Disney's first 'Pete's Dragon' trailer is charmingly mysterious

Ah, the classic story of a boy and his dragon. Disney has released the first trailer for Pete’s Dragon, a live-action remake of the studio’s 1977 film.

In the trailer, we learn that Pete (Oakes Fegley) befriended the dragon while stranded in the forest for six years. When Pete returns to human society, his new friend doesn’t particularly want to stay behind. While the original film was a musical with partial animation, the 2016 version will be live-action mixed with CGI.

The trailer also features Bryce Dallas Howard as a forest ranger and Robert Redford as her father. We barely glimpse Eliot the dragon — the trailer focuses instead on Pete, and on ominous forest imagery scored with whimsical music — but he takes flight grandly at the end.

Pete’s Dragon releases on August 12.

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