The brand new live action ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ was released in the UK on June 13 2025, to cinemas all over the country.
Newer fans saw Berk and the Hooligan Tribe in a whole new light, and older fans got to relive their childhoods born from one of the most timeless movies ever made.
However, was the live-action as timeless and nostalgic as the original 2010 animated version? Let’s dive in and have a look at a comparison between the How to Train Your Dragon from fifteen years ago, and the HTTYD Live Action from last month.
The Animation
It has to be said straight off the bat: nothing will ever beat the original 2010 animated ‘How to Train Your Dragon’.
The voice actors, the atmosphere, the music, the character designs, the dynamics between the characters, the dragons, the Isle of Berk itself – there will never be any animated movie that could possibly come close to hitting as close to home as HTTYD does.
It teaches valuable life lessons for children all over the world, most importantly, how to stand out from the crowd and to be yourself no matter what.
An arguably just as important fact, those children who have grown up into teenagers and young adults find comfort in its nostalgia – when real-life drama gets truly difficult, HTTYD will always be there to help you escape to a world of riveting adventures.
Animation will always be a magical art, being able to create things from imagination and hours of hard work is a truly wonderful attribute to the world.
The character design and the Isle of Berk are so authentic in the 2010 version, being able to recreate Viking culture and an island based on a real place, but making it entirely individual to the story being told is one of the things that makes the movie so enthralling.
This leads onto the dragons, creating the movements and mannerisms of creatures that have had hundreds of depictions in media, but again, making it entirely specific to the HTTYD universe is wonderous and magical, not only to children, but to adults too.
Live Action
With the same director, music producer (the awe-inspiring John Powell) and even one of the same actors (Gerard Butler returning as the great Stoick the Vast), it’s no wonder the movie has already made hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office in just its first month of being in cinemas.
While the crew did well to keep many aspects of the HTTYD universe true to the original version, there were many things that were different, many of which fans found less appealing than expected.
The realism of the dragons is undoubtedly impressive; the CGI and work put into them will have taken hours upon hours of work (something to be had in common with the animation). However, they certainly weren’t the dragons we know and love from 2010.
However, the dynamics between the characters that were simply created through the use of voice acting in a studio, just simply and obviously could never be replicated.
Some scenes were also removed from the live action, most notably the terrible terror scene and the rant Hiccup has to Gobber featuring the iconic line “this here, this is a talking fishbone”. Fans were upset about the removal of these scenes as they played such a vital role in Hiccup’s character, especially his sass, which was somewhat lost in the new movie.
There’s no doubt that both movies are lovable, fun and nostalgic. However, there is a magic and comforting atmosphere that simply cannot be replicated, as it touched so many people’s hearts back in 2010, and will continue to do so for years to come.
Featured image credit: Universal Pictures
