Universal Pictures just released the first teaser trailer for the upcoming live action remake of their animated trilogy: How To Train Your Dragon.

The film is currently expected to release in theaters next June.

Just from a short teaser this looks like the prime example of why remakes – especially remakes of an animated movie into a live action one – are completely pointless.

First of all, it has only been 5 years since the last of these animated movies came out – it was called The Hidden World and it released in 2019. So, not that long ago.

Secondly, just like with Disney’s Snow White remake, it looks like the vast majority (perhaps 90%) of this film is going to be completely computer generated. Not only that, it is computer generated to look almost identical to the computer generated animation which they used to make the original movies.

So, yet again, this “live-action” remake does not actually involve that much live-action, non-animated footage.

And from what we see in this teaser, it looks like it is going to be almost a shot-for-shot remake of the original movies. In other words, it looks identical and is presumably going to follow the same plot as before – so why do we need this? What is the point?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against the original series – they are certainly not fantastic pieces of cinema, but they are entertaining kids movies.

But they also still exist and are not exactly outdated. And this new film doesn’t bring us anything new.

I think what could have been more interesting if they have to make a live-action version of this trilogy would have been to create it with a sense of realism. Perhaps if the dragons had looked like “real-life” dragons (which obviously don’t exist, but you get my point) instead of cartoon dragons, it would have presented a more unique spin.

But instead, this is a perfectly unoriginal, completely pointless live-action remake that appears to be a blatantly obvious cash grab.