Families Deserve Better than Remakes

Evan D.

Iconic in animation, imitation in live action

In the last month two beloved animation films from the directing duo of Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois have found their way back onto big screens in the form of live action remakes. Both (the original) Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon represent, in this reviewers opinion, the best films of their respective studios in the 21st century and now both are raking in cash with a new generation. Neither remake is especially good and their varied approaches to adaptation gave us a pretty good picture of how the whole live action remake trend is a lose-lose for consumers. 

​Let’s start with Lilo & Stitch. The story of a precocious Hawaiian girl and her pet alien was a lovely story of finding belonging and forging family bonds. With the remake, Disney opted to make a number of changes that streamlined the plot and emphasized comedic aspects. Fans of the original complained about missing characters and moments but the real problems with the new movie come from the holes blown in the arcs of the titular characters. Lilo and Stitch don’t really get to go through the process of learning to be good and supportive family and the whole thing loses a lot of the poignancy of the 2002 version. 

How to Train Your Dragon took an alternate approach. DeBlois directs this remake of his own film, about a young Viking who doesn’t quite fit in and discovers he and his village may misjudged the beasts that regularly harass their island. He and DreamWorks made a film that more-or-less copied and pasted the animation shot for shot, line for line. This includes casting Gerard Butler in the same role he voiced originally and finding actors that just look like the real life versions of animated characters. Front and center is Mason Thames as Hiccup, who certainly resembles the character voiced by Jay Baruchel but whose performance feels more like Drake Bell as live action Timmy Turner. That is to say How to Train Your Dragon is the same movie in live action as in animation, just less-so. 

Two different approaches, two different results but one overarching story emerges from them. Lilo & Stitch makes changes to disastrous effect but How to Train Your Dragon shows that pumping out an identical film still leaves you with less than what you started with. That is not even to mention the Snow White adaptation so disastrous it couldn’t even ride the wave these two did. There is simply no way for these remakes to even live up to the originals, let alone mine something new. If you change too you lose what made the animation special and if you change nothing you get a lesser version of the first film. The best you can hope for is the cinematic form of a processed comfort food, vaguely reminiscent of childhood but never the same. 

Why these keep getting made is the other part of this equation. Each of Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon are making fistfuls of cash as families flock to the theater. Undoubtedly this will only encourage more of the same as studios like Disney and DreamWorks get the message that this is what people want — Live Action Shrek anyone — but is it? 

Look at the box office numbers for 2025 and you will find Lilo & Stitch, How to Train Your Dragon and even Snow White all in the top 10. You’ll also see Minecraft and Dog Man in that top 10 and Paddington in Peru sits at #15. Quality of any of these films aside (a generous omission for Minecraft,) every family oriented film released this year is in the top 15 of the domestic box office. Turns out kids like movies and parents like taking them to the movies! So few original ones are made for families to see in theaters that they will show up for just about anything that gets released. 

Good or bad as a standalone venture, the live action remakes are dominating a demographic that used to be populated by the very same original films now being remade. I have a strong feeling that these families would still show up for those kinds of original stories  — animated or live action — if studios were still interested in making them. Instead they continue to cannibalize themselves for the quick cash, but what happens when they are out of beloved animated films to rehash? Disney has not released an original animated film since Wish at the end of 2023 and, as of this writing, doesn’t have another one the calendar through the end of the decade. Meanwhile Moana, a live action remake of a film not even a decade old, comes out next July. None of this feels sustainable. 

Kids deserve to have the same kinds of moving and special films that their parents had, rather than literally the same films in live action. Families have shown that they’ll show up for quality original movies. If only the studios were interested in making them.