MovieChat Forums > Le roi et l'oiseau (1980) Discussion > *** Spoiler *** Question about ending

*** Spoiler *** Question about ending


So I watched this movie as a kid. A family friend had taped it originally, and after having taped over/lost the tape over the years, for a while now I've been looking for the movie. Finally I got it in its English version (called the Curious Adventures of Mr. Wonderbird) only to find out that the ending was completely different!! I'm thinking that maybe there are two versions floating out there -- I would really hope the version I watched as a kid has not disappeared...

The film I had originally watched (as a kid) ended like so:

******* SPOILER ***********

The King's kingdom is destroyed. Cut to: Mr. Bird's son is trapped in the cage, can't get out, and the Robot opens its cage gently and the baby bird flies away.


The ending I recently watched in the English version:
The King's kingdome is destroyed. Pan to idyllic setting where the kingdom surivors have built themselves a new, happy community and Mr Bird says: I told you everything would work out! Plus, in this version quite a few scenes have been cut short/missing.

Incredible how the ending influences the message/theme of the movie so much.

What ending belongs to this movie? Has anyone seen both endings?

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The only ending I have seen (as I've only seen the original French version) is the one where the baby bird is still trapped in the cage, the robot gently opens the cage, the baby flies free then the robot crushes the cage with its fist.

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Yes! MAN! You should watch the other version, it looks like a complete cop out compared to the message this ending sends.. I suppose that means I need to get a hold of the French version? Has anyone seen the English version with this ending?

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The one version I've seen is the one with the cage as well.

There are many versions of the film, because Grimault, Prévert and Kosma (the engineers of the project and collaborators) had troubles releasing it, the producer wanted to release only an edited version whose soul was basically sucked. Grimault and Prévert refused and didn't want to release the movie at all, but the production got the rights of the movie through Kosma and released that version ; later the current one was done by Grimault who got the rights back and reworked the movie (doing new scenes and all) into what it was supposed to be.
It's possible that the former edited version is still running in some places. Or that parts of it were taken again to falsely make the movie look more child-friendly and non-political.

Edit : I had put the name of the composer of the King and the Mockingbird music, Wojceck Kilar, but in fact it's Fabien Kosma who was here in the beginning.

"I hate whoever wants to remove one note from the human scale"
Orson Welles

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The rare Quebec French only DVD I got. Contains the Giant Robot letting the mockingbird escape and crush it for an ending.

I was curious too if there were deleted scenes for this film. But the DVD I own is only a standard version with no bonus features.

Wonder if the Japanese Special edition has any special features.

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