My brother pointed out this morning that HTTYD 3 and WIR 2 are quite similar in plot (best friends leaving and having to let them go/give them their space), but that HTTYD 3 did it much better and much more emotional if only because we could legit believe in the friendship between Toothless and Hiccup thanks to the previous two films and the TV series, and the motive behind their parting made sense. That's not present between Ralph and Vanellope, like you can't really believe they had a friendship for the six years they were together (Hiccup and Toothless were together for six years, too) and the motive behind their parting benefits more, or at least leans more toward agreeing with Vanellope than it does for Ralph--meanwhile it benefited both Hiccup and Toothless while still keeping that pain.
Another thing that's important to note is Vanellope left out of a selfish reason, even if it's understandable that she was bored and needed something new--well, it would be understandable if she wasn't a video game character, that is. But her decision hasn't been shown to affect the others very well, if at all--also the movie just forgot she became the president and therefore needed to govern a kingdom, unless there was an election that happened off-screen. That's the other thing, she's supposed to be a leader/figure head, but then she abandons everyone to pursue her own interests. Like it's negative on the surface, but nothing else happens outside of Ralph having his freak-out over losing his only (but Fix-it Felix???) friend. Toothless left for a good reason: the call of the wild happened. Hiccup was fully supportive of him, too, but he forgot that Toothless, while tamed, wasn't meant to stay at home forever, and he realized that when he and Astrid stumbled upon the hidden world and saw how mated life was affecting him (like I think it was established in that scene that Toothless and the Light Fury were officially mates, was just the next logical step after their flight of romance). And the dragons all leaving was out of the goodness of the hearts of Berk to ensure they're protected and safe from the hunters that were still out there.
I'm not suggesting that Wreck-It Ralph should have benefited from a TV series to bridge the gap and made Vanellope's decision to go Turbo (???!!??!??) natural, but it should've made sense on a narrative and character level. Supposedly that's what Calhoun's character arc was supposed to be like in the film, but lol had to cut it for time. And HTTYD 3 had a few subplots going on at once that made it muddled a bit, but it still had a strong ending that wrapped everything up in a pretty bow.
But it's like DreamWorks is/was the studio whose purpose was to take chances outside of shitting on Disney, who haven't been taking chances themselves since Treasure Planet.
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