Ranking All Of The Live-Action Disney Remakes

On the surface, David Lowery's remake of the original 1977 Pete's Dragon is by far the strangest entry on this list.

For starters, the original film isn't even an animated film. Elliot the dragon is animated, but everything else is live-action. But more notably, while other Disney retellings have more-or-less stuck to the story of their source material, Lowery's film is an entirely different beast. To the point that one would be hard-pressed to list any surface-level similarities between the two films other than Pete and Elliot as characters.

And yet, in a strange way, it is one of the few remakes that actually taps into the spirit of the original film. Lowery approaches the film as a classic '80s Amblin film, treating the relationship between Pete and Elliot with genuine weight and ingenuity. And in the process, he's able to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle feeling of seeing Pete and Elliot interact in the original film in an entirely new way.

And with some well-timed musical cues inspired by the songs of the original, Lowery's film plays as an ode to the boyhood wonder that the original film was all about. With an incredible cast, featuring a moving performance from a CGI green dragon, a thrilling and emotionally-rooted narrative, and some stellar direction from Lowery, this film is genuinely wonderful.