DreamWorks: How to Train your Dragon 2 – Hag & Con’s Question for Director, Dean DeBlois and Author Cressida Cowell
What do you like about Cressida’s books? Hag age 9
Are there more Dragons in this new movie and what are they like? Con age 6
Dean DeBlois – I love the books and I was a kid that loved Dragons. So it’s so cool to be able to make them living..and…delve into that….kind of inventing new species….define their abilities.
I think the genius thing about Cressida’s books is that so many dragon properties have a dragon or many of the same dragon. And…I think it was just such a wonderful thing for Cressida to do to incorporate these different types. And all these different attributes, personalities and I think for that it kind of makes the world go on and on and it allows us to keep inventing interesting new takes on dragons and what makes a dragon. Like in this film we were really able to explore that boundary….but…you know…..in the first film, when we set out there is an hierarchy among Dragons. And that every nest has a queen and you’ve seen in the footage its discovered that there is a King, there’s a top to this hierarchy. And the Bewilderbeast as a concept was a really interesting thing for us because we thought well…,,how far can we push it? But what defines a dragon? How far can we actually take before it breaks? One point in the early designs of the Bewilderbeast he was sort of shaggy, woolly mammoth type thing with massive tusks and though OK….as soon as you put hair on it it’s not a dragon any more (laughs).
So we had to back off a little bit, but the idea that it’s a sea dragon and instead of blasting fire it jets masses of sea water. It stores it in the gorges of it’s neck and regurgitates with such force so that it can tear apart it’s target. And then also freezes it’s blast…it’s really iconic.
Cressida Cowell – and you can hear how you thought through every single little detail (Laughs), like it’s a real animal. I think it’s that….that makes it come alive. Is that you’ve thought everything through down to the end detail so that it works. That dragon feels like it could really exist. So that makes the lie feel real.
Dean DeBlois – and then I have to say as well, that Cressida did – that we hopefully kept the spirit of….even though the narrative again is departed. The spirit of the character who is determined to succeed to simulate but ill-equipped to succeed is always a winning combination and is something that I’ve gone to time and again with Mulan, Lilo and Stitch, How to Train a Dragon and it always makes for a winning combination. You have a character who wants to be part of the group. You know….but just never will because genetically he’s not gonna quite fit in.
But he has to define his own strength and he has to come to terms with this weakness…..he’s been cast with….sits actually a strength in hiding. And I think that’s the spirit that I took away from Cressida’s books and hopefully put it on the screen as well.
Original Toothless by Cressida Cowell
Movie Toothless by Dean DeBlois
DreamWorks Animation’s How To Train Your Dragon 2, which hits theaters starting the 4th July 2014
