If you’re like me, you probably hate live action remakes. Why rewatch your childhood favorite movie but with a botched story and worse visuals? Recent movies from Disney – like “Mufasa,” which received a 57 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes – certainly did nothing to entice me to the genre. So when I heard that Universal Studios was making a live action adaptation of “How to Train Your Dragon,” starring Mason Thames as Hiccup and Nico Parker as Astrid, I expected the worst.

Yet, I was surprised to feel my opinion shift after watching the trailer that came out a few weeks ago. The trailer showed various scenes from the upcoming movie, setting the stage which fans of the original already know: how Hiccup was raised by his Viking father (played by Gerard Butler, who also voiced the character in the animated films) to fight dragons but changed his mind after meeting an injured Toothless, and the conflict this generated between his new worldview and the dragon-hating culture of his people.

However, what drew my attention the most was that every scene was almost exactly the same as the original. Everything, from the iconic first meeting between Hiccup and Toothless, to the crude joke said by his classmate before being attacked by a miniscule dragon, was taken shot for shot from the animated film. For many fans in the comments section, this was a relief because it meant the people in charge of making the film respected its roots. For others, though, it only raised more questions because it seemed like Universal Studios was releasing the same movie twice.

Dean Deblois – who directed both the live action remake and the original animated trilogy – explained his reasoning in an interview with CinemaBlend. He had been trying for a few years to get a live action original script approved, but to no avail. So, when Universal Studios approached him to remake “How to Train Your Dragon,” he took it as an opportunity to learn as much as he could about the live action filmmaking process using a world and characters he was familiar with. Deblois has said that although some minor changes were made to explore ideas he didn’t get the chance to in 2010, other scenes were kept exactly the same.

These elements are all reflected in the trailer. Because the story is unchanged, the new film comes across as an experiment just to see if it can be remade in live action, which is harder than it sounds. In animation, exaggerating characters’ gestures is a key principle, so it was interesting to watch real actors redo those movements in ways that felt natural. There were also the pivotal dragon-riding scenes, which were simply another thing to be animated in the original. It must have required some serious movie magic, though, to convince the audience that Thames is really strapped to Toothless’ back while he does barrel rolls in the sky.

In a way, the new “How to Train Your Dragon” feels less like a Hollywood production and more like a stage adaptation of a movie. Stage adaptations  are not concerned with introducing a new story so much as they are concerned with taking the scope of a Hollywood film and presenting it within the constraints of the stage. Likewise, “How to Train Your Dragon” does not seem to add any new lore to the island of Berk, but it exists to wonder how Berk might function in the live action sphere.

This was the original purpose of live action remakes which many have forgotten. Before “The Lion King” and “Mulan,” Disney began its trend of adapting animated classics with its 2015 remake of “Cinderella,” which received positive reviews for its nearly one-to-one adaptation of the original. “How to Train Your Dragon” could be the new “Cinderella.”

The adaptation is far from perfect. Some aspects, like the lackluster costume design, could have used more work, and the fact remains that the animated films had stunning visuals which are hard to recreate. But as Deblois himself said, if the worst comes to pass, “There’s always the animated movies.”

“How to Train Your Dragon” comes out in theaters June 13, and it might be the one live action remake I’m interested in seeing.

Reem Fan can be reached at [email protected].