The very first How to Train Your Dragon movie released to the public on March 26, 2010. Made by the already rising Dreamworks franchise, it made approximately $494.9 million worldwide against a $165 million budget, becoming one of the year’s top films and launching Dreamworks as a successful company. 15 years later in 2025, the live action version released on June 13 after the animated version has had a sequel, threequal and countless spin-off series. Much like its animated version, the live action movie also had huge box office success, having made $636 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film in the franchise and one of the top films of 2025.
While the live action aimed to serve as a one-to-one recreation of the original beloved movie, the two movies showed many key differences. The most noticeable difference jumped out as important missing scenes. After their first test flight, Hiccup and Toothless encounter some smaller dragons, one of which Toothless blasts in the mouth. Hiccup makes note of the weakness: how dragons seem “not so fireproof on the inside.” This interaction gives him the idea later in the movie to defeat the queen at the end of the movie. With it missing in the live action, it causes a small yet notable plothole that could cause people to question just where he got the idea from at all.
For dragon designs, the live action did an amazing job portraying animated creatures into a real-life setting. Besides a few key differences between them, they stayed very similar, which made fans very happy. Seeing as Toothless served as the face of the franchise, they did a good job keeping Toothless cute like his animated version while still allowing him to have a menacing appearance. Similarly, all of the other dragons looked less bulky and rounded than they appeared in the original, and instead, the creator made them slimmer, allowing them to look more realistic and threatening.
The characters themselves differed in several ways as well. One very noticeable addition involves an added focus on the interaction between a sub-main character named Snotlout and his father. In the 2010 version, said father only appeared in the background, and even then, his relation to Snotlout at all remained unknown. The reveal of such happened in a later series. In every visible interaction, Snotlout shows a tendency to be full of himself and rather arrogant. However, in the live action, the writers added more depth to his character by adding a new layer of insecurity to him as a person by chasing more validation from said father.
The actor chosen for Hiccup, Mason Thames, looks overall similar to the animation, as well as the actor for Stoic, Gerard Butler, who actually voiced Stoic in the original. However, the other teen characters looked the most different. In the original version, Astrid appeared blonde: a trait that her live action actor, Nico Parker, doesn’t have. Snotlout also looked more skinny and tall in the live action, instead of his more stocky and short build in the original. Regardless, his actor Gabriel Howell did a solid job portraying his flirtatious and brash personality. The most notable difference in character look exists between the two twin characters, Ruffnut and Tuffnut. In the original they appeared lanky, tallish blondes with long hair. It’s very easy to tell that they’re twins. The live action actors, Bronwyn James and Harry Trevaldwyn, look nothing close to their animated counterparts or even each other.
Overall, it stood strong as a good live action recreation. The script remained near the same, leaving in a lot of the same beloved jokes and interactions. The dragon designs stayed very true to the original, and the characters kept the same personalities and characteristics. In the end, everything came together very well, despite a few gripes.
