst for later. Who knows? But it's okay. It's okay.

But it was interesting because I felt like in the animated version, right after that scene, we learned about something that is key to the end of the movie, like a foreshadowing for the end of the movie, but it wasn't in the live action. So I thought that was interesting. Like they took away that foreshadowing element. Yeah. I had to take a little kid on the pee break during that. I missed if that was in there or not. So yes. Yeah. We took our

We took our nephew who just turned 16 and we took our three-year-old who adores the animated version of the movie And it was really cool to watch him Be so engrossed in this one because of course the dragons Which are obviously not live but very digital but very robust and loud and really cool looking well, they're realistic looking enough for him

Oh yeah. watching the animated movie, he never gets scared. Watching this one, I mean, he, mean, it was a little bit of a nail biter for him. The fingers were coming up to the mouth like, Ooh, Ooh, Ooh, you know, and he can, and there was some jump moments for him and he never had that before. So it definitely brought it. mean, for, for a mind of a, of of a kid, it definitely brought it up a few notches. Yes.

But as soon as the movie was over, he was like, can we watch it again? was like, well, it doesn't quite work that way. but speaking of that though, the dragon animation, I know you had mentioned like in the previews, I think you were very skeptical of this. I think when I saw the first trail for it, maybe they were not finished with the digitization or the animation of it. Maybe there was some

ironing out to do still and maybe the first trailer got a little bit of a rough cut with how they were making the dragons look is my guess. Cause I don't recall looking that crude in the movie how it looked when I saw the first trailer for first time. So yeah, I thought they looked great. Yeah. Maybe because the fact that there are dragons, um, they weren't a big, except for maybe that, that nightmare wine. Um, the, know, the one that is

Like makes himself also on fire. Well, yeah, he secretes there his little flames up through his pores and he lights himself on fire. That's what they do. So awesome. He looked really, really cool. But, you know, like when you watch ⁓ like the Jurassic movies, like the dinosaurs are just amazing to look at. And maybe because some of them they do also, at least in the original Jurassic Park, you know, there was digital, but there was also like a

Refinement. Well, there's level of refinement to their digital work. ⁓ But I was also getting, you know, special effects, like animatronics and things like that. anyway, so sometimes ⁓ they look just really, really real. And you, you know, you're just kind of right there in there with the actors. And this one, you know, like I said, maybe because it's dragons, you know, you know, well, there's no dragons. ⁓

And although there's no dinosaurs right now either. But anyway, that was just the one thing that, you know, they looked excellent. They looked great. and so they're perfect for this type of movie where anyone really can come see it. mean, obviously, we brought our kiddo and engrossed him already into things that are might be a little scarier for the average three year old. But I think it plays well on all levels.

I know I rambled through that horribly, but that's okay. Any other likes or dislikes that you wanted to address? Well, I mean, if you're to play both movies side by side, they're not going to match up. mean, the live action one is 20 minutes longer about than the image. you know, there are scenes where, you know, they added a few more seconds to this scene, a few more seconds to that scene to, I mean, just to add a little bit more character. Some scenes were different, but

the most of the changes, whatever a few changes that were, I did appreciate. Yeah. So like, ⁓ for example, when he was doing the dragon school training and getting ideas from toothless, mean, on the original one, there's the thing with the grass. Yeah. was like catnip to like allergies. ⁓ so yeah. the animated, grass was like a catnip and in the, in the live action, it's more like

You know, it wasn't, yeah, exactly. I appreciate the changes like

All right. So, Cory. Yes. What's the verdict? Does it make the movie shelf or not?

Oh, it's, it's, it's coming on the shelf. No doubt. It's already on there. I mean, if it could be on there, I'd be on there. Oh yeah.

I definitely put a resounding yes. but I have a bonus question. I'm, pretty confident of this answer, but which do you like more? Ooh. Okay. Here's the scenario. I'm at home, nothing to do. I turn on the TV, I'm flipping through the movie, movie channels.

Let's say one is showing the animated version, the other is showing the new version. Ooh, what do I turn it to?

You know, uh, for, for now I'm going to have to say the new one because the, original, you know, is one those where I've seen it, you know, with my son a hundred times and I have not gone through that yet with the new one. yeah. Yeah. It's a little fresher. Yeah. I would say that the animation still reigns, but the remake is a very nice alternative. It is a very welcome. Yeah. edition.

I would say for anyone who hasn't seen the animated, see it. The cast, the voice cast that they have for that whole series, there's three of them. And that third one is our most popular episode for movie shelf.

Granted, we did not have episodes for the first two. That is true. But it's our most popular ever episode of Movie Shelf is us talking about the third movie. Anyway, so I highly recommend still checking out the original animated movies. The voice casting is great. Gerard Butler did a fantastic job still reprising his role as Stoic. It is interesting.

And maybe it's just because as he's aged, your voice changes still slightly even as you get a little older. Cause in the animated, I feel like he has more high pitched moments, just maybe just of the quirkier kind of like. Cause it's been what about 15 years since the first animated? I think so. Jay Baruchel, great as Hiccup. He's just, I mean, he's a comedian.

He's sarcastic through it all. Mason may not have been as sarcastic as Jay was as his, you know, for Hiccup. ⁓ We definitely miss Ferguson. Yes, definitely miss Craig Ferguson. ⁓ That that was the like I said, the main voice that I was missing. ⁓ Nick Frost is great, but he just wasn't the same level of quirkiness as Gunnberg. He just wasn't Craig. And ⁓ but yeah, but the casting is still great in the original.

Anyway, so for sure this movie makes the movie shelf. When we finished watching it in the theater, obviously our son was like, I want to watch it again. Our nephew was ready for the second one to come out. yeah. We did think it was interesting. The closing credits. The music was the song that is used in the second movie. So now we're like, ⁓ are they for sure making the second?

So if they are indeed making us the second one in a live action, I do hope they include one of the key characters from that movie and that would be Kate Blanchett. and so, cause I think she would, she would be excellent with it.

Okay, so now thinking about our episode picks, I wanted us to just briefly, briefly kind of assess some quick, other live action remakes that we've seen and, know, the past decades probably. Okay. So, and I'm thinking more along the ones that are trying to be a little bit more seen from scene. So yeah, I think you missed them for so a remake like

Pete's Dragon, we're not concerning it like. It's in a different, it's a different interpretation altogether. There is no light house. yeah. No side by side comparison. It's a whole new story just reimagined. Yes. And then there's even, there's some TV shows like the Flintstones or Scooby-Doo and you know, they made their own live action, but they're not really, taking a Flintstone movie and making it live action or.

the exact scenario from the show and making a live action. It's just Flintstones. Well, I'm not sure there's a Flintstones animated movie. Well, there's probably I'm pretty sure there's an animated movies. Nonetheless, although they did a great job actually with the Flintstones live action. But again, different kind of scenario. So we're thinking about kind of the more scene to scene. I'm still waiting for the Jetsons.

And wasn't there like a crossover or something like Jetsons and the Plainsones or something? Anyway, so on the list, I'm not even including Maleficent because they again, they kind of really diverted from that, well, you know, the Sleeping Beauty storyline. I mean, it's not even titled the same, so you really can't consider a remake. Yes. All right. So there's the whole, oh no, let's make victims out of the villains.

Yeah, yeah, to me that was kind one of the first that started doing that. All right, so we have on the list and there are plenty more that are not ones that we'll talk about, but we may not have really seen them or I couldn't remember them well enough to want to talk about them. All right, so on the list we have Beauty and the Beast.

Animated all the way. don't care to see the live action one. Yeah. And this is an important movie for us because this was the theme of our wedding. All because of Corey. What are you trying to say? That you were the one that first brought Beauty and the Beast into our lives as a couple. Anyway, so we were excited, yes, to see the live action, but a little disappointed. So it definitely felt funny. Animated all the way. Yep.

Alright, Mulan.

I actually don't really remember too much of the live action version, but the animated is so fun. is. And it has some of my favorite animated scenes of all animated movies. Oh the avalanche scene. Oh yeah. And then the, mountain scene and them coming down the mountain and the, the, bird view of them coming down. I mean, it's just top notch animation. Just awe inspiring. All right. So none of that in the live action. So yeah.

So definitely animated. And too many changes to the story about, her being a witch. you're like, All right. Little mermaid. I'm going animated all the way. Animated all the way. I already forgot the live action. Pinocchio.

Although I'm not even sure if you actually like Pinocchio. You know, it's one those movies that has such weird, creepy scenes in it. Boys turning into the donkeys and the weird carnival scenes and it's, it's just. So it's not when you're anxious to show No, no, it's not. And I didn't care that much about the live action remake either. yeah, I'm, I'm.

There were quirky things that I liked about the live action, which is like all the cuckoo clocks, like there were lots of Easter eggs in the cuckoo clocks. So I would say that, Pinocchio itself is probably really low on our list. I was I was actually OK with the live action, even though I know it bombed ⁓ for the most part. But maybe I just had really low expectations and I liked the cuckoo Easter egg.

And he got the weird andromedist looking fairy parent ⁓ being can't say mother or father because you weren't sure what they were going with there. So then we have the Grinch or Dr. Seuss's how the Grinch stole Christmas.

I'm gonna stick with the animation. I am also sticking with the animation. Like the original, you know, 20 minute animation. I mean, they did a lot of great work. Well, how would you compare it with the Cumberbatch animation? But I like Cumberbatch. Yeah, and Kiddo loves Cumberbatch.

Aladdin. Aim it all away. I mean.

Robin Williams, mean, need say no more. All right. So, and we did an episode on this one and, I, think I leaned on that. I think I enjoyed it more than you did. So I was actually the live action. I was actually okay with it. and, and I'm actually curious, cause we posed the question and I, I can't remember now if we were even, this would have been pre any potential kid, but anyway.

So we talked about like, if I was to ever have a kid, what I want to show, which one would I want to show them? And I kind of almost leaned on the newer one for various reasons, but they're both great. or again, I enjoyed them both. The one advantage to showing the remake to kids is that the original has a lot of

older pop culture ever since that they're just going to go right over the kids. They're not going to have any clue who the, like Ed McBand or no, not even man. The, the Johnny Carson thing, right? Yeah. Johnny Carson and the, uh, like the Macy parade announcers and stuff like that. not going to know any of that stuff.

Here's one that I thought was interesting or that I thought was interesting to add to the list. The last Airbender. Oh gosh, really? You're gonna put that in there? Well, we definitely know which one we like. Well, okay, first of all, there was no animated Airbender movie. Yeah, but the movie definitely was all of the first season.

So you put several errors, mean, many errors of content, try to cram it into a two hour live action movie. It was a flop. was awful. Bad, bad, bad, bad. So for anyone who has ever watched the live action Airbender, and if you didn't like it, make sure you watch the animated series because it is absolutely excellent. Yes. It is witty and the animation is great and the

plots are intriguing. okay. And then let's see. I'm a little indifferent on this one because it's a little kind of like, the lion King, where it's not really live action, but jungle book. Cause yes, we do have a real boy, but he's still with bunch of digital. Was he, I think he was with a bunch of digital. can't remember now. Anyway, what'd you think of that one though? This is the 2016 jungle book. Yeah. ⁓ okay.

I'm gonna go animated.

Yeah, I'm still going to go with animated. But you like the 90s thing, right? But that's a little different. Yeah, yeah. It's a different story. This one here is they're trying to keep the characters the same. So for the list, a little bit more original to the storyline. But I appreciate a little bit more than most of the other remakes that they've done. Interesting. It's it's really hard to beat some of those

classic Disney voices though, the blue bear and I mean, and the snake and all that good stuff. All right. And so I wanted to put on the list because we did, ⁓ watch it and it's kind of the, competing movie of the moment Lilo and Stitch. Okay. So for some reason, I don't have a very clear memory of the original. It may have been one of those

once was enough for me movies seen at once. by the time the, this live eyes remake came around, I probably forgotten most of the original. So I watched it with a new, almost with a fresh perspective with no expectations. So watch it like that. I enjoyed it. Yeah, I liked it. ⁓ and I definitely enjoyed it. I was okay with changes that they made.

I know that there were some individuals that did not like exactly how the the end played out because it it is slightly different than the original animated ⁓ with regard to the sisters. So essentially Lilo and her sister.

I really enjoyed the movie and I thought they did a great job on, making it a live action transition. I thought stitch looked great.

And the two guys were quirky. other alien guys were quirky. Anyway, but I thought it was really cool as we were watching the closing credits and they listed executive producer, I recognized a name and that was Louie Provost. And so I really wanted to give a shout out to Louie. Great job. Louie is a friend from high school and also ⁓ the inspiration for us.

having a side of Bacon because he is the one who introduced me to the whole six degrees of Kevin Bacon concept. introduced you to the original board game. Well, not the board game, but just the concept. OK. And which then I kind of passed it on to my family and we just gobbled it up. And at some point I did get a board game. ⁓ Although we do it our own, obviously, our own version of the six degrees.

way to go, Louie. Congratulations on this production.

Movies coming out Cory.

Okay. ⁓ let's just talk about a few of them because there we've been keeping lots of notes. but we have Elio.

I think that's how you say it. That one comes out this week. So we'll see how that one turns out. That's about the little boy who desperately wants to be abducted. he does. So we'll see what that plot or how that plot unravels. There is also coming out soon is 28 years later, which is just a continuation of the zombie movie that was 28 days. And then I think it was 28 weeks and now we are 28 years. Was there a 28 months later? ⁓ was there?

I don't know. Maybe I can't remember. Okay. Also coming out later this month is F1 the movie, which is Brad Pitt. and he's starring as kind of a former driver who's returning to formula and formula one racing. So if nothing else, it looks like it might be a lot of driving eye candy, hopefully. Hopefully. Jurassic world rebirth. So this is the, the Jurassic movie that is starring now Scarlett Johansson.

And it looks like it will definitely be more leaning on. I feel like that kind of monster creature horror type of film versus true plots and drama or comedy or something like that. But we'll see. Yeah. When you take, in the scope of all the Jurassic movies, there's been, I say more flops and successes and we'll see which side of fence this one lands on. We shall see. All right. And now we also have Superman.

which is the Superman in the James Gunn style. Which I am so hopeful for. We are fans of James Gunn, so hopefully he will do it justice. And then one that we were perhaps hopeful for and now we're like nervous for, which is fantastic for first steps. Nervous doesn't even begin to describe it.

Pre-disappointment is how I'm going to categorize that's based on, we've been hearing rumors that they're doing reshoots. I mean, it comes out next month and based on really bad test screens, they're doing remake shoots as we speak, people. mean, how much of a dumpster fire emergency is that? For anyone that is not familiar with Fantastic Four, this is essentially Marvel's first family and

in the plot they have to defend the earth from a ravenous space god. So again, we'll see.

All right, Cory, it is now time for a side of bacon.

So from our last episode where we talked about Wolfman, we are connecting Michael J. Fox to James Spader. So I have it in two movies. I think you do too. Yes, but I had to work a little bit hard at it to not use a movie that I'm sure you were going to use. yes.

I mean, there's just a floodgate of options that is like, could you not use it? Plus I enjoy the movie and I'm like, I did not your style. No. So yeah. So my route is Michael J Fox to Jack Nicholson in Mars Attacks. And then Jack Nicholson to James Spader in Wolf. So what are your connections, buddy? All right. So I'm going Michael J Fox to Michael Douglas and American president.

Yep. Michael Douglas to James Spader and Wall Street.

That is a movie I don't know if I've actually officially seen Wall Street. I think it came out when I probably, who knows why, probably just didn't, I was probably too young to watch it whenever if my family had watched it or something. All right, do you have your bacon pick for this episode? Ooh, I had not thought about it.

But, I mean, can I just go with the obvious and say Gerard Butler? Sure. We may have used him before, but I don't recall. I was going with Scarlett Johansson, pulling her from the Jurassic world rebirth. Okay. Okay. I don't think there's a super easy five second connection there. So yeah. All right. So we have Gerard Butler to Scarlett Johansson. Thanks for listening to Movie Shelf.

And be sure to follow us so you get our next episode as soon as it drops. Yeah, check us out on your favorite platform and check out our show notes page for links to the movies that we've talked about. And of course, our bacon reminders. and keep in touch with us on Instagram. We'd love to hear from you. We'll catch you next time, you guys. Bye bye.