Alternate Ending
I originally had a completely different ending planned and scripted out for The Final War. Originally, the story was only supposed to have twenty-four or twenty-five chapters, with everything ending during the final battle of Jasper Park.
I originally planned for Humphrey to have this plan to let Viggo take someone hostage and meet him up at the cliff where he could then knock him off, and if necessary, bring Viggo down with him. The backup plan with Gerald and the bear was if Viggo didn’t fall and grabbed onto a tree branch, then the bear would knock the trees over to kill him. But there were so many things wrong with that plan that I ended up completely cutting it out. In an even earlier version, Arnold was supposed to die as he was catching Humphrey by getting impaled by a branch.
Children’s Story
The children’s story came about because of my creative writing class. We had to write a children’s story and I decided to kind of challenge myself and try and turn this dark, not kid-friendly story into a kid-friendly story. I originally intended for it to be much closer to the original, mainly concerning the dialogue, but obviously I had to cut a lot out to shorten it, so in the end, I basically rewrote the whole thing with the general plot points remaining the same.
His flashbacks were cut out of the beginning along with all of the second chapter with the pack meeting. Humphrey’s line saying, “my son, the tree-hugger” is taken directly from the fourth movie when Humphrey says the exact same thing. When they find Owen, he is much more chill and calmer than he is in the original Missing Parents. Humphrey’s joke about brilliance skipping a generation is also another one of his lines taken directly from the movies, this time from the fifth movie.
There’s a line I gave Humphrey right before he goes to free Kenya and it’s a Jack Sparrow quote that popped into my head while I was writing, and it was too perfect not to use. Of course, it’s the line he says when he’s escaping from Beckett’s ship in At World’s End. Beckett tells him he’s mad and Jack replies with “well thank goodness for that because if I wasn’t, this would probably never work.”
Obviously, Humphrey couldn’t get shot in this kid-friendly version, but I still wanted him to get hurt so I had him sprain his paw instead and I made a reference to how Humphrey said he and Kate made a good team in the first movie. And of course, the biggest change is that Humphrey’s parents are alive and everything’s alright.
Concept Art
The concept art was something I never planned to do, but then I had a computer graphics class and figured I could do some basic stuff. Humphrey’s family tree was something that came to be when I realized just how many of these characters he was related to. The stuff I made art of was all for Viggo since the most thought and care went into making his character work. The look of his tent was a big thing because I wanted to make it clear exactly how it looked on the inside. I also included the image I found online that inspired the color scheme of Viper’s scales, along with some cool fanart I found of Stinky, Claudette, and Runt as adults that really helped me visualize them in The Next Generation, Rise of the Hunter, and The Final War. And lastly, the map was something I made as something to reference so I wouldn’t accidentally create some kind of inconsistency.
I originally had a completely different ending planned and scripted out for The Final War. Originally, the story was only supposed to have twenty-four or twenty-five chapters, with everything ending during the final battle of Jasper Park.
I originally planned for Humphrey to have this plan to let Viggo take someone hostage and meet him up at the cliff where he could then knock him off, and if necessary, bring Viggo down with him. The backup plan with Gerald and the bear was if Viggo didn’t fall and grabbed onto a tree branch, then the bear would knock the trees over to kill him. But there were so many things wrong with that plan that I ended up completely cutting it out. In an even earlier version, Arnold was supposed to die as he was catching Humphrey by getting impaled by a branch.
Children’s Story
The children’s story came about because of my creative writing class. We had to write a children’s story and I decided to kind of challenge myself and try and turn this dark, not kid-friendly story into a kid-friendly story. I originally intended for it to be much closer to the original, mainly concerning the dialogue, but obviously I had to cut a lot out to shorten it, so in the end, I basically rewrote the whole thing with the general plot points remaining the same.
His flashbacks were cut out of the beginning along with all of the second chapter with the pack meeting. Humphrey’s line saying, “my son, the tree-hugger” is taken directly from the fourth movie when Humphrey says the exact same thing. When they find Owen, he is much more chill and calmer than he is in the original Missing Parents. Humphrey’s joke about brilliance skipping a generation is also another one of his lines taken directly from the movies, this time from the fifth movie.
There’s a line I gave Humphrey right before he goes to free Kenya and it’s a Jack Sparrow quote that popped into my head while I was writing, and it was too perfect not to use. Of course, it’s the line he says when he’s escaping from Beckett’s ship in At World’s End. Beckett tells him he’s mad and Jack replies with “well thank goodness for that because if I wasn’t, this would probably never work.”
Obviously, Humphrey couldn’t get shot in this kid-friendly version, but I still wanted him to get hurt so I had him sprain his paw instead and I made a reference to how Humphrey said he and Kate made a good team in the first movie. And of course, the biggest change is that Humphrey’s parents are alive and everything’s alright.
Concept Art
The concept art was something I never planned to do, but then I had a computer graphics class and figured I could do some basic stuff. Humphrey’s family tree was something that came to be when I realized just how many of these characters he was related to. The stuff I made art of was all for Viggo since the most thought and care went into making his character work. The look of his tent was a big thing because I wanted to make it clear exactly how it looked on the inside. I also included the image I found online that inspired the color scheme of Viper’s scales, along with some cool fanart I found of Stinky, Claudette, and Runt as adults that really helped me visualize them in The Next Generation, Rise of the Hunter, and The Final War. And lastly, the map was something I made as something to reference so I wouldn’t accidentally create some kind of inconsistency.
