“He has the head of a camel
The neck of a crocodile
It sounds rather strange
He’s both a fish and a mammal
And I hope he’ll never change”
It seems other than the presence of a lady with red hair, a cute Disney kid called Pete with long hair and an old man, there isn’t really anything being carried over from the Pete’s Dragon of old. That’s very probably a good thing as that particular film, while perhaps fondly remembered my some, is hardly vintage Disney. It may today come across as a little quaint.
It’s clear from the outset of this trailer that they’re aiming for something altogether darker and actually perhaps more akin to The Jungle Book. In the 1977 original, Pete ran away from his abusive adoptive family to find new guardians with the help of a green and purple dragon called Elliot who could become invisible. While that may sound a little bleak it was played in a charming, knees-up, music-hall style with a song around every corner, a comedy cartoon dragon and Mickey Rooney.
This trailer indicates that Elliot has been living alone in the wild and the dragon is something far more intriguing and powerful that the previous animated version. Some welcome gravity is added to proceedings with the presence of Bryce Dallas Howard, Robert Redford and Karl Urban alongside the young Oakes Fegley as Pete.
Here’s the poster which almost shows a dragon.
Pete’s Dragon arrives in cinemas 12 August 2016
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