soc_puppet | (Reply)

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I love, love the ending so damn much. Choosing to do that to Hiccup was a risky choice on their part, but I feel it was the best one they could have made.

The books are extremely different from the movies. They're far more comedic and aimed at little boys -- for instance, Toothless actually doesn't have teeth, has a wart and is too small to fly on (the Terrible Terrors are actually tributes to Toothless' original book design). The Vikings rely on dragons, not fight them. Astrid isn't in them. What happens to Hiccup at the end doesn't happen.

Dreamworks actually originally had the movie almost entirely done, and it was very faithful to the books, but they felt it was too... well, silly, and too pointed at children. The author, Cressida Cowell, told them that she wanted them to make a good movie, and that they should do whatever they needed to in order to have that happen. She talks about how what makes good books doesn't always make good movies. (She loves the movie, btw.)

Hiccup's mother, Valhallarama, is in the books and was going to be in the film, but they decided it took away the effect of Stoick and Hiccup trying to figure out their relationship. And I can't really complain about that-- their frankly realistic father-son relationship, where Stoick doesn't Get It, and wants to get it, but keeps messing up -- is one of my favorite parts about the movie and it's done very well. Valhallarama is pretty comedic character.