How to Train Your Dragon And What's Making Us Happy
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Disney has been remaking its animated classics for years to great financial success. Lilo and Stitch has been dominating the box office for weeks now. So it's no surprise that DreamWorks is now getting in on the action with a remake of How to Train Your Dragon. It's full of epic battles, majestic countrysides, and of course, dragons galore.

I'm Stephen Thompson. Joining me today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is Regina Barber. She's a host and reporter for NPR's science podcast, Shortwave. Hey, Regina. Hey, Stephen. Also with us is Jordan Morris. He's a writer and the co-host of the podcasts Jordan, Jesse, Go! and Free With Ads. Hey, Jordan. Hey, it's good to be here. It is a pleasure to have you both. So if your memory doesn't extend all the way back to the bygone days of 2010, How to Train Your Dragon was a hugely successful animated film about a boy named Hiccup.

He's the son of a fierce Viking leader named Stoick. And in typical animated movie fashion, Hiccup doesn't want to follow in his father's footsteps, which in this case would mean protecting his remote island home from marauding dragons. Hiccup is more of an artistic inventor type, which puts him at odds with not only his father, but, well, everyone.

Soon, Hiccup finds a wounded dragon he names Toothless and learns that killing dragons isn't so necessary after all. Both the live-action and animated movie versions of How to Train Your Dragon tell essentially identical stories, which are adaptations of a book series. Both feature Gerard Butler as Hiccup's father, Stoick. Writer-director Dean DeBloa also co-wrote and co-directed the original animated How to Train Your Dragon. So the primary difference besides the notably longer romances

runtime is that animation is given way to live action, with Mason Thames taking on the role of Hiccup. I don't want to fight dragons. Come on. Yes, you do. No, let me rephrase it. I can't kill dragons. But you will. The new version is in theaters now. Jordan, I'm going to start with you. What did you think of How to Train Your Dragon? Yes, I'm a fan of these movies. I'm a fan of the animated trilogy. I think I've seen them all, probably all on planes. Ha ha ha!

To truly capture the scope and majesty. That's how you know you love them. They feel so much better then. Right. I just want to make sure that I cry. I want to make sure that I cry so I get that altitude. I'm in the pocket for these because I am a cat weirdo. Oh, me too, bud. Oh, same. Oh my God, we're with Regina Barber. Yeah, four cats. Biggest cat weirdo at NPR. If my cat bug is listening, hi honey, daddy loves you. And the drunkenness

dragon, the main dragon in this, Toothless, is very cat-coded. It acts like a cat. It has cat mannerisms. So I'm in the pocket. I love these. Yeah, so I like this story and I like these characters, but it is just very hard not to watch this movie without asking the question, why? Why are we doing this? Why are we remaking these animated movies in live action? Because

Basically shot for shot. I like the characters. I like the world. But it was tough not to be distracted by the question of why am I watching this? So it's a live action remake of an animated film is what you're saying. Yes. I feel like that's the process every time we convene to talk about a remake of an animated film is like, why? Because it's shot for shot, it makes me think of like

a high school doing like cabaret or something. Like we don't go to a high school to watch like a Broadway show and be like, this is where it's going to be good. You know what I mean? Like why? I watched the animated movie a few years after, I didn't see it in the theaters, a few years after it came out.

And I saw it with my daughter and we really liked it. And I think it was like a near perfect animated, you know, like it was quick, it was clear, it was emotional. I don't know why anyone who liked the animation would want to watch this, but if you haven't watched the animation, it's an okay movie. And especially with this property, right? Like it's in a world that has a rich history. You can tell the humans and the dragons have been fighting for centuries. There's obviously like,

room to tell the story after the last animated movie. So it is weird, like, if you wanted to make a live-action one of these, not to just tell a different story in the world. I mean, obviously, I think the answer is, we know this movie worked once, so it'll probably work again. So it's just an easier financial bet for people. But just, like, creatively, I would want to see a live-action story set in this world. It just felt pointless to watch the same one over again. A different story. Yeah, there is a sense, like,

Write a new story. This is a pretty rich vein of storytelling. I liked all three animated films. I'm kind of left posing that same question of why. Now, at the same time, I had the experience watching this film. I watched it on a giant IMAX screen. I was sitting there like, this is such a great story.

These are such great characters. I think, Jordan, you hit the nail on the head. The fact that the dragon is cat-coded does lead me to love it more. It might be a Rorschach dragon where no matter what pet you have, you see your pet. Maybe the bird weirdos see it as a big bird. It's like a

Yeah.

Why did I enjoy it enormously? Because I love this story. I love the original film. I love these characters. I love the dragons. I love the message. I think the message of this film, that we should take a step back and consider nonviolent approaches to the challenges we face, is a really powerful one and a really poignant one. And I find these films very poignant that way.

I've watched a lot of these live-action remakes. We say live-action, but there is so much CGI. Yeah. It does almost feel like it's just you're watching a different kind of animation. I've got an old guy take here, if you would permit one. Would I turn down an old guy take? That would be pretty hypocritical of you, I realize. You know, how cool would this have been with some Henson puppets? I agree. That's...

That seems like that's the creative reason to do it in live action, right? Like have a tangible, touchable thing instead of just, yeah. So I should clarify, they did use some puppetry. It's kind of a mix of puppetry and CGI. But frankly, to my eyes, it all looks like CGI. Yeah. This made me think, just watching the trailers made me think of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Oh, yeah. And it made me think about how the original –

It was CG. It was, you know, so like they're just putting people into the animated movie and it just seemed very uncanny valley and it just seemed very like weird. And I feel like if you're going to do something live action, I agree with you. I didn't even think of the puppets, but like...

Who Framed Roger Rabbit was good because, one, it was an original story. They were completely different. It was like 2D animation and people. It was very clear that it was two different things. And this is like, I don't know, they're too close and it's too close to like just inserting humans into an animated movie. I didn't like that part.

There are some videos of like, I think it's at Universal Studios. There are like, they've dressed up some of those robots to look like Toothless and some of the other dragons. Oh, I've seen it. And they walk around the park and they look so cool. And it's like, I don't know, should that have been the approach to remaking this? Like have physical, tangible things? I don't know. It seemed like if that was the pitch, I'd be more likely to go along with it.

Yeah, I mean, I think sometimes you get a sense when you're watching these films that you're just watching, like, tech demonstrations. And I've had that reaction to some kind of later period Pixar movies where, like, this movie exists to show me that you know how to animate water better. But you're not necessarily bothering to tell me a great story. I agree with what you're saying. I'm glad you brought up Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Regina, because there are examples of, like, early special effects-driven movies.

properties, you know, that are now 40 years old, but still look state of the art because that technology is deployed really creatively. The video for AHA's take on me still looks amazing to me because it's creative. Safe place for old guy takes. You want an old guy take. Let's talk about AHA.

You know, that element of this film, you know, the fact that it, quote unquote, looks better or it looks more realistic or, you know, it incorporates these effects that maybe they didn't have access to all of this effects technology in the olden days of 2010. Yeah. It's not necessarily deploying those effects to any creative end beyond making a recreation of an existing movie. The feeling I had over and over again watching this film was, wow.

wow, this cover band kicks ass. At some point you do as a viewer need to sort of take a step back and

and be like, okay, what is this trying to do? What is the creative swing here? What are they aiming for? And what they're aiming to do is create a live-action recreation of an animated movie. Basically, it's if you love How to Train Your Dragon but hate animation. Or you think animation is too childish. To me, I think that's completely ridiculous because animation is incredible. And the animated film managed to tell this story

in under an hour and 40 minutes, whereas this movie is more than two hours. It's so much longer for no reason, scene by scene, yet still longer. It is a weird time vortex, isn't it? It feels like the exact same movie, but longer. I haven't seen the original in a minute, but I'm kind of struggling to remember what was added. There are a few scenes that are added. There are also just scenes that take longer. And some of these battle sequences are definitely fleshed out.

You know, where you're able to shorthand some things with animation that you kind of just, in terms of sheer physics, wind up having to kind of put more on the screen. You know, Regina could explain the physics far better than I could. It's basically like in animation, things are so simplified. I think there's fewer things on the screen. So you can actually tell a story and you can kind of have the viewer focus.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, maybe worth talking about the source material a little bit. I agree with you, Stephen. I do love the message of this movie. And I think it's a really great message for now. And I think that's maybe a good argument for, like, why put this movie out again. The, like, empathy and the kind of, like, get to know the thing that you fear rather than attack it. It is great. And, you know, it is a movie where the main character is asking the question, why do we have to kill dragons? Right.

The third act is killing a big dragon. Well, that dragon needed to be killed, Jordan. That's right. Yeah. Understand all dragons except the one that is bad. You know, why did they get rid of the catnip scene too? They changed the catnip scene to be this dandelion scene. And I was like, was that too close to like... Right. Yeah. I mean, I think they saw an opportunity to create...

a beautiful visual. Like this kind of field of dandelion spores was really lovely. And I really looked at it like, oh, that's a very pretty scene. I could see a still of that and be like, oh, what a beautiful shot. You know, because it's the same kind of writer-director revisiting this, you know, there's one thing that I was kind of seeing...

recurring in interviews with him where he's talking about, like, I just saw opportunities to flesh some things out. I saw opportunities to make it a deeper, richer story. And obviously he's trying to sell you on this new project. But I'm sure that in 15 years he's thought, oh, I should have done that with dandelion spores is probably what's happening there. I have a question. Have either of you read the books yet?

Because I haven't and I didn't know if the books were like scene for scene to the animated movie. It's loosely adapted from the books. So why didn't they do the live action related more to the book then? And then it's like the world and it would have been more interesting. Oh, yeah. That's a kind of a good reason to remake it. Yeah, you're right. They certainly could have found a different approach to the material than just retelling it.

accurately. I just want to make the comment that like, I know they picked the main guy because he like, he seems very Hiccup-like and he looks like Hiccup. You're talking about Mason Thames? Yeah, Mason Thames. They picked Mason Thames because, you know, he looked like Hiccup, maybe he sounds like Hiccup. But for me, it really, really felt like

high school musical Disney generic guy that goes in there. No shade to him. He did his best. But it just seemed so generic to me, like a TV movie. I felt similarly. I think the new cast, they're all good actors, charm to spare on everybody. Yeah, agreed. I felt like they did not nail the comedy. I think this is a very funny script.

And like, you really realize that those original voice actors were all comedy pros, right? It's America Ferreira. It's Kristen Wiig. It's Jay Baruchel. Like people who know how to juice a joke, you know? Yeah. The new kids are good and they're charming, but like,

They are acting like they're in a Netflix YA show where they're all werewolves or have terminal illnesses or something. I don't know what those are about. But yeah, it does seem like everybody's kind of in the wrong movie, especially when it comes to the comedy. So you're not clamoring for more DreamWorks movies to be remade as live action? You don't want to see a live action Shrek? You don't want a live action Kung Fu Panda? You don't want a live action Bee movie? Shrek has a musical. Okay.

I will say I did, you know, Steve and me saw each other for Minecraft, and I actually did like that, but that wasn't word for word. That was in a new world. Oh, boy. And it was ridiculous, and everyone was committed to the ridiculousness. That's why you hire Jack Black. You want commitment to the bit. And Jason Momoa. I have not seen that movie, but I gather the story is like real humans enter video game. And it's like that has a reason to be half live action, half... As did Roger Rabbit. Exactly. Like the best...

story reason to use that tech, right? As opposed to just like, we want to redo a movie and make more money. It's like, yeah, I think there is a world where you can like have these humans in these animated worlds and it will look cool and make sense story-wise. But yeah, this just didn't have...

that reason. I do want to say one thing I did like about the movie. Oh, please. There's colorblind casting and they actually explained why that was. And they were like, look, there's all these people from all over the world and we all settled here together to like defeat these dragons. And I was like, great. They explained it. Let's move on. Yeah. And one line too. I also appreciated that because you knew that's, you know, I imagine that could be something people would complain about online and they're just like,

here is a story reason for this. Yeah. And yeah, and it totally does make the movie better. I like seeing like all kinds of Vikings in the little Viking town. It was very cool. I thought it was a very good cover band. I agree with you. Out of all the live action things I've seen, I think it's one of the better ones. I just don't know why. I got to say, it's maybe my favorite live action remake that I have seen yet. Mine's Cinderella. Yeah. I just wish they would stop making them.

I hadn't seen any of them. This was my first one. Oh, well, the bar has been set higher than most of these movies will clear. All right. Well, we want to know what you think about How to Train Your Dragon. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash pchh and on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com slash nprpopculture. We'll have a link in our episode description. Up next, what is making us happy this week?

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Now it's time for our favorite segment of this week and every week. What's making us happy this week? Jordan Morris, what's making you happy this week, buddy? Yeah, I like to recommend comic books in this segment, so I'm gonna do it again. I just recently read a great book called The Last Mermaid by Derek Kirk Kim, written and drawn by. Here's the pitch. It's great. It's about a lone mermaid who has to survive a post-apocalyptic wasteland by piloting a mech suit filled with water. Wow. That's the greatest pitch of all time.

It's like the greatest one-sentence pitch. The comic itself is even better. The mermaid has this little axolotl that follows her around. It's very cute. She meets all these kind of crazy post-apocalyptic characters as she's doing her adventure. It's this really beautiful book. The comics or the collection, if you get that, are kind of a bigger format. So it's kind of like this widescreen comics...

The story is mostly wordless. So, you know, it's kind of told through action and gestures and expressions. And I think it'd be a great thing to read with like a kid who's into sci-fi. So yeah, it's called The Last Mermaid by Derek Kirk Kim. And it's great. Jordan, do you think that this comic book should be made into an animated movie that is then remade into a live action movie? Ten years later, yes. Yeah.

Thank you, Jordan Morris. Regina Barber, what's making you happy this week? Jordan, I love that. I'm going to check it out. But what I'm going to suggest today that's making me happy is the new season of The Amazing Race, which is the first time I've ever watched The Amazing Race all the way through. Oh my gosh, Regina. Yes. And I've heard it's a better season than the other one. So I'm really happy this is how I'm introduced. It's a strong season. There are better. Well, okay. You got to suggest which other ones I should watch. But my daughter was really into it.

and my partner, we all watched it as a family. And the whole time we're just like, you know, picking our favorites. We're going, you know, to Asia soon on a trip. So we just really, really enjoyed it. I really loved The Amazing Race, almost to a point where my daughter was like, you should apply. I'll make the video for you. So I would suggest on Paramount Plus, we watched it this season of The Amazing Race. Thank you, Regina Barber. I usually recommend music when tasked with

Speaking about what's making me happy and what is making me happy is this fantastic new artist, fantastic new album. The artist is named Anastasia and that's A-N-N-A-H, Stasia. She's a Nigerian-American, L.A., folk, jazz person.

pop soul singer, probably best known right now for starring in Kendrick Lamar's Luther video. You know, Luther featuring SZA. But what Kendrick Lamar should have done is sung with Anastasia because her voice is absolutely gorgeous. This song is called Overflow. I set it over for you. Write it down, it's yours to keep. I lay my head in the grass.

This record is just moving through a lot of different vibes. There's a blues rock vibe. There's a jazz vibe. At one point, there's a spoken word song that brings in Aja Monet. I love this record. She's got a gorgeous voice. I keep coming back to it. The album is called Tether. My favorite song on the album is called Overflow, but honestly, they're all great. That's the great Anastasia.

my favorite musical discovery of the week, and that is what is making me happy. If you want links for what we recommended, plus some more recommendations, sign up for our newsletter at npr.org slash pop culture newsletter. That brings us to the end of our show. Jordan Morris, Regina Barber, thanks so much for being here. Thank you, Stephen. Yeah, thanks for having me. This was a blast. This episode was produced by Hafsah Fathima, Liz Metzger, and Mike Katzeff, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. Hello, Come In provides our theme music.

Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all next week. Like the climate, our idea of home is constantly changing. So NPR is devoting an entire week to rethinking home with stories and conversations about the search for solutions. From planting trees to reducing energy use to disaster-proofing your house. Explore stories that hit close to home during this year's Climate Solutions Week.

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