The Live Action Remake Teaser

Well, the teaser trailer for the HTTYD live-action remake (HTTYDLAR? Idk) dropped and, I have thoughts. Honestly, I didn't want to come back to this blog in a negative way, but as it is my HTTYD fan blog, I think this is the most appropriate place to cover this topic.

Before jumping into the trailer I will give a quick life update. Things have been awesome. I have been extremely blessed by the presence and constant kindness and friendship of my dear wife, I have been working a job that I have wanted for a long time, my media intake this year has been really exciting and fun (watch The Wild Robot if you get the chance), and I have been able to be more involved in my local church's life. All of these things have been wonderful.

Ok, onto the teaser. To put it bluntly, it was disheartening. I had very little confidence that this remake would be worthwhile, and this trailer leaned into my already very negative bias towards HTTYDLAR... and live-action remakes in the first place.

I am not here to try and drag down anyone who is excited for this. I honestly do not care what people enjoy when it comes to media. If you liked the HTTYD TV series, that's fine. If you enjoyed the Star Wars sequel trilogy, that's fine. If you like Rings of Power, that's fine. If you disliked HTTYD2, that's fine. Enjoyment is extremely subjective. 

However, a lot of my reasons for disliking this teaser can be nailed down into specific arguments and points. Whether those points bother you or not is certainly a matter of taste and preference, but they are concrete criticisms that caused me to thoroughly dislike this teaser and dread the release of this film.

Critiques:

• Sets/Environments: The overall environment in this trailer is off. It is clear from shots of Stoick in the boat or from the released image of Hiccup in the Kill Ring that this film is going to attempt to replicate a lot of the sets from the animated film very faithfully. The problem is the animated film did not build its sets to look realistic. The world of HTTYD was textured to be dirty, gritty, and somewhat real. However, the designers also leaned into the whimsy and fantastical nature of the story in a way that gels very well with animation. This means it translates poorly to live action. 
• Costumes/Character Design. Outfits!: Stoick's beard and stature are pale imitations of how they appear in the original film. In fact, a great deal of the teaser looks like "HTTYD1 but toned down and duller". Stoick's massive form was a brilliant embodiment of how intimidating he was to Hiccup and how much larger-than-life the expectations of his Viking society were. Gerard is a perfectly good actor, this isn't a complaint about him, but Stoick was created in an animated setting. Trying to cram that down into realism just isn't working for me. With that being said, I think Hiccup's actor is appropriately skinny, but in live-action, his hair looks rather... boy-bandish? Idk. On top of that, while his actor is thin, just looking at the outfits (note the flight outfit in the teaser poster) reveals that Hiccup now comes across as more broad-shouldered. It is not a huge deal, but Hiccup's animated design being incredibly thin juxtaposed to Stoick being a huge mountain of a man really emphasized the thematic dynamic between them. This dynamic is lessened by this teaser.
• Line Delivery: This trailer has very little spoken dialogue, but what is said just feels so much more lifeless. Go back an watch how spunky and snarky and nervous and weird Hiccup acts towards Stoick when he is trying to argue that he cannot kill dragons in the original film. Listen to how Stoick starts jovial before becoming harsh and firm. "But you... *will*" as delivered in the trailer expresses drastically less character and chemistry. Aside from that, it will be a cataclysmic shame for Jay Burachel's voice-acting chops as Hiccup to be overshadowed by this new face of Hiccup. Granted, this is a teaser. The whole scene between Stoick and Hiccup is not shown. But what was shown comes across as much more flat than what we have in the original.
• Lighting: The lighting feels inorganic. There are shots where Hiccup feels like he is not in the scene. This is most notable in the touch scene. The original film utilizes dramatic lightning that changes from day to day and scene to scene. It is a praiseworthy aspect of that film in that it helps each scene feel distinct and rarely results in the lighting feeling flat or boring. The overall lighting of this trailer is significantly more monotone, though there are shots I did like.
• Cinematography Changes: I am unsure why this remake felt the need to switch which side of the frame Hiccup and Toothless are on in the Forbidden Friendship fish sequence. The cinematography, ESPECIALLY IN THAT SCENE, is extremely fine-tuned and wonderful in the original. Is this a change just for the heck of it? I am not going to claim to be an expert, but I think most American audiences feel like the nature of movement is from left to right. It is how we read. It is how platforming sidescroller games play. The idea of Hiccup entering the cove and carefully, fearfully moving into the territory and reach of this dragon resonates better when moving from left to right. However, by the end of the sequence the frame is inverted. Through the dancing, swirling motion of the camera as Hiccup navigates Toothless's drawing, we suddenly find Hiccup stuck on the right side of the frame. And what is fun is that Toothless is then the one who moves from left to right and connects with Hiccup. Both of them progress forward in that scene. Was all of this intentional? Maybe not. But does it work extremely well in the first film? Yes. Changing this shot feels like unwisely tampering with perfection. If something is perfect, it inherently does not need to be changed. As for a shot I know was intentional in the use of the camera, we have Toothless's eye reveal. In the original, Toothless opening his eye is obscured by his wing. It makes it a dramatic reveal. It makes him seem inorganic and frightening. Hiccup's reaction to the eye is almost disgust and dread. This shot changes that dramatically. His eye opens slowly, and rather than the unnerving slit, Toothless is already revealing his larger, cuter pupils. His expression is much cuter, more pleading. In the original, it is cold. It is a creature who is hurt and about to die, but reserved to that fate. This shot is worse. It makes Hiccup sparing Toothless much less surprising. His empathy is much more impressive when he is sparing a Night Fury who has given up hope and who looks ominous and not human. This scene is SO important. Hiccup looked at Toothless and saw himself. Something different that was trodden down and defeated. Triumphed over by Viking strength. Hiccup was the perfect person to meet Toothless at this moment because he was likely the *only* person who would empathize with him. The remake teaser indicates that that strong thematic impact will be reduced by this change to how the camera is used.
• Toothless: This is probably the biggest issue. I always assumed Toothless would be impossible to adapt into a "Live-Action" setting. His design is perfect in animation. Legitately, anyone who has read this blog knows how much I have gushed over how good his design is. It is both frightening and epic while also being extremely expressive and even adorable. He is a character who does not speak, and yet he has massive agency in the first film. Conveying the thoughts behind his actions is and was extremely important. The live-action version looks a lot like the original... which I appreciate. However, it also looks distinctly more rigid and stiff. His expressions will not be as overt, and that is the problem withing trying to import a design that works perfectly in animation into this new setting. He would look cartoonish and uncanny if he was as expressive and flexible as he is in the original, but without that expression, he comes across as stiff and soulless. He is Toothless in form, but not in expression or heart. Note how much less drastic the action of him sitting (the moment after he has barfed the fish onto Hiccup) is compared to the original. This lessens the humor, for one, but it also reduces the bigness of this dragon's silly, curious, and insistent personality. This isn't a failure on the part of the people trying to make Toothless's design look real in this setting. I think this is about as good as I could hope he would look. It is a failure at the very conceptual level of bringing an animated animal character who is nuanced and expressive and trying to make that photo-realistic. Toothless was not designed for live-action. (Also the anatomical changes of his eyes being a darker green rather than the pale, almost mint-green color in most lighting looks off to me. And I dislike his feet and the way his back legs now bend backward... but these are probably just preference differences since I am extremely attached to the original design).

So, ha, those are my thoughts. I really wish this was not being made, and I worry we will get remakes of every film in the trilogy. I know Dean is working on this, but the skill sets required to direct a live-action fantasy epic and an animated film are very different. He did a phenomenal job with the original film and the sequel (and while I have had more gripes develop over time concerning the third film, I still think it has some extremely strong elements). However, his being part of this project really does not give me hope.

This feels like HTTYD has been photocopied to milk more money out of the story. And just like a bad photocopy it is faded and less clear than the original. I have almost no faith in this film being good, and I fear that it will significantly tarnish and dilute the original's legacy.