The two saunter into the Maine fishing village of Passamaquaddy, and Elliott’s antics stir outrage in the townsfolk, thinking Pete’s causing trouble. It’s clear they only adopted him so he could be their serf, but thanks to his pal Elliott (Charlie Callas), a massive, fire-breathing, invisibility-powered dragon, they elude capture. The plot: Pete (Sean Marshall) is running away from his wicked foster family, a clan of nasty hillbillies, the Gogans, led by Ma Gogan (Shelley Winters). So what are the movie’s true faults they could have improved upon? Deign this delightful, if daffy depiction of this darn dragon drama!

The 1977 film has A LOT going against it, and like Song of the South, it’s a mostly live action musical with animated characters set in a romanticized American setting and its primary source of recognition is its sole representation in the Disney theme parks as the animated characters. For all its faults, they added a lot of faux-mysticism, turned Pete into an American Mowgli, and say nothing of the absurd redesign of the titular Elliott.

Better to reinvent the wheel, bank on audience recognition of the property, and make changes no one asked for. No sense in throwing out the babies with the bathwater. Yeah, these movies had lackluster responses at the box office, but to say they had nothing redeemable about them is far from the truth. Really, their efforts could be better spent recreating their lesser-loved animated features: Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Treasure Planet, The Black Cauldron, Song of the South, The Great Mouse Detective, et cetera. Did anyone really get upset over the fact Nala didn’t get enough screentime? Or that Jasmine wasn’t independent enough? Or that Dumbo stayed happily in the circus? Or that the staff in the Beast’s castle were similarly penalized by being turned into objects? If you’re a troll or a writer for CinemaSins, you might care, but the OG movies are so well executed they suspend your disbelief. How do you improve upon perfection? The pattern dictates that what you do is respond to bad faith arguments from Reddit posts and plug up plot holes and inject wokeness in response to perceived criticisms no one really had in the first place. When remaking The Lion King or Cinderella or Beauty and the Beast, their OG counterparts were already time-honored masterpieces. Oh, most of the others are terrible, that’s a given. Out of all the Disney remakes in the past decade, I think the most disappointing by far is Pete’s Dragon (2016).

Pete's dragon 1977 school bell