How to Train your Dragon. The nostalgia those words brings to me sends me straight back to middle school with the books I loved more than anything, and the movie coming out was the highlight of my life. Cressida Cowell was the first author who’s name I ever remembered, up with Michael Crichton and Angie Sage in my mind.
Interestingly, so many people might not be aware of the literature behind the three movies and TWENTY TWO seasons of television series, and how it’s so different from what ended up on the big screen.
Diving right in, Cressida Cowell is an incredible storyteller, sucking me straight into the world of her books by completely discrediting her own work, citing Hiccup, the young Viking protagonist of her series, as the original author, and herself as only the transcriber. She does mention that they are friends and keep in touch through mail.
As well as an author, the illustrations came from Cressida herself, and, despite their intentionally crude nature, are incredible charming and immersive into the world. Another example that comes to mind is the work that Mark Zug did for the Septimus Heap series, you can find it here at http://markzug.com, and I’d really recommend checking it out.
I actually found an interview for the guardian that Cressida gave, regarding her illustrations in the book, linked riiiiiiight here. (https://www.theguardian.com/film/childrens-books-site/gallery/2015/sep/08/cressida-cowell-how-to-train-your-dragon-15-years)
It shows off some high quality scans of her books and goes into depth about how her childhood inspired the books, and especially the style of someone who’s very quickly drawn these up in a journal.
That’s enough of the scatterbrained intro for now, however. I want to get into the main differences between the books series and the movie! Soooo enjoy!
DISCLAIMER:
Despite there being an entire 223 episodes in the various tv series, quite a few of which I remember watching when I was younger, I’m not going to be including them in this blog post. Although they do go into involving the book canon with the adapted series, it’s just too much for me at this time, and I’m currently watching the movie trilogy. :)
---THE ENTIRE SETTING OF THE BOOK---
The most obvious difference is EVERYTHING IN THE SETTING. Throughout the first movie, it’s reiterated how hated the dragons are to our Vikings, and how they’ve been defending against them since their village was established, stated to be “seven generations” which can be assumed around 200 years. The first book in our series, titled “How To Train your Dragon”, shows that dragons and Vikings already live together, each viking caring for a hunting dragon, typically a much smaller dragon, between the size of a hawk (in the case of the book design for Toothless), and a riding dragon (about the size of Toothless in the movie). The basic plot goes through Hiccup and the group of teenagers capturing their hunting dragons in caves on the island of Berk as a rite of passage, in order to attempt to train him, since this is already a tradition.
I won’t go any further into the plot of the first book, since it doesn’t affect the differences much more than that.
---HICCUP HORRENDOUS HADDOCK THE THIRD—
God what a fuckin power name. Hiccup is one of the most similar characters in the book compared to the movie, the most similar in my opinion being his father, Stoick The Vast. OR SHOULD I FUCKING SAY, STOICK THE VAST, TERROR OF THE SEAS, MOST HIGH RULER OF THE HOOLIGANS, O HEAR HIS NAME AND TREMBLE, UGH UGH…………………… GODDDD what a title. Anyways, Hiccup is a scrawny, pathetic little twig of a boy, a solid 10 and a half years old in the first book, as compared to the 15 years old in the first movie. Any other age past that doesn’t really matter, since he’s 14 in the final book, whereas ya boy is a whole ass 20 years old in the second movie ALONE (and star of one of the biggest glowups in history, seriously look it up yourself unless I’ve embedded a picture here).
NEXT, he’s a huge damn nerd, except instead of being a blacksmith boy, he can speak to dragons. In the book, they straight up have a language he learned and can speak, called Dragonese, and everyone thinks he’s loser ass dork for it (rightfully so).
I cant exactly think of much else that’s much of a difference, other than he’s considerably braver and more sensible in the books, sometimes viewing situations with pessimism or gallows humor, but being quick to act. Also him losing a leg was only in the franchise adaptation BUT WHAAAAATEVVERRRR.
---TOOTHLESS HIMSELF—
As mentioned before, Toothless is small as FUCK in the books, literally the size of a small hawk when perched on one’s forearm, or an iguana when laying around like the lazy fuck he is. He’s also a little brat. Like, a complete little bitch who whines about everything, and won’t help you out unless HE wants to, and is always making problems. Despite being incredibly disobedient, he’s incredibly attached to Hiccup, and sleeps inside of his waistcoat.
His name doesn’t come from retractable teeth, he literally just doesn’t have any. This is compensated by his gums and jaws being hard enough to work around it, quoted “his hard little gums could slice through the shell of an oyster and crush the claws of a crab.” He’s doin pretty okay for himself. Lots of descriptions of him are pretty baby tbh, since he's got beeeg eyes and a sulky expression, for the better of staring at you, and is always described as being an emerald or grass green.
Despite being smol to ride, Hiccup does get a riding dragon named the Windwalker, which is a sweet lil guy who I love very much, and is incredibly traumatized because he used to be a slave. Sooo in the end, I guess Toothless was kinda combined with Windwalker into the movie adaptation!
ALSO, A NEAT LITTLE THING I NOTICED WHEN WATCHING THE MOVIE. The “Terrible Terror” is literally just toothless. Smol lil green boye with beeg eyes, it’s great.
--LITERALLY ALL THE MAIN CAST OF CHARACTERS—
I’m gonna try and go through these pretty quickly actually, since there’s so many.
BIGGEST ONES FIRST
Snotlout: He’s very similar to how he is in the books, incredibly cocky, kinda short and bulky, very ambitious. I actually prefer him in the books, since they play a lot into how it’s entirely possible he becomes chief instead of Hiccup since they’re cousins. If you watched the movie, you might not have noticed it, but Snotlout’s dad hangs out with Stoick in, like, half the scenes they’re in lol. Except he only speaks once when the entire crowd is talking?? I genuinely don’t know why they didn’t have him talking a lot more, ESPECIALLY since he’s in the second movie. Anyways, in the book Snotlout is A MAJOR DICK, much more than in the movie. He’s constantly bullying Hiccup, is the top of the dragon training classes, and is kind of a chad. Big fuckin nostrils tho, check this boy out.
(the image isn't embedding properly, actually none of the ones referencing him are sooo... here's the wiki link lmao https://howtotrainyourdragon.fandom.com/wiki/Snotface_Snotlout)
Fishlegs: One of the designs I genuinely hate in the movie. God what did they do to my boy. In the book, he’s just as skinny and pathetic as Hiccup, with glasses and an oversized helmet. He’s a major nerd too, some of which got left over in the movie, with Fishlegs reading about dragons and reciting their stats really cringey. I miss you, skinny pathetic king who got his redemption arc into being one of the biggest WINNERS in the universe. Seriously, he gets the girl, a super cool and rare dragon, dude’s winning.
Astrid: BITCH DOESN’T EXIIIIISTTTT IN THE BOOKS. THEY TOOK ONE OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS, CAMICAZI, AND MADE HER INTO A BITCHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
Minor rant over, Camicazi was my childhood crush. She was impulsive, an incredible sword fighter, a burglar, and also the heir to her tribe, the Bog-Burglars. I didn’t mention this before, there’s also a multitude of other tribes in the book series, stuff gets complex, and you still haven’t gone and read the series instead of reading this so that’s on you. I guess the only thing that’s similar is that they're blonde, but even then I forget what Camicazi’s hair color even IS.
Finally, Ruffnutt and Tuffnutt.
NOT IN THE BOOKS LMAO. Fuck 'em anyways, don’t like them as characters, I’d like them even less if I had to read about them. F TIER.
(edit here, I’m watching the second movie currently and actually think that Ruffnutt is fuckin funny in her obsessive random boylust. I cant explain it more than that, go watch it yourself lol)
--TENTATIVE CONCLUSION—
Other than that, I don’t really think I have a lot of things
that come too mind about terrible differences involved in the movie. The first
one has that 2010 vibe of animation studios putting out just great family
movies. Megamind, Legend of the guardians, the first Despicable me, ALPHA
AND OMEGA FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU, uhhhhh…. T-tangled…….
Open season………………. Space Chips 2……………………………..
Yogi bear IT WAS A DIFFERENT TIME. When movies that were put out, and just kinda existed, and everyone loved them and bought it on home DVD and you watched it in the car for the next 10 years. I really feel like you don’t see that a lot anymore, with every movie trying to have it’s own MCU, or just getting tossed in the garbage for a tax write-off.
Good movies, I’m also potentially a sucker for nostalgia, read the books, uhhhhhhhhh have a good time.
Also it turns out that was the same year the Last Airbender live action was released and I remember watching that on DVD with my siblings and having no clue what the fuck was going on lmao.
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Novie
Damn, I should've read the books. It's mostly the books sounds wayy more interesting than their movie adaptations arghhh :'( Damn, missed out a lot, thought the movie is great as it is
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I actually also super love the movies !!! I recently rewatched all three of them and had a great time! But the books have kinda gone under the radar in recent years, whereas dreamworks is still making movie content about it :>
by Jadeum; ; Report
Ah, thats sad to hear, wish the book gets more recognition! It sounds more cooler tbh :D
by Novie; ; Report