Pete's Dragon

Director: David Lowery
Screenplay: David Lowery & Toby Halbrooks (based on a screenplay by Malcolm Marmorstein; based on a story by Seton I. Miller and S.S. Field)
Stars: Bryce Dallas Howard (Grace), Robert Redford (Meacham), Oakes Fegley (Pete), Oona Laurence (Natalie), Wes Bentley (Jack), Karl Urban (Gavin), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (Sheriff Gene Dentler), Marcus Henderson (Woodrow), Aaron Jackson (Abner), Phil Grieve (Bobby), Steve Barr (Deputy Smalls), Keagan Carr Fransch (Doctor Marquez)
MPAA Rating: PG
Year of Release: 2016
Country: U.S.
Pete’s Dragon
Pete’s Dragon

I’ll be the first to admit my skepticism when I read the announcement several years back that Disney was planning on turning some of its older animated films into live-action remakes. It felt at the time like a lazy cash-grab to capitalize on title familiarity and little else; with all the new stories waiting to be told, why did we need new takes on these? I’ll also be the first to admit when I stand corrected, and so far, Disney has produced a winning record with this series, turning out three films so far, each of which has been significantly better than the original it remade. Looking back now, I see that Disney did two smart things in launching this slate of films: First, they chose titles that were familiar, but were not some of the company’s best work, and second, they entrusted the remakes to interesting directors who might offer a unique spin on the material. The first remake, Cinderella (2015), updated the stodgy 1950 animated film through the lens of Kenneth Branagh’s classical romanticism, while the second, The Jungle Book (2016), took advantage of Jon Favreau’s experience with both big-budget action films and comedies to turn the 1967 animated film into a full-blooded epic that also managed to rework the racist subtext of Rudyard Kipling’s original story.

And now we have Pete’s Dragon, a sensitive, moving remake of the goofy 1977 live-action/animation mix, which happened to be the first Disney film with animation that didn’t involve any of the fabled Nine Old Men and was released during a period of economic and creative doldrums at the Mouse House that would extend well into the next decade. The remake of Pete’s Dragon was directed by David Lowery, a filmmaker with only two independent features to his credit: the delicate adolescent drama St. Nick (2009) and the outlaw love story Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013). Both films revealed Lowery to be a director of acute feeling, both emotional and visual, while his work as an editor on Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color (2013) showed that he could be experimental and unorthodox. There is nothing experimental or unorthodox about Pete’s Dragon, but it is a solid piece of feel-good entertainment that is decidedly more artful than many probably expected it to be (the same could be said of Branagh’s Cinderella).

Lowery and his co-screenwriter Toby Halbrooks (who produced Ain’t Them Bodies Saints) completely rework Malcolm Marmorstein’s 1977 screenplay, which was based on an unpublished story by Seton I. Miller and S.S. Field originally destined for Disney’s 1950s anthology television series. They keep the basic idea of an orphaned adolescent boy befriending a giant green dragon, but little else remains. Lowery and Halbrooks restage the story in what looks to be a general present tense (although there are subtle clues that it might be taking place in the 1970s) in the Pacific Northwest, and they open with an utterly heart-rending prologue that finds 5-year-old Pete riding in the backseat with his parents on vacation just before tragedy strikes, which Lowrey and cinematographer Bojan Bazelli (a veteran of numerous horror and fantasy films like The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, The Ring, and Body Snatchers) stage in a poignant bit of disorienting slow motion that is simultaneously beautiful and horrific.

Stranded alone in the wilderness, Pete is almost devoured by wolves before he encounters the dragon he will come to call Elliot, who will stay with him and protect him over the next six years. Elliot is enormous (he’s roughly the size of an 18-wheeler) and can breathe fire, but he has an amiable, dog-like face that can break into a goofy grin that reveals a broken lower canine. Pete grows into an 11-year-old feral child (now played by newcomer Oakes Fegley) who survives in the wilderness with the help of Elliot, on whose back he soars through the air and in whose mossy-furry green arms he sleeps at night. Like Pete, Elliot (who can make himself invisible to avoid detection) is an orphan, so they fundamentally understand each other even if Elliot can’t speak in words. Their interactions have a fundamental poignancy and grace that speaks across divides, and many of the film’s best scenes are almost wordless.

Their idyll is broken by the incursion of a logging company that is cutting down trees closer and closer to the cave where Pete and Elliot are living. This eventually brings other people into their otherwise veiled world, including Bryce Dallas Howard’s Grace, a forest ranger whose father, Meacham (Robert Redford), claims to have once seen a dragon in those very woods. Grace is married to Jack (Wes Bentley), who works for the logging company and has an 11-year-old daughter, Natalie (Oona Laurence), who immediately connects with Pete once he is discovered and brought back to their house. Unfortunately, Jack’s brother, Gavin (Karl Urban), who also works for the logging company, is one of the first people to see Elliot and becomes determined the capture him because, well, that’s what people do when they find something new: they try to claim it and make it their own.

On the surface, Pete’s Dragon is a classic fairy tale, with its adolescent protagonist, supernatural beast, and conflict between their idyllic hidden world and the work-a-day world of adults who don’t understand or care about the mystical and the magical (Redford’s Meacham, who also narrates the film, acts as a kind of intermediary between the openness of childhood and the repressions of adulthood). Under the surface snake a number of intriguing themes, some more subtle than others. The environmental message is loud and clear, with the logging company and their destructive practices pinned as unambiguously evil, or least irresponsible, while Elliot is depicted as a representative of nature at its best—courageous, protective, loving. Because he can look scary, he is misunderstood as violent and threatening, when it is really men like Gavin who are the purveyors of violence, which we see in the film’s second act when Elliot is captured and confined, stripped of his inherent dignity (something the 1977 animated Elliot never had) and reduced to a chained-up prize, not unlike the great King Kong, a film Pete’s Dragon emulates both narratively and thematically. It’s not a perfect film, as it pushes some emotional buttons too hard and cuts some corners that required a little more care, but otherwise it is hard to think of a recent family-friendly film with more grace and poignancy.

Pete’s Dragon Blu-ray + DVD + Digital HD

Aspect Ratio2.39:1
Audio
  • English DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 surround
  • Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
  • French Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
  • SubtitlesEnglish, French, Spanish
    Supplements
  • Audio commentary by director David Lowery, co-writer Toby Halbrooks, and actors Oakes Fegley and Oona Laurence
  • “Notes to Self: A Director’s Diary” featurette
  • “Making Magic” featurette
  • “Disappearing Moments” deleted and alterate scenes
  • “Welcome to New Zealand” featurette
  • “Nobody Knows” by The Lumineers music video
  • “Something Wild” by Lindsey Stirling featuring Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness music video
  • Bloopers
  • DistributorWalt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
    SRP$39.99
    Release DateNovember 29, 2016

    VIDEO & AUDIO
    Disney’s 1080p/AVC-encoded presentation of Pete’s Dragon is pretty much stunning. The image is crisp, clear, and brimming with detail that makes the impressive forest locations feel that much more alive. The color palette, especially in the early portions of the film, leans heavily on verdant greens and earth tones, and the forest scenes are often quite dark, which necessitates excellent shadow detail and contrast. There are also quite a few night scenes that are extremely well rendered—heavily shrouded without becoming murky. Although it was shot digitally, the film doesn’t have an overly sharp digital feel; instead, it has a slightly softer appearance, which helps the CGI blend into the live-action photography. The DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1-channel surround soundtrack is magnificent, with incredible separation, depth, and a thundering low end that gives Elliot’s roars a room-rattling intensity.
    SUPPLEMENTS
    The audio commentary is a group affair featuring director David Lowery, co-writer Toby Halbrooks and actors Oakes Fegley and Oona Laurence. It is fun and informative, although, given the nature of the group, gets a little messy and off-track at times, but there is still plenty of interersing things to learn from multiple perspectives. “Notes to Self: A Director’s Diary” is a 7-minute featurette in which Lowery narrates portions of the diary he kept throughout the making of the film. It offers some intriguing insight into an indie director’s shift to big-budget studio work, and my only criticism is that I wish it were longer. “Making Magic” is an extremely short 2-minute featurette about the digital creation of Elliot, while “Welcome to New Zealand” looks at the location work in New Zealand (which, truth be told, I had no idea was used as a stand-in for the Pacific Northwest). “Disappearing Moments” offers 9 minutes of deleted and alternate scenes, some of which are completed and others of which still feature rough special effects. Finally, the disc includes a blooper reels and two music videos: “Nobody Knows” by The Lumineers and “Something Wild” by Lindsey Stirling featuring Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness.

    Copyright © 2016 James Kendrick

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    All images copyright © Walt Disney Pictures Home Entertainment

    Overall Rating: (3.5)




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