Pete’s Dragon (2016)

Pete’s Dragon. While I found it a cute film with solid animation and engaging themes about a boy and his dragon, this movie unfortunately stumbled in its attempts to establish itself as something special. With jumbled storytelling, some inconsistent acting, and a mixed bag of songs, Pete’s Dragon had moments of charm but struggled to prove itself as a legitimate Disney classic despite being looked at and labeled as one.

But that’s nothing compared to the Disney remakes we’ve had over the past decade and a half, right? With various remakes that did nothing to improve the original animated films –  for example, the live-action Lion King had no soul to it, and from what I heard, the live-action Snow White is just an embarrassment  – they were looked at as a laughing stock by Disney fans for having no sense of imagination and for being more interested in updating the animated film into live-action without stopping to think how it could have best been applicable in live-action.

That’s why I found myself most curious when I heard that a remake of Pete’s Dragon would be made in 2016. Despite its problems, Pete’s Dragon was still a fun family film I’ve always had a soft spot for throughout my childhood, and still do. So, what would a Pete’s Dragon remake possibly do to the story, outside of making the dragon himself live-action this time?

After a while, I finally decided to check out this movie. And my God, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a remake update a movie so exquisitely as this one did with Pete’s Dragon.

You may find parts of it repetitive, but allow me to lay out the story to you.

It was about a young boy named Pete who had just become orphaned – I’ll get into that very soon – and ran into a green dragon in the forest, whom Pete decided to name Elliot. Then, six years have come and gone as Pete gradually became comfortable with the dragon who found him when he was young. Life went smoothly for them, and Pete even made a home for himself out of a large tree that stood in the middle of the forest and above a cave where Elliot liked to hunker down.

One day, Pete stumbled into a few people at a time as they trickled into Pete’s crosshairs. One was a park ranger, Grace, who was investigating the forest. Then, her daughter, Natalie, was the first to spot Pete, and Pete had taken an evident interest in her when they first met. And finally, Grace’s husband, Jack, tried to wrap his head around having Pete around, especially considering how they first found him.

After a few misunderstandings, Pete was taken in by Grace and her family as he struggled to adjust to human society. Meanwhile, Elliot, who had noticed that Pete had gone missing, searched the town of Millhaven to find him. However, as soon as Pete started to tell the family about having a friend who kept him company for six years, and also that this friend happened to be a dragon, the family reacted to his claims with a slight shred of disbelief, at first. But sooner than later, it turned into a common interest, for the dragon Pete spoke of may have aligned with what they had heard regarding dragons in the local area. I’ll explain that very shortly, too.

However, the dilemmas concerning Elliot only intensified. When Elliot was looking at the construction work in the forest, he accidentally knocked down one of the trees. That signaled the construction workers, including Gavin, Jack’s brother, to investigate the matter. When they found Elliot, they became the first to discover that he, as a dragon, was real. So, with Pete’s admission of him having Elliot, a dragon, as a friend, as well as Gavin coming back to report having seen a dragon nearby, that’s when Grace, her family, and pretty soon, the rest of the town finally caught wind of there possibly being a living, (fire) breathing dragon in their midst.

How would Grace and her family have reacted to it? How would Jack, Grace’s husband, have responded to the idea of there being a dragon after hearing his brother talk about it? Would Pete have been able to keep Elliot safe for long? And would Pete have had any chance of having a new family to settle with once he got more comfortable with Grace, Natalie, and the rest of their family?

At first glance, whether you’re familiar with the original film or not, this story sounds like familiar territory, with it being about a boy and the turmoil he went through after bonding with whatever unusual creature he found. And in this case, it was a real-life dragon.

And tell me if you’ve never heard of this before. The protagonists did their best to hide their new friend from their friends and family, only for it to be a matter of time before the beans would have been spilled about their entanglement just before the climax unfolded.

Well, here’s the first thing that shocked me about this movie: it did not even go there.

And as I just laid out to you with the plot, it didn’t just have to do with Pete admitting with sincerity that he had a dragon for a friend. And by that, I mean that he ‘believed’ believed, like he wasn’t making any of it up. It also had to do with Gavin catching sight of Elliot in the forest and being the first to return and report what he and his hunting buddies discovered after investigating the commotion around them. So, it was still a matter of time before the rest of Millhaven caught on to Elliot’s existence, but no hiding was necessary. It lunged into the action without exploiting any potential clichés that may have come with such plot threads.

However, there’s far more to the story than just that, because this led to what else this movie accomplished with Pete’s Dragon. If you recall me mentioning about the original film, two of the most noticeable details that went unexplored and became missed opportunities were Pete’s parental background and the ramifications of a real, flesh-and-blood dragon living among modern-day humans. In this movie, it took advantage of them most splendidly.

Let’s start with the opening sequence. It began with Pete, who was only a few years old, riding with his parents as he read the book ’Elliot Gets Lost.’ However, during their car trip, Pete’s father quickly swerved his car around to avoid running over a deer, and in so doing, it flipped over and tumbled downhill until it left both the parents dead and Pete all alone. At first, he struggled to fit into the forest, for a pack of wolves cornered him. However, some strange, loud noises sounded off in the distance, scaring the wolves off. That’s when the green dragon came along, and because ’Elliot Gets Lost’ was Elliot’s favorite book before his parents died, that’s what compelled him to name the dragon Elliot.

And that was just the first six minutes of the movie. Six minutes, and already, it entranced me with its explorations of one of the most promising aspects that the original Pete’s Dragon failed to shed light upon.

And yes, as I mentioned, this film also acknowledged the potential consequences of the townspeople realizing the likelihood of a dragon living among them.

In the original film, the townspeople – and in this case, the town was Passamaquoddy, Maine – scoffed at Pete’s claims of having a dragon for a friend and thought it was just random ramblings of a young boy with a wild imagination. Even Nora, the adoptive mother figure, thought so, too. The only person in town who believed that the dragon was real was Nora’s father – and Pete’s grandfather figure – Lampy. And as for how the existence of the dragon affected the rest of the town, it started when Doc Terminus and his sidekick Hoagie caught on to Elliot’s existence when Elliot accidentally burst in through the school walls out of outrage for Pete being mistreated by his snooty teacher, Ms. Taylor. And what did Doc Terminus and Hoagie plan to do with Elliot upon this discovery? Hack off his body parts after discovering they could’ve made foolproof medicine out of them.

Not only that, but the rest of the Passamaquoddy townsfolk did not react to the idea of a dragon living among them with complete surprise or shock. Instead, they hunted down Elliot to get rid of what they thought was a superstitious curse that somehow made the fish and the marine life that the harbor sailors were searching for suddenly vanish.

Whimsical and imaginative? Yes. But logistically, the story of how the bad guys and Passamaquoddy caught on to the idea of a live dragon being out and about felt as far-fetched as they come.

But this Pete’s Dragon was not fooling around with the potential of a town catching on to the existence of a dragon. In this case, a local legend associated with Millhaven concerned a herd of dragons that lived in the forests and mostly kept themselves hidden from plain sight. It was said that only a few people had witnessed one or any of the dragons and returned to tell the tale, but the uncertainty of their claims made their relayed experiences spread throughout the area as just that: local legends.

And it just so happens that Grace’s father, Conrad Meacham, a local carpenter played by Robert Redford, was among those people. He remembered when he first saw the dragon with his own eyes, for he was stooping down to grab a drink from the river when he discovered the dragon standing in front of him across the river. As he prepared to lift his rifle and shoot, he couldn’t have brought himself to do it because he was so awestruck by what he saw, by the idea of an actual dragon looking back at him.

It wasn’t just Conrad, though. Again, Gavin also caught on to the existence of Elliot after he and his hunting buddies discovered some weird sounds nearby and decided to hunt down their source, only to find out what they had tried to hunt down and run in a panic. So, when Gavin frantically told everyone, starting with Jack and his family, about him having run into a dragon, and that he had done so around the same time that Pete told them about his friend being a dragon, that’s when the claims of a real dragon being around became viewed less as superstitious and more like they weren’t a coincidence.

Normally, because everyone in Millhaven was familiar with the dragons from local legends, this would’ve easily left them unsure of what to make of the idea of such legendary figures being real and never made up.

Pretty soon, they reacted to the idea of there being a dragon as anyone would have. They would have been very intrigued by the idea of a real dragon living among them as they tried to pinpoint exactly how dangerous this dragon was and, because of that, whether he would have meant any harm.

In a way, this movie’s dilemmas called me back to The Iron Giant. What would have happened if an unimaginable creature capable of supreme destruction had intermingled with a small town environment? And because he was so dangerous, would that have made him willing to destroy anything and anyone? Such questions were brought up here in the movie with subtle finesse.

When I saw Elliot’s ability to turn invisible, I bought into his biological standards and capabilities regarding his disappearances, only he did so a little differently. In the original film, Elliot could have made any part of himself invisible, as best exemplified when he reluctantly made himself invisible, albeit via body parts rather than his whole self. But here, he could have allowed himself to turn invisible, depending on his desired intensity. Could he have turned himself 100% invisible? Could he have made himself only somewhat visible? But most importantly, when he turned invisible, he made it look equivalent to camouflage, for he usually looked at different parts of his surroundings and attempted to become invisible starting from that spot.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie occurred after Elliot, who was tranquilized and strapped down on a truck bed, was finally let loose, chain by chain, by Pete and Natalie, who tried to set him free inside a barn, where the truck was parked and where the ceiling was open. They attempted to set him free just as Gavin and the rest of the town were about to break into the barn to get a peek at the dragon. Just as Pete and Natalie let loose the last chain, Gavin finally broke into the barn, only to discover that Elliot had gone missing. But Gavin thought he had flown out when he looked at the open ceiling. Frankly, I thought he did too, since it made me think that Pete and Natalie unchained him just in time to let him fly free and out of the barn. However, as Grace stayed behind in the barn and looked closely, she discovered that Elliot had not flown out of the barn; he had remained on the truck bed all along and had turned invisible to fool the townspeople. That was ingenious, not just of Elliot, but of the movie. This tinkering around with Elliot’s abilities and reputation was among the qualities that helped put this movie above the original film.

I noticed that some people expressed misgivings about Elliot’s general design, as they complained that he was not reptilian enough to be interpreted as a dragon and that certain parts of him felt more mammalian than usual. However, I did not mind it because, in an age where we have so many different dragons lunging forth in media, whether it be the dragons from How to Train Your Dragon, Smaug from the Hobbit movies, and especially the dragons from Game of Thrones, I believe that what was done with Elliot’s design still carried enough draconic aspects for me to buy into him being the real deal. On top of that, they also did a great job expressing similar likenesses between Elliot and the Elliot of the original film, while still making him distinct enough to be evaluated as his own interpretation. In the original, I always remembered Elliot standing on twos and walking around like a human, but with tiny wings. Here, Elliot walked on all fours and had massive wings to the point where he could have flown anywhere he wanted with Pete on his back.

And guess what? That is a much better fit for Elliot since he’s a dragon. It doesn’t matter what kind of dragon he was as long as he carried the same anatomy and functionalities of a regular dragon. That’s enough for me to buy into Elliot’s potential dragon species, if any.

Speaking of which, the visuals of Elliot? What can I say? They were just stellar.

Unlike the original film, where Elliot was noticeably animated, Elliot was brought to life here with such attention to detail, down to his body movements and expressions, that I would have bought into the possibility of a dragon living among modern-day humans in this movie. I could have told the difference since Elliot was hand-drawn in the original film, but with Elliot here, I almost couldn’t have. The visual artists went all out in making me believe that Elliot was as real as can be. What the visual artists also excelled in with regards to Elliot’s character was that they helped hone in the more animalistic instincts that Elliot had as a dragon, while also sneaking in enough sentience for me to have sensed what he was thinking, who he was thinking of, and how he felt about the possibility of his loved ones either being safe or hurt, especially Pete.

I also admire Elliot as a character. He started as your average dragon who just happened to stumble into Pete and became good friends with him, as well as his borderline protector whenever he got into harm’s way. Speaking of protectorship, Elliot was devoted to Pete, looking up to him as if he were his pet and not just a close friend. In the original film, however, Elliot was fully aware of his guardianship of Pete when he was an orphan, and how it was only a matter of time before he had to let him go once he found someone else to rely on, like a new family. It resulted in one of the more emotional moments in the original film, where Elliot and Pete had to say goodbye because Pete had found a home and a new family, which says a lot about the original film. However, as Elliot was in this movie, he looked up to Pete and ultimately decided to leave him, knowing it would’ve been best for both of them. For Pete, it was (once again) because he found a family, and for Elliot, it was due to him being outed as a real-life dragon. And that worked, too.

Even the sequence of Elliot and Pete playing together in the beginning felt more wholesome and heartfelt than ‘Bop Bop Bop Bop Bop (I Love You, Too)’ would have ever been.

What I did not expect were some scenes in the movie where Elliot was downright frightening. How would you feel if you saw Elliot like this…

…compared to Elliot like this?

On top of that, during the climax, Elliot did engage in behavior patterns typical of a dragon. It would’ve reminded me that even though Elliot was Pete’s best friend and meant well, he’d have also reminded me that, oh yeah, he’s a dragon. If anyone harmed a hair on Pete’s head, he would likely have roasted them, figuratively and, God forbid, literally.

I was also very fond of the movie’s location changes. It went the ‘Stand By Me’ route and updated the setting from Maine to the Pacific Northwest. Call me biased since I grew up in the Pacific Northwest myself, but for what it had going for it, the scenery of the Pacific Northwest was just stunning. It truly captured the general aesthetic and mystery of what lurked within the forests. Additionally, the local legends surrounding Elliot were apropos and very creative. Because the movie introduced the local myths of dragons that could have made themselves visible to those who ran into them, but could also have been hard to identify for their hiding among the trees, it felt like a clever usage of the setting to hone in on Elliot’s general reputation and the credibility of his existence.

However, if there’s one thing about the movie that came close to being a significant flaw, that would’ve been the characterizations. I thought they were a mixed bag, just like the songs in the original film.

Let’s start with where I thought the characterizations felt arguably the flattest.

With Jack, Grace’s husband, there was not much to write home about with him, except that he was in charge of a local lumber company and was supposedly putting up with whatever fierceness he was assumed to have put up with from Grace. But outside of him being the sensible father figure, that was pretty much it.

At first, I thought Natalie didn’t carry enough personality to help her stand out, especially when she was not around Pete. However, as time passed, I realized how sensible she was, even before she met Pete. During her first scene in the movie, she asked Grace to take her to school so she wouldn’t be late. Outside of that, she maintained this attitude with Pete throughout the film, to the point where the two grew close to each other as boys and girls usually do around their age, and I looked at them as if they would have made a great brother and sister. As Grace remarked,

Maybe being around someone his own age will help him open up.

And you know what? I think it ultimately worked out well for the movie, too. Pete did not closely engage with anyone around his age in the original film, so seeing him go through that in this film somehow made him feel like he was well on his way to integrating into human society, thanks to people around his age who actually understood him.

That, and I found how these two met quite adorable. Since we’re talking about a feral boy who just laid eyes on a civilized girl he was drawn to for the first time, I dare you to watch this and not feel any ’My Own Home’ vibes as I did.

The rest of the characters, however? Even though they, too, seemed light in their characterizations, what they conveyed still felt intriguing to me.

Let’s start with Grace. I was already intrigued by who she would’ve been because, as far back as the trailers, I saw that she was a park ranger instead of simply being the daughter of a lighthouse keeper. That told me that she had far more responsibility on her shoulders, even compared to her father. And because of that, it would also have given her connections to the police force, among other people, whenever she had to dig for answers. And when it came to Pete, I felt her maternal instincts kicking in, which was a given since she was already Natalie‘s mother first. She started off wanting to help the boy by searching for his parents, at least until she and her fellow cooperators discovered the tragic news of what happened to them. From there, she allowed Pete to stay with her and her family, and she became more tender towards Pete than before. That’s when I could tell she would have made a good second mother for Pete.

Although he was not as prominent in this movie as Lampy was in the original, Conrad Meacham was also quite interesting. What made him compelling, again, was that he knew that the dragon was real and had a history of being looked at as a fool for it. But whereas Lampy’s claims of having seen a dragon were brushed off because he was the town drunkard, here, Conrad was dismissed because the townspeople wouldn’t have thought that there was such a thing as a dragon and that his claims were just were seen more as potential tall tales that other people would have said to get people’s attention. Watching his belief of having seen a dragon clash at times with Grace’s more commonsensical beliefs resulted in some engaging conflicts about what’s real, reasonable, or untrue. It came just a touch short when you compare it to Lampy having tried to convince Nora and the others that the dragon was real, while Nora was trying to convince him that dragons weren’t real while also hoping for her boyfriend Paul to come home, which Lampy would not have believed to be possible since a year had passed since Paul went out at sea. Nonetheless, as far as that part of Grace and Conrad’s relationship was concerned, it still provided some extra juiciness where it felt most needed.

As for Pete himself, he felt like a far more realistic representation of who and what he had become.

In the original film, Pete was just a street-smart orphan who knew his way with people and was also responsible enough to ensure Elliot didn’t go too crazy with his antics, not to mention stay low and blend in with the common folk, as they had to if they were going to fit in somehow. But with Pete and Elliot in this movie, Pete had been an orphan when he was younger and lived in the woods for six years. Because he lived for so long in the forest, he would inevitably have had far less exposure to the human world than Pete did in the original film. So, when Natalie cornered him, then Grace, some of the police, and the other Millhaven natives, he struggled to live among them, outside of reacting in ways that would have been more appropriate for a feral animal.

We know Mowgli went through the same struggles in The Jungle Book, no matter which version we see. Here, we see the same thing happening with Pete in the modern-day era. And because he had been orphaned at such a young age, there was almost no telling how he was going to react to the people he was unsure of and what they were going to do with Elliot, since he had been his best friend ever since the tragic accident that claimed his parents’ lives. And by the time he opened up more about his problems and his friendship with Elliot, whether with Natalie or with Grace, he admitted to them who he saw in Elliot, without acknowledging the possibility of being scorned for making it up. Even Natalie thought that maybe he had an imaginary friend when he mentioned Elliot, not knowing that he was real and a dragon.

However, the most interesting character in the movie was Gavin. When I first saw him, I recall his fights with Jack over his home, family, work, and so on. Plus, his pursuit for fame started to come knocking on his door when he caught on to the noises that Elliot made by mistake in the forest, which, in turn, led to his discovery of Elliot and his desperation to prove to his fellow townspeople that he was’t lying about Elliot by tracking him down and bringing him into town to show them.

At first glance, he’d be seen as just a regular bad guy more interested in fame and fortune than anything, right? Well, in this case, by the time he caught sight of the dragon, he was practically on the same boat as Conrad, knowing that the dragon was real, except he went through more desperate measures to prove it. Also, in the climax, even though his pursuit of Elliot did get to his head, he showed genuine concern for his brother when his life and that of Grace were put on the line.

This kind of characterization…

Think about this. If you had to settle for a movie called Pete’s Dragon, what would have been your idea of an enriching, worthwhile viewing experience?

Seeing the grandfather figure blab about seeing a dragon after developing a local reputation as the town drunkard? Or a grandfather figure who knew he saw a dragon with his own eyes when such dragons were recognized more as local legends?

How about this? A touring quack and his sidekick, whose primary plot upon discovering that Elliot was real was to hack off his body parts and use them for medicinal services? Or a local hunter who happened to be the father figure’s brother and tried to prove that the dragon was real after running into him?

Or this? An abusive family who tracked Pete down and tried to bring him home to continue using and abusing him as their servant? Or unearthed facts that pointed to what became of Pete’s missing parents and consequently roped in child care services?

Okay, so the abusive family doesn’t seem unsound for Pete’s Dragon, but the way the original movie conveyed it seemed too silly to be taken seriously.

With Gavin, however, what he meant to do with Elliot was taken very seriously, and his pursuits made much sense when it came to discovering a real, living, breathing dragon living among him and his people.

However, as light as the characterizations were, I should highlight two aspects of this movie that truly helped sell them. And it’s not just the refreshing story that the movie utilized.

The first of such aspects was the performances.

Though in the original film, Helen Reddy and Jim Dale stole the show, almost every actor in this movie expressed such an equal level of commitment to their performances that I bought how each character did their own thing, how they spoke to each other, and how they reacted to the idea of Elliot being for real. I felt like I got to know these characters from how the actors conveyed them or expressed themselves.

Bryce Dallas Howard brought just enough professionalism as a park ranger for me to buy into her capabilities and connections while expressing just enough tenderness as a maternal figure for me to believe in her potential as a worthy second mother for Pete.

I will admit, Wes Bentley did express enough roughness with him for me to buy into the likelihood of Jack having had some experience lumberjacking. But he also expressed enough modesty and instinctive urges for me to buy into him being a noble father figure willing to do what he knew was best for himself, his family, and later, Pete as well.

Robert Redford felt like he owned his role as Conrad, as he elaborated on his past experiences with a dragon, whether in a romanticized way to a group of kids or as bare facts, such as when he discussed it with Grace. Additionally, he displayed his ‘noble grandfather’ side pretty feasibly around Natalie. So, Robert Redford helped bring this character to life in such a short amount of time.

I wasn’t sure what to make of Karl Urban, who played Gavin, except that when his desperation to hunt down Elliot became more evident, he took on the lens of being seen more as the bad guy. His boastfulness when he was either on the verge of capturing Elliot or bringing him home did not help matters. However, as much as he nailed down Gavin’s cocky and attention-hungry side, he also conveyed a stroke of modesty in his character, reminding me of his devotion to his brother and family, and that he was by no means malicious in his intentions. He was instead interested in proving something that only he saw, and he did so without considering the consequences that could have befallen his family or the rest of the townspeople upon this discovery.

And I admire the girl who played Natalie, Oona Laurence. Outside of her commonsensical attitude, she played her role with such believability and naturalness that it didn’t matter at the time how little I knew about Natalie’s character. Despite not knowing enough about her, she played her to such a degree that I felt like I got to know her.

But the real highlight would be Oakes Fegley as Pete. He honed Pete’s childlike sensibilities and inner conscience when he tried to figure out what he knew was right for himself, Elliot, or the people who slowly became his second family, despite his character having had so little experience in the human world. You can tell that he owned Pete’s background of having lived in the forests to the point where he acted more animal than human when he was around other people, and that it took some getting used to for Pete to have slowly become more human than animal, especially after he spent a little bit of time with Grace and her family.

The second element that helped sell the characters was David Lowery’s directing. Something about his approach to the story felt so tender and empathetic, and reached so far into the heart that he helped me buy into the possibilities of a boy having grown up for a good chunk of his life with a dragon by his side. The modesty apparent in Lowery’s style also helped demonstrate how hard it would have been for Pete to get used to human life and wrap his head around the consequences of the more logical, commonsensical people in Millhaven reacting to the idea of a dragon being real and living among them. I remember feeling the serenity of the forest, as well as Pete’s friendship with Elliot, and later his relationships with Grace, Natalie, Jack, and Conrad. There’s an inner urge of emotions running throughout Lowery’s directorial approach, which is why this movie immediately won me over in the six minutes that opened the film. After being so used to all the corniness that I grew up with from the original Pete’s Dragon, to see something so genuine, heartfelt, and artistically mesmerizing launching forth under the same name is what sold me on the idea that Pete’s Dragon was not only a good movie, but a great one when comparing it to the original one.

However, as much as I expected to say that I missed nothing from the original Pete’s Dragon, two elements stuck out to me as to what I did miss from it.

The first was Don Bluth’s animation style. Don Bluth’s animation was always spectacular and pleasant to watch. But as much as I thought he nailed down the expressions and mannerisms of Elliot before he broke off from Disney to establish his own animation studio, I had to remind myself that Elliot’s design was more humanoid than draconic and that his expressions were still human despite them coming from a dragon. So, as much as I missed Don Bluth’s style in this take of Pete’s Dragon, I still stand by the fact that the visuals applied to Elliot and his biological aspects were the right way to go. And, as I said, the expressions from Elliot in this movie were a mix of human and animalistic, which also made sense for Pete’s best friend as a dragon.

The other one I missed was the song ’Candle on the Water.’

When I first heard that song, I was swept away by the general ambiance as Nora stood atop the lighthouse looking out into the sea and by the themes of lovesickness that Nora felt as she missed her boyfriend, Paul. If The Parent Trap remake brought back ’Let’s Get Together’ from the original film, then surely the Pete’s Dragon remake could have done the same thing with ’Candle on the Water,’ especially since that song was a hit when it first came out.

Even then, the film’s sense of music was also very distinct. Most of the time, it carried a surprisingly country-like vibe, both in its score and its songs. With the score, it brought that country vibe to highlight the more rugged areas of the locations in the Pacific Northwest. At other times, it embodied some of the more childlike or urgent outward tones that would have been felt with Pete’s dilemmas concerning Elliot. As for the songs themselves, a nice variety of them played in the background to hone the local elements of dragons, as well as Pete’s journey with Elliot. One of the most noteworthy songs I can recall from the movie was called ’The Dragon Song,’ which might have been treated almost like a customary song for Millhaven, since it related to the local legends being told of the dragons who lived in the forests. It also tied, in some ways, into the conflicts that erupted between Pete, Elliot and the people who found them.

However, as much as I salute the movie for what it achieved, it might be one of the more underrated remakes that Disney ever made, for it struggled to leave the right lasting impression when compared to the more widespread yet subpar efforts of the other live-action remakes released around the same time.

Take a look at the cover for its home video releases. Do you notice how it says ‘Walt Disney Studios Presents’ and ‘Disney’ above the movie title on the same cover? As someone who graduated from art school, I can tell you that that’s lazy marketing. And that’s another reason I feel Pete’s Dragon as a remake deserves much more attention and love than it has had over almost ten years.

As soon as I started watching this movie, every time I flashed back to the old Pete’s Dragon during then, not a moment went by that I did not stare at the screen slack-jawed by just how remarkable an interpretation this was of the story of Pete’s Dragon. It makes me even more shocked to say that about a modern live-action Disney remake.

When we think about those, we usually think of them as just products of an unimaginative, lazy money printing machine. However, even that aspect of Disney’s filmmaking strategies from the past decade and a half did not come forth without churning up a few gems of its own. Which of such films have been declared the cream of the crop? Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and Cruella, even though that’s technically a prequel. These films were usually hailed as solid films in their own right, but were inevitably flawed compared to their animated counterparts.

Pete’s Dragon was more along the lines of Homeward Bound, The Parent Trap, and most of all, Freaky Friday with Lindsay Lohan. These remakes were commendable achievements in their own right as they slowly but surely became appreciated and valued alongside the originals, if not more so. And I can safely say that after having seen Freaky Friday in almost all their incarcerations recently – from the original film with Jodie Foster straight to the remake with Lindsay Lohan, and ultimately, even Freakier Friday – that’s why I felt genuinely impressed with what the Pete’s Dragon remake had done when comparing that to the efforts of the original film.

Frankly, even the live-action How to Train Your Dragon has nothing on this. This film took everything that worked about the original Pete’s Dragon, warts and all, and elevated it to spellbinding heights with additional embellishments that helped Pete’s Dragon stand out and surpass the original classic, making it worthy of the Disney name. On its own, it’s a remarkable family film, even if it’s no Iron Giant or How to Train Your Dragon. But as a remake, it blows the original out of the water, and it left me feeling prouder of having been used to the story of Pete’s Dragon when it started on bumpy roads and ultimately blossomed into something more magnificent.

I don’t know how many of you may have heard Pete’s Dragon, whether it’s the original or this film, but I would strongly advise you to catch the remake. Otherwise, if you want to check out the original, I recommend watching that first and then moving on to the remake to understand better what it takes to redo a classic movie and do it right. I would usually be inclined to say, ’Take notes, Disney,’ since Disney is still struggling with these remakes. But I feel more compelled to say ’Take notes, Hollywood,’ because let’s face it, this is how you do a remake properly.

The only other times I can think of where a remake was made to near perfection would be the musical version of Little Shop of Horrors and the Coen Brothers’ take on True Grit. Those movies knew how to take the story of a classic film and elevate it to visually stunning new heights. This Pete’s Dragon was no exception.

Watch out, because you will believe that a dragon is real and that a masterful remake is still possible.

My Rating

A-