Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Film writers tend to exaggerate a lot. If you watched a movie a couple of times when you were 6 that film tends to be one you cherish and remember fondly and are a huge fan of when it comes up in conversation. I've been guilty of saying "Oh, man! I LOVED that movie!" when talk turns to a random kids movie from my youth even though I probably only really watched it a few times over my entire childhood.
Pete's Dragon is NOT one of those films for me. I was obsessed with it as a kid. It was my first theatrical experience, or so my mother tells me. My memory of it was always on video or TV, but damn did I watch the hell out of that movie. It's pretty crazy looking back on it now. I recently showed it to my young nephews and stuff I took for granted really seemed to spark something in them... like the fact that the opening song is all about how a hillbilly family wants to brutally torture and murder their young adopted orphan.
The film is near and dear to my heart and takes me right back to childhood, so naturally I was suspicious of a remake, but I don't think they could have possibly done better than hiring indie filmmaker David Lowery and his partner in crime Toby Halbrooks to tackle this reboot.
They happened to be shooting this film in New Zealand when I was on vacation there last year, so of course I managed to invite myself to the set. Not sure when I can talk about what I saw there, but I can say that the tone of Lowery's film is much different. No singing and dancing. No drunk lighthouse keeper. This Pete is sadder, more a feral child of the woods than a mop-headed plucky orphan.
You can see a little of that tone shift in the first released marketing materials for the film. In the motion poster below you also get the first glimpse of the new Elliott design. Check it out:
As you can see, they didn't go cartoony with Elliott, but they're not going photoreal, either. This dragon has a little Where The Wild Things Are vibe in its design, doesn't it?
So much of how the film turns out is going to be in how the new Pete (Oakes Fegley) comes across on camera. I trust Robert Redford and Karl Urban and Bryce Dallas Howard will bring their A-Games, but if the relationship between Pete and his Dragon doesn't work then you got no movie.
I'm very optimistic that Lowery and his team pulled this one off. We'll see a little more soon as the first trailer will debut during ABC's big Wonderful World of Disney: Disneyland 60 special, airing this Sunday evening. That's the same event that sees Harrison Ford telling us a little about the upcoming Star Wars Land add-ons to the parks.
If you like your posters more static, I'll leave you with the regular, non-moving one-sheet.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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