Do you think the Disney live-action remakes are bad? It sounds like one for a certain DreamWorks hit is going to be worse!
It’s no secret Disney has been on a kick of live-action remakes for scores of their past animated classics. Sometimes, it can work. Cinderella and The Jungle Book were both pretty good, even enhancing some of the story and shining well.
But those are the exceptions, as many more of these remakes pale next to the original animated versions. Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid weren’t awful but seemed unneeded.
Then there are flat-out horrible remakes like Mulan, Pinocchio, or Dumbo. It just seems a total waste of time and money and Disney adds to it with things like the Mufasa prequel no one was asking for.
Disney is still going ahead with remakes of Moana, Tangled, and others on the dock. They’re still a cash cow, and one can argue that some fans are open to these. But it seems a disservice to the original animated movies to try and remake them in live-action.
But amazing as it sounds, when it comes to live-action adaptations, Disney is looking a lot better than what DreamWorks is planning with their own live-action take on one of their biggest animated hits.
How I Met Your Dragon is a lazy remake
Disney and DreamWorks have had a rivalry for animated supremacy since 1998. It took off in the 2000s as DreamWorks’ efforts like Shrek seemed better than what Disney was putting out.
Among those hits was 2010’s How To Train Your Dragon. The animated tale of a young Viking who befriends the dragon he’s meant to be hunting was one of the company’s biggest successes. It spawned two sequels and a couple of animated series spin-offs.
So a live-action version seemed inevitable with original writer/director Dean DeBlois at the helm. While some were wary, there were hopes it might put a good spin on the story…and then came the trailer.
Look at that. That is almost literally shot-for-shot what the original animated movie was. The only differences are the actor’s ages and a different casting for ally Astrid. Several comments sum up that it looks like a fan-made cosplay trailer with better FX, not a $200 million Universal movie.
The lack of Roger Deakins, the Oscar-winning cinematographer who gave the animated film its shine, hurts. Gerald Butler looks like he's having fun but the rest of the cast doesn't impress.
The similarity is not a coincidence. According to insider Brandon Davis, DeBlois admitted he “barely changed” the original 2010 script for the new live-action version. As much as he’s boasted in interviews about wanting to “explore” the characters, it sounds like all this does is put live-action actors opposite CGI and do it all over.
That is a crazy move that even Disney avoids.
Disney makes their live-action different
We can argue all day about the merits of Disney remakes. But at least when the company remakes an animated movie, it tries to shift things up for the live audiences.
Sure, fans expect famous scenes to be replicated, like Lion King’s stampede, Beast and Belle dancing, and Lady and the Tramp’s spaghetti kisses. Disney does that, yet it’s better to at least alter things a bit.
Sometimes, it fails, there’s no doubt about it. Mulan dropping the songs for a more action-oriented tale robbed it of some magic. Pinocchio had an awful twist on the original that likewise fell flat, and some of the films go a bit too far “updating” things for modern times.
Yet other times, the alterations can work. Cinderella is shown with a quirkier fairy, a more independent Ella and her relationship with her stepmother well handled. Aladdin and Little Mermaid both gave better depth to the women and supporting cast and whatever else about The Lion King, it took chances altering things yet keeping to the original’s spirit.
Dragon isn’t doing that. This is just word for word, beat for beat, the 2010 movie with slightly different camera angles. Sure, the original was a fun film, but a 2010 script used for 2025 just reeks of sheer laziness.
In fact, the entire project looks like a cash grab as it’ll be coming out just as Epic Universe opens with an entire land themed to Dragon. When you’re doing a more blatant IP tie-in media grab than Disney, you’re looking bad.
If Dragon is a hit (and likely will be), it’ll open the floodgates for other past DreamWorks movies to get the same treatment. Are we ready for a live-action Shrek, Madagascar or Kung Fu Panda? We have already seen how poor Lion King looks with “real” animals, and we don’t need them.
We especially don't need them if they're going to just repeat the past scripts so exactly. Shudder at the thought of Mike Meyers in green makeup/CGI doing the same old Shrek accent while Eddie Murphy's mouth comes out of a "photo-realistic" Donkey with the identical jokes from 2001. Not to mention reusing long-tired pop culture references of that time.
It’s one thing to rely on a past IP for a remake, which has been par for the course for Hollywood for decades. We can also agree maybe Disney needs to get off the live-action remake train and DreamWorks shouldn’t be following.
Yet it’s telling that when Disney remakes a past movie, they at least make an effort (good or bad) to alter it for the live-action screen. The way DreamWorks is doing it for Dragon is flat-out lazy and a waste of millions of dollars.
Fans have debated Disney vs DreamWorks for two decades. When it comes to the live-action adaptations, Disney, amazingly, actually has the edge in trying to freshen the original up rather than a live-action cut and paste.