On June 13, 2025, Dreamworks Animation released a “live-action” remake of the first “How to Train Your Dragon” film, directed by Dean DeBlois.
The live action version is nearly a shot-for-shot remake of the original animated film, which follows the story of Hiccup, the young outcast son of a viking chief who becomes friends with Toothless, a wounded Nightfury dragon, despite vikings society’s hatred, fear and desire to kill dragons. The live-action film changes no major story beats; it casted live actors and redid the dragons to look as realistic as they can.
I’ve been a fan of “How to Train Your Dragon” since I was young; I watched all of the films, the shows, read all of the books and played all of the games. So I can say with authority that the dragon designs mostly looked good. I was pleasantly surprised.
They gave the tiny “Terrible Terror” a more chameleon look, which added visual interest to the smallest dragon in the series. The “Deadly Nadder,” which resembles a parrot or velociraptor, looked good and well-balanced, keeping her sharp features and tail. The film also handled the “Monstrous Nightmare” well — the animated dragon had crocodile-like eyes that sat above its skull, and the film moved them to the sides of its head like a more “classic” dragon.
Toothless, objectively the most iconic dragon of the series, fared alright.
The history of the “How to Train Your Dragon” franchise is a long game of telephone about Toothless’s design. In the original novel by Cressida Cowell, Toothless is a pocket-sized green dragon who can speak. The Toothless, known by most, was an invention of the creative team behind the 2010 animated film. The Nightfury, a rare and powerful black dragon with piercing eyes, catlike grace and a marketable face were Dreamworks’ own creation; the species doesn’t exist in the book.
But even after Toothless’s mainstream movie look had been established, it would go through smaller changes. As time went on and more plushies were made, Toothless’s aerodynamic, bullet-like reptilian head would warp into something more mammalian and cat-like.
His pupils became bigger and more square with every new bit of content and merch. He lost his scars and his scale texture. Every design is more adorable than the last. Looking at a side-by-side of the first film Toothless, and the third film Toothless, you can tell that he’s changed.
Unsurprisingly, live action Toothless most resembles his design in the third film and his theme-park animatronic. His eyes are a darker green than they ever were in the films, his muzzle is more pronounced, and his pupils are wider more often than not.
In the animated film, Toothless mostly has slitted pupils like a reptile would. At moments, they’ll dilate, going wide and cat-like. Live-action Toothless is the opposite — his pupils will thin when he’s stressed or angry, but he spends most of the time in full “cutie-pie” mode. It makes the moments of preciousness feel less earned when that’s most of what we see.
Beyond the redesigns, the film added more backstory and characterization to the side characters, particularly Astrid, Snotlout and the twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut. It leaned into the original film’s more subtle theme about the burden of history and legacy by adding backstory to the Isle of Berk itself. The viking tribe is not just a tribe, but a coalition of different tribes brought together by a shared necessity of destroying the dragons. It showed the tension caused by Hiccup’s status as the chief’s son among his peers a bit more explicitly as well.
The pacing of certain scenes, such as the iconic scene where Toothless presses his head into Hiccup’s outstretched hand, are a few seconds faster than they were originally, and they lose much of the tension that first made them special. Yet, somehow, the live-action ended up with a runtime thirty minutes longer than the animated film, and I cannot for the life of me determine where those minutes came from, especially considering that a few jokes were cut.
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This is a franchise with a long history of addition and adaptation. Why stop now? Is it because the creative team didn’t want to? I wouldn’t change much about the first “How to Train Your Dragon” film either, but I also wouldn’t bother spending 150 million dollars on a remake. I'd just love it as is, that’s all I need.
So why was this movie made? To sell theme park tickets. I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about the elephant — or rather, dragon — in the room; Universal Studios Orlando just opened a new immersive theme park featuring a “How to Train Your Dragon” themed section.
My biggest note is also my pettiest note, and it sums up my problem with live-action remakes as a trend: in the original film during the iconic “Test Drive” sequence, when Hiccup is flying on Toothless’ back for the first time, there’s a quiet moment where Toothless slowly drags the tip of his wing along the surface of the sea, causing a spray of fine white mist that contrasts against his dark scales. It’s beautiful. It’s calm, yet it’s thrilling.
At first, I thought the live-action film had cut it. But on a rewatch, I realized something worse had happened: I blinked and I missed it. They’d left it in, but it made me feel nothing. Because of the water’s new, more realistic physics, the mist no longer lingers. It splashes gracelessly up, then down again, and it’s not breathtaking anymore, and that’s the problem.
Watching the live action, you get what you asked for — a film that looks more real. But is that really what you want? From a movie about dragons?
If you’re a fan like I am of “How to Train Your Dragon,” I do recommend seeing the live-action, especially if you can watch it on the big screen. If you’ve yet to see any “How to Train Your Dragon” media, however, do not start with the live action film; it is missing so much of what made the original special.
Addison Fulton is the culture editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
