How to train your Dragon Director answers some of your biggest questions

While I recently got on Universal, I had many questions How to Train Your DragonS The movie, who just let go of my most trailerit remake of one of my favorite– And probably among the best films in recent memory. Triumphal, emotional, exciting masterpiece. It is generally perfect. So, to process it, it makes you wonder “Why do we need it?” Did you just have money? Will fans actually extract something from it? “

These were among the questions I had as a director Dean Deblois, he presented three full scenes, and the new trailer for a group of Press on January 30th. And in the evening, not only I started to come to approach the need for the movie, I received answers to all my questions. Questions such as: What benefits have a live remake over animation? Why didn’t they change the appearance of a toothless dragon? Will composer John Powell reconstruct his emblematic result? And what, if nothing else, was the connection to a complete How to Train Your Dragon Opening a land of Epic Universe Theme Park Universal Only weeks before the movie? Read the answers to these and more below.

For starters, Deblois said he was not the biggest fan of live remakes in general. He always felt like that if you were going to revise an animated movie in live action, there would have been a really good reason for that. In the case of How to Train Your DragonThe reason she held on was to be able to immerse himself in things that were unable to make the first movie, like learning more about characters (including Astrid) that were slightly changed in the first movie. Take a look at the mythology of the Vikings world. All such things. In principle, he said he began to think of a live remake as the version of the movie they would make in 2010 if they had more time and money to finish it.

We saw what was shown in the first of the three scenes shown, which was the first time all the young Vikings – Hick (Mason Thames), Astrid (Niko Parker), Fishlegs (Julian Denison) and the rest – are forced into confrontation with the dragon. The scene had a lot of humor, but it really focused more on Astrid’s clear superiority over other friends and how it affects who she was as a person. The scene certainly reminded us of the original movie, but there was more bone meat.

Then Deblois explained that while the bigger part of the movie was at least a little different than the original, other scenes would not be different at all. For example, the second scene they showed was the first time the hiccup and the toothless summer together, one of the most memorable moments of the movie and the scene was almost shot for the animated movie. There are a few moments where we felt that we almost need to stick to shoot with the animated movie, because these are emblematic scenes that fans will recognize. And we wanted to honor them in live actions as much as we could, “said Debloa. And while the scene played, complete with this emblematic music, all these emotions came back again.

Watching this scene also meant directly taking two of my big burning questions. First was the design not only without teeth, but also all the dragons that look very similar to their animated colleagues. “The unique challenges of designing them live (it was), we wanted to make sure we do not sacrifice these silhouettes and personalities of the trademark and everything from the animated movie,” said Debba. “We obviously wanted to put aside everything that was too anthropomorphic, because we were really trying to build the idea of ​​reliable dragons on the screen. But finding how much to keep according to how much to rediscover was a slightly developing process. “

Deblois said the team draws a lot of inspiration from the words of the iconic special effect artist John Dickstra. He told the team to “imagine that the animated movie came after the movie live,” according to Deblois. “So everything in terms of Dragon’s design, which you forgive and cartooned and underlined comes from an actual animal that is filmed with real cameras and moved as a being in this natural world,” he said.

“So, working back, we were able to keep what we think could be simplified in animated design, but we give it a little more than a healthy type of skeleton, muscles, flakes and details. But from afar, I still feel that it is the same creature. “

Which is a process that is somehow applied to the magic score of the film by composer John Powell. “John Powell is in the middle of writing his music, which is again the same challenge,” Deloa said. “How do you maintain what people love in it, but also carry a little more refinement, paint with different brushes and refresh it for, we hope a new generation of people?”

The third scene brought all this together as we watched another emblematic moment of the original movie, when hiccups had to kill a dragon in front of everyone (including his father, Stoyk played by Gerard Butler) and instead revealed his pacifism to the dragons. The scene again felt a lot like the animated movie, but everything was just a little more complicated and more detailed. Like, for example, the dragon to beat has fire over its whole body. At the same time it is excessive and cool.

So I learned why Deblois makes this movie, what allows them live, why the dragons look so similar to the result. For my last question, I had to turn to the director afterwards. I asked him For the upcoming theme park And if the teams ever cooperate, given both of them live this world in live actions. “They made a presentation for us about a year ago,” he said. “And they mainly said,” That’s what we build. This is based on How to Train Your Dragon 2The animated movie. So it’s about the world, as the dragons have already moved. They have already made all sorts of accommodation for them. And that it is a little more junior. So, he imagined, “We know you have written and created the story and that is our rotation on it.” And I made sense that I didn’t have to make notes. (Laughs) They were in progress, they built it. They had their own deadlines. So I’m really curious to see him. It looks cool. “

And the fact that they open so close to each other is obviously just a pleasant coincidence. “I like the time. At one point we would go out on the same day it opened. I thought it was a cool idea, ”he said. “I’m curious to see him and go back to the old Lilo & stitch and Malan Tapping sites. But I don’t know much more than what people posted on YouTube. “

Which, fortunately, is no longer the case with the live action How to train your dragon. Now you know much more. And as Debloa said at the end of the presentation, although he is sure they will make a great, deserving movie and he hopes everyone will agree, the smallest script is “There are always animated films.” The movie opens on June 13th.

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