Cue the bagpipes. Today's episode contains spoilers for How to Train Your Dragon, the live action remake, but of course, also the first installment of the original animated movie. Jason Soon and I'm Mersey Night and welcome back to X ray Vision. The podcast Will We divedo Your favorite shows, movies, comments of pop culture companies form by our podcast.
Where We're for you, three episodes a week every Tuesday Wednesday.
There's in today's episode, we are giving you our review of the live action movie How to Train Your Dragon? Ever heard of it? It's a part of it. It's a live action remake of an animated classic, which is going to inspire a round table conversation asking is it a live action remake or an adaptation? Oh baby, I'm sure that's gonna get spicy, and we will also be talking about the future of live action remakes. But bust, let's talk about it. Jason, me and you. What do we think about this movie?
Let's do it?
Okay, we have recently seen.
The live action remake of How to Train Your Dragon.
A wonderful truly. You called it a classic. I believe it is. And it's also it contains or has what I think is a very underrated soundtrack. Now, yes, yes, some people are gonna say, well, the soundtrack was nominated for an Oscar.
It was, but it didn't win.
Still, I feel like it's not one that people talk about in the same way they talk about, you know, like.
The Star Wars or Inception, et cetera.
It's a it's a wonderful soundtrack by John Powell, and let's talk about what did you think of how to How to Train Your Dragons?
Yes, I thought it was really, really enjoyable. I actually decided to wait till after I watched it to rewatch the animated one so I could kind of go in and.
Enjoy it.
Obviously. We sat together with my friend Isaiah and my eleven year old review guy that I bring with me, who saw Minecraft. Yeah, I thought it was really great. I was actually kind of blown away by how good the casting was, how wonderful, unbelievable casting. Everybody is just one hundred percent committed. I was very moved by the score, especially the kind of like flight test flying with a toothless score that they use as a theme throughout every
single time. That would just be like crying every single
It's it's so passed thrilling. Yeah, and we, I mean we both talked about this after straight after when we were at the cinema, But I was blown away by, for the most part, how unbelievable this movie look, not only the aerial stuff, the landscape, how they make the dragons feel so real in a live action space, how they light the characters to kind of make them look more cartoony but still very much in this kind of I really felt like they did a great job with that,
especially with Hiccup. They constantly light his face to look anime character.
I love.
I love the casting of his I love the casting of Astrid Nico Parker. Big fan of her here. I think this is the first role she's really gotten to like showcase her kind of not only obviously there's a lot of like kind of stunt prowess in this, but just generally like her charm, her kind of. This is the first great movie that I've seen her in. She was most recently seen in another like to me, in another movie that I'm sure we'll talk about, Dumbo, far
less successful live action adaptation. In my opinion, Yeah, I just thought it was really really good. There were actually multiple moments here to do with how good the movie looked, the feeling of it that were giving like the original kind of loath to throw back to them nowadays, but they made me feel like when I was a kid first watching the Harry Potter movies. There was moments here where I felt like this could be an epic franchise for kids. Cinematography beautiful, Jared Butler amazing.
I'm a G buts lover.
I love the g he love We love the G butts. He rarely gets to be in any big movies like this. He is definitely more of a B movie guy, an action guy, a straight terme video guy. But I thought he was so fun here. I thought the costume design was fantastic, and really I was just I just thought it was. It was really really great. How about you.
I I loved it.
I found it comforting and thrilling all at the same time.
Great way I thought the I thought it was a wonderful you know.
They They were so loyal really to the original story, same director obviously, Oh yeah, and.
When I would be.
And but everything that they added in the everything that live action added was an upgrade, which I thought was that's how you do it. When you talked about the aerial stuff, I mean it can't be talked about enough about how I mean it's powerful. I could watch a two hour super cut of just the flying scenes. It looks amazing. It captures the thrill and the energy and the dynamism, the excitement of what it must be like to be, you know, riding Toothless around this incredible.
You really do feel like you are having that experience. We got to see it in IMAX, and it really does feel like the rush. This is a movie where maybe I would go and see it in forty X. I want to think about in my hair. I want to feel like I'm riding the spray, Yeah the cinema, what the ocean spray?
And I you know they didn't they understood, don't change what is broken, like this character design for not just the human characters in the live action adaptation, like the hair, you know Hiccup's hair is they styled it somehow the same from how to the animated.
That is really true. I was quite blown away by that when I watched, I was white impressed.
And then also, you know, Toothless.
I don't know what of the character assets they took from the animated version, or how they scaled that up and improved it and you know, improved the textures, but it it doesn't look as if they ripped Toothless from How.
To Train Your Dragon.
It looks like they took everything that was there and just added more detail, but didn't lose that feel, that animated feel, so that there were times where I had to remind myself that I wasn't watching Toothless from yeah animated version like it was.
It was a seamless sless and that is a critique some people have sometimes, right, but like I and at the beginning of the film, which opens the exact same way as the original film, they show Buck and they do change the the voice O very little bit, but they show but and he's showing his home, and in my head I had like the cynical voice was like, oh, yeah, you're completely cgi home, Like it's clear. But then once you start getting into the village and you can see
the practical nature of it, I was. I just thought it looked so good and also as well, I was. I was kind of blown away. And I do think that it is focused on something I really liked about the live action movie versus the animated movie is they gave some of the scenes like time to breathe in the live action one that they don't get in the original. When I rewatched the original, I basically felt like I was speed running the movie because things happened really really.
Fast, and I guess the emotional turns even are really really fa exactly.
And something that kind of came across in my opinion, like really strongly in this version is how it's like kind of a movie about like adaptive technology and like disability and like accept invisibility, and that begins with Toothless and kind of the film ends with you know, Hiccup, and and honestly, like you know, my biggest critique would be like, couldn't you have found someone with an amp who was an like Cata limb difference, or wasn't amputee
to play like Goober's like the Nick the Nick Frost character, or couldn't you have found someone to play Hiccup? But you know what, Hollywood, they never doing that stuff. So but I did think that the themes were like very very well and you'll get to that.
I will get to that in a moment, because I mentioned I do have a I love the film. I continue to love the film, I love the animated series, but I do have a dark take.
Yeah, you go to do it.
That said, I mentioned that I found this movie comforting, and it's I love a good kids movie because the emotions are front and center, but there's also that feeling of like, hey, you know, when toothless biler, when toothless is is chained up and harnessed and being forced to lead them to.
The dragon mast.
As a kid, that's gonna be intense. You're gonna really a young audience member is going to really feel that. At the same time, because it's a kid's movie, there's also that like gentle kind of undertone of hey, it's gonna work out. It's gonna be yeah, yeah, yeah, don't don't worry about it. And I found that really in these times, it's a nice, really comforting. It's a nice feeling of just being like, you know what, don't worry about it, it's gonna be.
And also the eleven year old reviewer who also loved the Minecraft and did did say after see a Minecraft that was gonna make a lot more money than the box I said, and he was correct. He was also a big a big fan in this movie. I think it was very moving, it was very exciting. There were even moments when he was kind of scared and it
was spooky, which I thought they did really well. I also thought they redesigned the kind of I think in the original Uh, How to Train Your Dragon the Red Death, they redesigned him to make them like basically a terrifying Kaiju, which I loved obviously. And I do feel like we're going to be in an interesting situation this year of being able to talk about having like a monster movie summer. If this does well. I do think it's gonna do well.
I that saying that the film is gonna perform overperform with sixty five million to seventy five million this for its opening weekend. I think it's gonna make one hundred million.
I think it might be the high end of that. I think. I think this is the kind of I think kids.
Are gonna want to see over.
I love Minecraft, Yes, a love Minecraft. Kids are gonna want to see it. The older kids who grew up with the originals are gonna want to see it in live action, and for an adult, it's a pleasant time at the movie theater. So I think it's got all I think it's got all of those things. Here's my dark tick on this movie and the message of this movie, and that includes the original animated version.
Yes, this is not a new edition. This is definitely something that is a story. But it really struck me this time watching it in live action.
Again.
I love this movie, passionately love this movie. Said, this is a movie. This is a movie about regime change. This is a movie about a nation who went to war mistakenly with a culture and a race of beings that then tricks or cajoles a small minority of that race, including several members who had been long imprisoned and enslaved and potentially brainwashed, into assassinating their nation's leader so that afterwards they can be put to work by the conquering people.
That is basically what this story is.
I love this.
Movie, but there is a kind of a dark undertone of like colonialism and.
Occupation and war and conquering.
That's kind of like, hey, listen, all we know about this queen is she's bad. How do we know that we don't like because she ate a couple of her subjects and therefore it's totally okay that we take these prisoners who we have been torturing for a long time by doing various mock executions in a tournament format for the entertainment of our town, if we then turn them loose in order to kill her so that we can take over this nation and use them as you know, are construction workers.
I mean that is that basically the same thing? Yeah, I mean also as well, like let's be real that we don't actually see the giant Kaiju dragon like do anything wrong, Like she's.
Just she eats, like she eats one or two of her subjects, which I am not condoning. I'm just saying as an outside force, we don't understand the societal dynamic funny.
As well, because like in the live action when they were like, you know, she's probably like controlling the don't listen to them or something, and I'm like, I don't know if she is, man, I think this is just like an ecosystem. You can't understand, like she lives in a giant volcano.
Giant it's a kids movie.
Therefore, I accept that she was evil. I am just saying, not a lot of thought.
Goes into that.
Really, I think you're read is like correct and the truth is right now, it's hard not to look at things through that lens. And a lot of stories from you know, fairy tales and obviously I'll Train Your Dragons adapts from a book, but it's not that old. But a lot of these kind of kids films they do intentionally or unintentionally continue ideas of like assimilation or and so so. So I think you're right to call this out. And let's be real. The movie does I mean sorry,
sorry sorry I said, I said just noticing. I mean I just say you should you you're correct to note it, to note that it exists. But you know, like they see this movie, go see it because it is really great. And then you you can go in the discord and then we'll go back to lay tank.
Okay, let's go to another break, and then let's bring in.
The super producer crew and let's talk about live Actually.
Yeah, welcome to the floor, super producers.
Joelle's superproducer Aaron. How are you folks.
Tickled by e? How do you want to hear it?
Let's do it.
Any the movie there in the groove, you said, Jay said, it is actually about two communities coming together. Joel, talk more about it.
I mean I believe that that is also a reading, that's also a not unfair reading.
Yes, please, Joel No, I think the very.
Basic like jeneric reading is like this kid thinks differently, and that's really beautiful and it really opens can.
We don't have to kill them, we can use slaves.
Jason's like maybe death is bad and being I'm not saying that, and they do have and and he and to listen and again tooth listen, Hiccup have a they do have a very loving relation and loving relationship where they love the relationship they.
Have the Hiccup wounded him.
And then I'm just saying the rest of the dragons, for the crew, it's a little we get into like a murky ethical.
Area considering that they were.
Released very quickly through that actually directly from dungeons and like put to put to war fighting.
I'm sorry, but continue, Joelle No.
You know I actually have the the esteemed privilege of having spoken to Aaron separately and then you guys separately and knowing your takes and they are oceans apart.
Real and tell us what this movie.
I cannot wait for this.
Shots that I am so different from you on this, Jason. I think before you threw the break, you were like, go see this movie. I would are you don't just watch the original. You're not missing any track.
Please continue.
Yeah, so one of your I took some notes as you were talking about. One of the things you said was everything the live action movie added was an upgrade. You mean, like the two extra minutes of training sequence just sling. Yeah, but doesn't look amazing. Yeah, so I do think that yossified How to Train Your Dragon looks better. The dragons, the dragons, The dragons amazing. The dragons look amazing. Hiccup, Hiccup, what's it? Hiccup looks like Andrew Garfield.
Too hot? Too hot? You've got your crush on this young man, he lied. I was actually I had had rumor that you had this feeling. I was actually feeling for this kid, because Hiccup in the original is like very generic, like he's got a completely even face. He's just like a right like this guy, this Hiccup. They spend like fifteen minutes early on in the movie lighting him to be like make sure you know he's got a big nose, like look at that nose, Like they
were like trying to make him look uglier. He was no like yasified. I think you just have a crush on him.
Also, I would just to lightly push back and then I'll let you continue. His dad stood like the vast stoke Jerry Butts. This guy's chest is twenty feet wide. He looks like he's eight and a half feet tall in his armor. He's a massive guy, and you're meant to buy contrast, say, God, I wonder if Hiccup can live up to the intense masculinity that Jerry Butch is putting down on a daily base. Look at that beard, Look at those muscles, Look at that helmet.
You know anyway, Yes, for as for as hot as Hiccup was, Gerard Butler looks like ship. His wig was so bad. When when he comes out of the water and his wig is all wet, he's so bad.
My main care.
And hey, and I love I love Dead of Thieves as much as the next guy.
So like I'm a Butler fan. I will say.
The one thing that this one I do think added from the original was the Gerard Butler monologue to rally the troops and get everyone, this is why we have to go look for the nest and and they do this great thing where he goes to the first Viking and you know, you got all this glory because you killed the dragon. You may have lost your limb, but like you did all this great work, and now you the Asian Viking. Okay, you can't go far away. You
don't get to have a line. You just came from far away, all right, and moving like what a dumb scene.
I hated that.
I thought that like completely ground everything to a halt. I will say, Toothless look great. I think in the animated I felt like Toothless was very cat coated, but in this one, Toothless felt more like a dog.
Well though I thought it was.
I thought it was like sixty five percent dog thirty five percent excuse me, sixty five percent cat thirty five percent dog. Like the scratching was dog, but like obviously everything else, the face, the growling was cat.
Yes, but yeah, I I walked out of this and I was pretty disappointed. I feel like the original was better and this didn't add a new take on stuff, like you were saying, you know, there's beat for beat. You know, Toothless chained up on the boat guiding them to the dragons, like they didn't need to change how that happened, but there were things that could have been
a different read on it or something. I thought the dad going in and saving toothless was less effective in this than it was in the animated Again, maybe at this point it's deep enough into the movie that I have just like kind of I'm on I'm on the back foot, and I'm not as happy with it already. But this just feels like a band like went recorded their favorite album and like words slightly Taylor.
Taylor made like several billion dollars exactly that.
Well, I do think, I mean, it's an interesting Joe, I'll tell us that thread. I do think it's a really interesting approach to filmmaking. Like I think some people sort of view animation as like a big part of it, just storyboarding. It's like really going through and getting these story beats and so to have like made this entire animated film and then you're not you're definitely not adapting it.
You are remaking it just in live action. I found it kind of incredible, especially because it's the same director coming back to his work like so many years later. I thought, I will say, if I have like one tick e tacky thing about it. Sometimes I thought the frames were too much like an animated frame as opposed to what you would shoot for a live action, Just the way some of the times the characters entered there's
a hiccups walking. He's in sillow wet at one point, and it's very flat when like if you pushed your horizon not in the center, as we learned from Spielberg, you would have had a much more interesting shot. So there was.
Just learned from.
He learned from forward. Yeah, yes, the religious John to Spielberg would also say, like.
I will add my two cents of what I didn't like, just because we're here. There were only actually like two sequences that I felt like they must have done reshoots on, and it was when they were in because the whole movie, I was kind of blown away by how unvolume me it looked. And I think that is why it appealed to me so much. It looked so much better than like no ninety percent of like big budget like NU
style movies. I felt like there was so much life and texture and real beautiful locations and this I felt like that generally the CGI and and like obvious screen screen was pretty, you know, unnoticeable, pretty seamless. There was the scene when Hiccup and Astrid are in the northern lights. I felt like that suddenly just took us to being in like a weird TV show that had like no budget. I don't know what happened with the lighting. I don't know if it was the flatness.
It was completely.
Random and it they just didn't light it was very supernatural, invite them properly to give them like the full kind of beautiful wholeness. And then there was like one other scene when it was only like both of these scenes are like five ten seconds of the movie, but like the other there was another one with Astrid where they'd clearly done a similar reshoot where it was just suddenly it was like but it was really wild because up until then I was like, this is gonna be one
of the best looking, like big budget movies. And I'm gonna say something as well, this is a I guess we're gonna get into this next. But kind of like the conversation of like is it a remake? Is it an adaptation? Like I've seen a lot of people be like, this is a great movie, but it didn't need to be made, and I'm like, guys, I got a terrible things to tell you. Welcome to the history of Hollywood. Do you know how many versions of a fucking Star
Is born? There? There are like fucking four versions of a Star Is Born?
Like you don't dream Works is trying to become the new Disney.
Not just that, this is throughout history, throughout Hollywood history. This is what happens is they go back and they remake movies and they redo the same story and they you know, there's fifty versions of snow White because that is an out of license story. There are, you know, so many different fairy tale stories. There are so many Westerns that are basically beat for beat the same thing. So I think that when a movie is made, which in Aaron's opinion like this movie is not good, then
you do ask those questions. For me, I thought this movie was beautiful enough. It's been like eleven years, and you know what I feel like this is gonna introduce. For example, Isaiah had not seen the original, but he loved this. He'd watch the TV shows and he felt like this just like supplanted that and he was so excited to go back and check.
Out the original he's only seen the TV shows and not the original movie.
He's gonna go see it. But what I'm saying is that what I'm saying is that is gonna be There's gonna be a whole generation of kids like that who were gonna get to experience this for the first time, like so many of us did with remakes of other stuff.
And I think plus, a whole new theme park just opened up.
And that's the real The thing that I find interesting is I want to talk to whoever it was who understood the kind of insane fandom that this had that they could build an entire park off it and do another remake, because look, on, I know that this is a popular movie, but I didn't know this was like a you can build a multi billion dollar theme park
and do a new movie. But now that I've seen the new movie and I've seen images of the theme park, which apparently is the best, if not one of the best lad Good, I get it, Like I want to spend more time in this world. So I just I I do think that the notion of like remakes are unneeded becomes a question of quality, because that is just the history of like Hollywood and entertainment in general. It say it's always going to be a sequel, there's always
going to be a remake. But I think that compared to like ninety percent, if not more, of the Disney ones, this to me felt like, oh yeah, I mean when I rewatched How to Train Your Dragon, it's amazing and it is obviously like the original. The animated vision is gorgeous, but I was like, but I also do I would like to be in the cinema watching this and feeling like I'm flying through the ad with toothless, which you can't. You don't feel like that in the anime ad version.
I will say, I think that the I think the for me, what this remake, adaption whatever do well is it doesn't try as I think some of the Disney ones, many of the Disney ones try to do, which is create this entirely new, hyper real aesthetic.
Yes, this is very cost to any movie.
Yeah, that turns into this kind of surreal, uncanny valley feeling thing that has an entire visual language that I one, I find it really hard to emotionally connect to, and two it feels as real as it is, it almost feels like more fakes sometimes and I think that they, in my in my view, smartly took what worked and.
Kind of transitioned it.
To the live action space in terms of character design, in terms of detailing, in terms of you know, how the characters look, in terms of shots, in terms of lighting.
I liked it.
Now.
I think I think, Rosie, you're exactly right that the need to be made argument is basically just say you don't like it and let's move on, like, because none of this shit needs.
To be made.
It's the nature of like all of Hollywood is like, guess what, guys, I'm gonna tell you something. Roger and Eba, you know what, they were saying they didn't need to make seven Friday the Thirteenth movies. They didn't even need to make one, but guess yeah. So I think it's a constant conversation. But I think that because Aaron is here and I believe he is the only one out
of the three of us who's seen it. Aaron, let's get your take on another controversial live action remake recently, because we did recently have the Lelo and Stitch live action remake, which did it inspired a lot of different conversations. There was a lot of discourse about it. There was a lot of feelings in the Native Hawaiian community about it, and there was also millions and millions of dollars made at the box office because for certain families it was
the perfect movie. So, Aaron, what were your feelings on Leelo and Stitches live action film?
So I will again acknowledge up top you already mentioned it, but there were a lot of things that people were upset about with this live action remake. Adaptation whatever you want to do, and there were some particular changes both the story as well as character characters that were just completely cut out for your film, yep, and so some people were unhappy with that. I thought that this felt like as opposed to How to Treat Your Dragon, which,
to be fair, I did enjoy. I just enjoyed the animated more and I felt like Leelo and Stitch the live action added something and gave us a nice little deeper view into certain parts of the movie that we didn't get in the animated And again animated is older. There are a lot different things that are happening in
Disney at that time and what they can do. But for instance, I liked the character changes they did, so they split mister Bubbles from being this like secret agent also social worker into a social worker and a secret agent, so there are two separate characters, and that just made more sense to me. And I liked that the social worker was Hawaiian. It was in fact Tia who was Nanny in the original, and she comes back in the live action to play the social worker, which I loved.
And in the live action I didn't miss gone to that much, like it was cool the kids missed God.
I had a kid tell me yesterday at a graduation party. She was like, yeah, I really liked it, but where I was gone to? And then also, I will say, the kids are upset about the lack of cross dressing. I've had multiple people say that they actually little kids be like why wasn't that character allowed to dress like a go now?
And I didn't they fight over who gets to wear the wig when they're falling asleep, and like, yeah, there's yeah, I get that. I just liked I didn't need Jumba to have a to get fixed and like change their tune, because we already have that with Leelo and Stitch. We don't need everyone in the movie to be redeemed like I'm totally fine with just the main characters getting redeemed.
And I loved the you know, the the writer is Hawaiian as well, and the screenwriter and he meant he made a point to say, like I wanted to make a change that if this happened in real life, it the Hawaii I come from, would not have these two girls left on their own. The community would come together. And so I loved that their auntie comes in, their neighbor, becomes part of their family in the same way that like, you know, family is not just blood relatives. We all
have close friends who are found family. We all have family friends who were not directly related to who become essential parts of your family. That's who their auntie, Amy Hill. She becomes their family and she takes Leelo. So it's not just it's not you know, you know, Nannie gives Leelo up to the state and never sees her again. She lives like in the same house with her auntie who lives next door. That's the most like, I don't know,
heartwarming way that that could have gone. Sure get rid of, like why does she have to go to college in the States as opposed to on Hawaii that's.
A famously great marine biology is in Hawaii.
I just have to say, but I'm not gonna let one sentence ruin the movie for me, Like there was a lot in that I really enjoyed, and I thought Nanni was fleshed out a lot more and I got a much bigger sense of like her hopes and dreams were important, and when they lost their parents, she was impacted in a way that wasn't just now I have
to take care of my sister. It was I had always wanted to do this and I don't get to now because my parents passed away, and so and there's this great scene I thought it was great where they're talking about her.
Are you going to go scene for scene and tell us about this love this movie so much.
I also just want to say, guys, I.
Know the credits when I loved about the font with the credits as the.
Rule, I do want to say. I do want to say, guys, as there was Yes, that is where a lot of the conversation was about, and I do understand as well. I want to say that I do think it is absolutely fair for people to watch a movie made by a multi billion dollar American company like Disney and to read the change in the ending as essentially like at best not thoughtful and at worst as propaganda, which is when there is such a conversation about like a Native
children being taken away from their parents. And also, but I do think that something and this is another interesting conversation I think to have about live action adaptations, especially when it's something like Lelo and Stitch, which the original movie was not a huge smash hit and became one over VHS. Lelo and Stitch the original movie hat because of the lack of kind of oversight it, it did get to make statements that to a lot of people I think ended up feeling radical, even if that wasn't
the intention. Even though a lot of the movie was made by white.
People, and I have seen and starred white people. Let's let's be open about that.
Yeah. And also I will say there was also issues in this movie that Nanni is not played by a
Native Hawaiian actress. And so I think like it's a very interesting conversation in this case because I think Lelo and Stitch acted as one of those movies where it was an unexpected finding representation where you can and people hold it very dear and there are generations of people who grew up with it on VHS, and I also think that is going to be a very hard thing to translate, whereas something like How to Train Your Dragon is pretty much a beat for beat remake, and you're
just like, hey, this is a really gorgeous upgraded version that isn't some shitty upscaled Ai four K remaster. This is like a re envisioning. Yeah, it's like and I think that's the difference. And I think that's why the conversations kind of talk.
About that, because what is it what works and what doesn't work for us in a live action remake?
Aaron like, what is.
What are the things that for you make a live action remake essential or additive?
And what are the things that don't work for you? And when is it?
So I think I think about it like when you see a band perform live, you've listened to the album and you hear the song that they've done recorded. When you when they do it live, you want a different sort of energy, whether that be they are changing up bits of the song they're they're doing, you know, different interpretations of sections of the songs. I like things that are you already know the original. Let me give you
another take on this. Yeah, And so that's why I think in a live action remake, adaptation, and I want something that gives me. I don't want to have it be seen for see from what I've already watched. And so I think that's for me. I want, like, I want some changes, and I think that that is how I view seeing a continuation of the story Joelle.
Yeah, I think it's like anything that's happening in a franchise. Now, you don't need to justify why the film needs be made, but you do need to make a good film. So I'm open to films that have changes in are reinterpreting characters, especially if it's been a long time. But you know, we can look to snow White and see what happens when you do that poorly, when you're not updating for the time period, when you're not interacting.
Oh, you.
Understand it completely. You just read the assignment and a train X. And so I just think for me, like I'll say, up until I have dun your Dragon, and I haven't seen le Loan Stitch yet, I have not liked the remakes. The only one I thought was worth the Damaged Jungle Book, which again is more yeah wonder
One remake. But if they're going to continue to exist, which it seems like, I mean, Leon's just making this most money and what we imagine is going to happen with How to Train Your Dragon, then at least like to me, like the casting of How To Train Your Dragon is so freaking phenomenal, Like everybody really understood the assignment of their character and you feel very connected to them. And that's really what I'm looking for, especially on the
Disney Train, like we come for the characters. I want to see them in the parks. I want their outfits, I want them on T shirts. Give me an interesting perspective on these characters.
I was very happy to see Julian Dennison. I don't think he gets enough work legendary making the movie. I thought he was really fun. That character is barely good anything in the originally the I will also say I thought that they did a good job of like making those characters still still feel as like weird and kind
of cartoony as they are. Okay, I want to talk about this too, because when we were prepping this episode in this stock, let's talk about that because because Aaron wants changes, Joelle's open to either what do you guys think about, Like, how do you define something like Maleficent, which follows the same plot points as Sleeping Beauty but from a completely different perspective, essentially creating a different movie and recasting a character in a different phrase, to something
like How to Train Your Dragon, which is a direct kind of remake, like almost like a shot for shot like Psycho Gus Van Samins Psycho remake, but like some doesn't like.
Something like Maleficent is not a live action remake. It is a completely different story a la Wicked.
Yes, okay, I like the Wicked comparison.
That even though there is kind of a let's say, like loose similarity between the story arcs, the fact that you're in another character's shoes is so upending to the original story, Like it is a completely different perspective, a different story, a different protagonist, and therefore I think it is I think something like that is not a.
I'm classify that as a franchise expander, giving more death on your specific in the way that I don't want to reference.
Those movies franchise expansion.
I like that which I can appreciate. You know, I love a world in diving in and exploring, but I do kind of hope we continue to find ways to like engage and like for me, like Scar, the Moufasa like movie should have been the Scar movie. I'm like, what are we doing?
Like we have?
Mufasa has a perfect arc in the original Lion King. If you're going to and and stop doing it with animals until we can figure out what to do with the mouths, it just stop.
Also, okay, I want to talk about let's talk about Lion k slash Mafasa because can those even count as live action if they're completely CG. I think that is still an animated movie. I have.
I I agree with you. I do.
It's tough because both of the two movies we talked about earlier, Lelo and Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon feature very prominent fully.
CG.
This is.
Exactly I'm gonna so. I'm gonna tell you this is my spiciest take that I think that and it's very like it's a it's not particularly spicy, but I do think it's I think all of these movies should be considered essentially like Roger Rabbit esque, like animated live action kind of combo movies, and I actually think that that would maybe interest people more if we spoke about them
like that. But I also think that it's tough because people then would start to wonder about like every live action movie you see now that has like heavily CG characters, So that would basically like quantum Is that essentially the
same thing? Yeah, basically. But I mean I think that there's something interesting about the way that live action and CG are used together in these movies, and I think that's something that should actually be like interestingly, you know, having a conversation about Ian, don't bring up Robert zemeachis in this conversation that that insane dead eyed man like the Polar Express. That's one of the scariest movies I've ever seen, man, But you know, I watch it every
year at Christmas. I still love it. Bear Wolf, he was doing this before anyone else, honestly, so we can't we can't take that away from him. Okay, So I'm gonna tell you guys, this is my the first live action Disney animated movie that they made, the animated remake that they made, like this live action remake of an animated film, I should say was Pete's Dragon. Right now, I'm like a number one Pete Dragon Superstan. I love the original movie, which was an animated live action kind
of hybrid. But the movie, I think this is actually where they went wrong because the Pete Dragon movie is essentially a completely different story. The original Pete's Dragon is very whimsical. It's very much in that kind of Mary Poppins space. It's also super like Stoner coded Puff the Magic Dragon, like weird.
We say seventies.
Yeah, it's like it's like, you know, very seventies, like whoa spiraling out? But it has kind of similar vibes, which is like kid Left by Himself Dragon. That movie is directed by David Lowry. It has Bryce, Alice Howard, It has Wes Bentley, It has Carl Urban as Una Lawrence has Robert Redford. The movie is so gorgeous and basically is about found family and about the freedom of found family and about the dangers of the state getting
involved with found family. And I thought it was fantastic, and it was made for sixty five million dollars and it made one hundred and forty three million dollars. But I think post that they were like, well, we want these movies to make a billion dollars. We want I think that David Lowry was allowed to make this movie because it was the first in a trial period. But I'm like, this is where we should be going. We should be doing weirder old Disney movies that people have
not really seen. I'll tell you what I would make a remake of doesn't need any animation. There's a really weird Jody Foster movie where she is clearly she's like twelve, and she's clearly a lesbian feet who goes into an old man's house to steal all his goods. It's called Candlewick. Ten out of ten remake that shit. Like Disney has such a weird history of like animation and just strange movies in general, and I think leaning into the strains.
We Cauldron, live Action Wears Please.
That's what I am talking about, like movies that maybe didn't hit at the time but then were able to find their kind of wow Iam Page masterymake. I would watch it.
I try. I'm not prepared.
I love that movie. But yeah, like I think the conversation of what is animation, what is live action? It's so blurred nowadays that it becomes like a hard conversation to have because MCU movies are you know, fifty percent if not more in something like ant Man in Quantitmania volume, what does that really add to it? So it's an interesting space and an interesting conversation. But I also think that the almost like the semantics of it end up just kind of like you missed the fact of as the movie.
If I can bring a ridiculous hard rule to it, I think if we have, I think.
I love a ridiculous hard rule avatar.
I do, I really do, because it's in the details.
It's important.
I classify as a live action because they shoot all of it, like the act being there that.
The reforms to move through it and they're like everybody in it's a lot of mo cap okay, okay.
Jungle Book is a live action movie. The live action remake of Jungle Book has a kidney. All of that is staged and moved around it behind the scenes. A Lion King is an animated movie.
Yeah, because the lion is not a single real thing in it.
That's that's my dividing line. If there's at least one real person and they had stage and set it up and shoot with real like, you know, actually shooting something and not creating with in the computer. Then live action.
Okay, okay, let's go to a break, and then we can come back and talk about our best and worst live action animated remakes or franchise expanders or whatever else do you want to pull, and we're back.
Okay, let's talk about our best live action remakes, our favorite live action remakes or expanders or whatever you want to call it. Let's start, Joelle, let's start with you.
Okay, I'm gonna go and start real controversial one hundred and one Dalmatians with Glenn Close.
Oh that's great.
I love that is such.
Isn't it kind of funny that when we were kids we didn't even think about that wasn't a terminology for it. We were just like, yeah, of course you would remake.
This, Yes, Glenn Close and fabulous outfits, being as wild and crazy as she wants to be. There's some crazy production design in there, and incind about the soundtracks that slaps. One hundred and one Dalmatians got me into jazz as a child, really lovely. And then I would say, do you want just do best and worst.
Yeah, just do Best and West want to be I'm gonna be real. There's not a lot of good ones. It's like a hundred movies, and maybe they're not great.
Okay, I am gonna say Mulan because it misses everything. It didn't get the historical like recreation right, it didn't get the things we loved about the original animation right. It's a hot mess. No one seemed to appreciate it.
Nobody who's like no bisexuality.
Like excited about it. I think Mulan is an interesting historical figure that should have many great movies.
And I've had many great Chinese movies.
Yes, and I think Disney just really really dropped the ball on Mulan.
Okay, Aaron, Best and West, I don't know.
This is cheating.
Can I say the Flintstones for best? Or is that not you can?
I'm sorry Flintstones.
I think for the best, it's great. For the worst.
I feel bad because I haven't actually seen the entire thing. But Aladdin, I just I'm.
Badly unnecessary pop song that made me would have rip my eyes out. I said, what have you done to Ali? Insanity?
Yeah? Not not not, not great.
I could go on. I could I forgot about whatever?
I think I'm I love the kind of I love that these are spreading beyond because I do think Aaron, I think you make a great point with flint Stones. I think that's definitely one of the really really legendary ones and also comes from that era before there were enough movies that we were having to have conversations about whether these are live action adaptations or remaates or whatever. I'm gonna go, uh, I'm gonna I'm gonna pick Peach Dragon as my best because I do watch that movie
a lot. I own it on Blu Ray. I think it's beautiful. It breaks my heart every time I watch it. It's got a great soundtrack. I will say, I'm gonna say, but my, you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna skip Peach Dragon. I already shouted out, I'm gonna say, you know what I'm gonna say right now. Recently Bias How to Train Your Dragon. It was really brilliant. I loved it.
It made me. When I got home, I immediately rewatched the original because I wanted to recapture the feeling I had in the movie theater and it's a Nico Parker as Astrod. It's a Nico Parker vehicle, the one she deserves, and it will make me less bad about picking my worst live action adaptation. Kind of not really, I guess we would say this is a franchise expander. Dumbo director by Timber.
It's so bad, Timothy.
Take them away. He made that. He made frickin' both the Alison Wondler again, Yes, you don't want to hear it there. Dumbo should have been Dumbo should have been like really fantastic and weird, but it was not. It was just a bad movie. And you know what. That was another thing I was struck by with How to Train Your Dragon and Pete Dragon also has this issue, which is why I guess I kind of knocked it
off in the end. These Disney adaptations, live action remakes whatever, they really meander like often you're watching them and you're like, where is that straight through like story that grabbed me in the original animation? We have to now make it two hours and fourty minutes long. Dumbo drugs are that How To Train Your Dragon does not. That is a breezy, frickin' movie, Like you just feel like you're on the adventure. So I think those will be my current twenty twenty five.
You know, it's notable picks. It's notable to me that like in terms of live action remakes, Disney has been at this a while. You mentioned one Dalmatians from ninety six with Gone Close and Jeff Daniels, and then it's really not until like twenty sixteen, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen when you get this glut and nothing from the glut is good. Almost nothing from the glut is it's just too much. There is stuff throwing it thickle.
Reconsideration of Cinderella, I will say I seen Young gen Z. It's made by Kenneth Browner. If you like a traditional kind of fairytale story doesn't have music, is great, interesting, actually very interesting. And Angelina Joe.
But again those were the only two, like it was, those were the only two of that, you know, twenty fourteen you get Molesticent and Cinderella the previous with Sorcerer's Apprentice from twenty ten and then so so it's this big space and then you enter into like post Beauty and the Beast. It's like twenty seventeen Beauty and the Beast. Christopher Robinson twenty eighteen, Dumbo twenty nineteen, Aladdin twenty I want to ask you this, Rosie, where do we is?
Is Pete's Dragon truly a live action remake? When I would argue the amount of the balance of animation exactly live action? Correct, this is basically the same from that.
That's what I'm saying.
I think that you make a good point. I was actually kind of just thinking and saying about this, like, I think if it was up to me, I would kind of be promoting all of these as those old movies were promoted as Roger Rabbit was promoted as these kind of combo like, look what we can do. But obviously the idea of CG is it's supposed to be so seamless. So no, I think that's very fair. I don't.
I think the reason that Pete Dragon is so wonderful is because it doesn't necessarily fit into a lot of the trappings and tropes, and David Lowry was given a lot of freedom. That and Green Knight are like a really great weird forest they double bill. Yeah, but it's true. I'm interested. I will say I do as somebody who has a lot of friends who love romance and who love like historical romantic fiction. The Little Mermaid has a huge fan base in that space. There's a huge fan
art fan base for it. There is also a huge there's yeah, and there's a huge fan base for the fact that it is a very traditional happily ever after and it has this kind of very almost like Renaissance esthetic where you get to see these two people fall in love. I've seen I've seen the movie. I thought that, uh, is it was it Hailey who is in that movie? Yes, Hailey Berry. Yeah, she's fantastic. And I thought that the movie was was like, you know, interesting. That again meandered.
But I will say that's another one where from just being online, I've realized that there is a huge kind of emotional and fan response to it, which I'm interested to see if that continues. But these I think for the amount that there has been, if you really look at the Bangers, quality is not the point here, Like the point is making money off nostalgia.
I think in particular, Disney made a big, big bet coming off of, you know, being high on their own MCU supply like oh we've gary, we've figured it out, we know what to do, and now we're just gonna bet big on this thing, and.
Frankly it just didn't work. It just didn't, you know what.
But it's made them a lot of money, so I think that is from that sense, yes, it's been very successful.
Okay, my uh best and worst, I'm gonna go with Paddington. The Paddington series adapted from the original BBC like the less choice paper animation and stop motion animation which was so charming and delightful, but like when you watch it now feels they're eleven year olds that are probably making better like stop motion than this right now with their
like computers. And I think that the Paddington. I just love the Paddington movies, like even the even when it's not that great, they're great and the pat and Paddington looks wonderful. He's so like a motive and charming. I could stare into his eyes and he's fantastic. I love that they did the exact same thing from the origin, from the Paddington books and from the Paddington original animator, where it's like this bear is here, we don't question it.
It makes perfect sense. He's hand now walking around.
He's here now, and he's walking around, He's interacting with everybody, and it's fine.
I love that.
Worst fuck There's so much to choose from, but I'm gonna go with Pinocchio twenty two.
Oh my god, how did we not talk about this?
Yeah, it's like, is this.
An snl skit? Like, what's happening this movie?
I could not believe it. There is a scene in this movie and it's you know, I do rag on myself. You know, I think a fair amount for how much my Easter egg hunting, uh, you know, kind of had a ripple effect on the impact of things. And I hate to imagine that I even played point five percent of the fact that in this movie there is an entire wall of clocks that Geppetto made and every single one is a fucking Easter egg to a different Disney movie.
And I was like, no, do not do this. Nobody wants this, Nobody wants to write an article about every fifty No, no, no. And it wasn't Tom Tom Hanks his weirdest action.
Like sure his accent sucks thet.
Exactly the same.
And so much worse by the fact that Del Toro releases a stunning animated like Pinocchio.
What months later if I recall literally in the same Yeah, yeah, it was.
I was flabbergas. I was like, Doesny you have to be so embarrassed.
By this.
And the and the way that the live action elements in the CGI elements meet is social and cold feeling, like yes, yes, I mean none of the magic of the original is transmitted to this one.
It is bad.
Okay.
I also I hate it.
I'm like, I also do wanna I want to like add another worst I'm on the Disney Live Action Reimaginings franchise page on IMDb, which I guess is kind of how they looking at all the worldwide openings. But you know which one. I don't necessarily think this counts because it's not adapting something that was originally animated, but they do include it in here. Oz the Great and Powerful hated that ship just make Wicked Wicked was already out like the book. You could have just adapted Wicked hated It.
Made the douchey wizard it sympathetic.
And then the Wicked the Witch is evil because like he didn't want to date her, Like, come the fuck on, this is a lesbian story again, Okay, Aaron dishonorable mention, Yes, please an official hater.
Ghost in the Shell. I don't I don't know if that's.
That's one of the ass Yes, exactly out.
Of here Scarlett and Emma Untilda and that our favorite Asian movie stars.
Okay, wait, Aaron, you were going to call in a boot bringing.
It a boo just he mentioned in the chat that he that Aladdin was bad, but he enjoyed how fun it was, so like.
Okay, please please stand there. I love a stand for absolutely.
There's a whole parade scene that is literally a whole way in like behind the Disney line. It looks so it's five walk away. They're like, that's the parade.
Oh okay. I think Ian has actually come in in my opinion with the winner, and you should probably leave it on this because he put the new Chip and Dale was really good. Movie is fucking amazing. It's so funny, it has ugly sonic in it. It's honestly like one of the best. Also, I love like bootleg Disney movies.
There's a director called Orlando Karate who made a lot of bootleg kind of anime esque like Japanese American co production, Japanese Talian co productions in like the eighties and nineties. They'll be like Cinderella's Trip to the Ball and they are like so bad and I'm obsessed with them, And that is essentially the plot of Chippindale.
Also a big LA movie, like just if you love It on the City of La. It's really fun.
Definitely, Yeah, great Coolly and I am like, you gotta come on here next time because you won all of our picks.
Well, I think we where we've landed is live action movies.
Just make a good one.
Just make a good one. It's a little care where it comes from or when it's a down to.
Just do it about it. Just do it movie.
Thank you to our panel of super producers for joining us today to us this heated topic. On the next episode of Extra Vision, We've got news and our thoughts on Hulu's Predator.
Killer of Killers and animated.
Great for sure. That's it for this episode. Next for listening, Bye.
X ray Vision is hosted by Jason steps Young and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
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