I'm confused about the ending. The parents just blow up. What was the purpose of that ending? I'm not gonna make any assumptions. Someone, please explain.
sharePurpose? Why did there have to be a purpose? The parents were dicks. And they blew up. Bit o' Roald Dahl-ish retribution I suppose. Though Dahl would have made it funnier.
Never say "Worst movie ever" to someone who's seen Highlander 2
it seems simple to me. the kid has become enlightened, and his parents are fools, and they get what they deserve.
"Beautiful evening. you can almost see the stars..."
The last two posters are wrong: it is undeniably a strange ending. True, the parents were ("aerosols") but it does rather leave you wanting more.
It was memorable anyway and makes a nice change from the usual 'everything going back to normal' type conclusion.
All of you need to go back and watch the ending carefully. The fireman gets into the fire truck and winks at the boy through the side view mirror (this is after the parents have exploded after touching the piece of evil in the microwave). As the boy is wondering what happened to his parents and is calling to them, the camera then begins to pull out into the sky above the house. Now, look at the smoke while the camera pulls away. What's it doing?
shareSince I haven't seen it in about 25 years, could you please tell me what the smoke is doing?
shareIt's being sucked back into the two little black piles, which we assume are the charred remains of his parents. Done with backward filming.
I thought it was just one of Gilliam's random visual effects, but is there more meaning to it? Are we to think that time is going backwards, and the entire adventure will rewind as if it had never happened?
I'm not convinced. I did think though that because of his dual role, Connery's fireman symbolizes hope - that the world still contains evil, but good as well. As the supreme being said, Kevin has to stay and carry on the fight. This is as much a rites of passage film as anything else.
I'm a bit late to this discussion, but it was filmed with the camera moving in towards the smouldering piles of Mom and Dad, but the footage was shown in reverse--I don't remember the reason it had to be shot backwards in the first place, but Gilliam mentions it on the commentary track. It's simply a technical oversight.
shareI think its meant to leave you wondering. Kevin is saved from a fire while in bed, so it seems like the whole film might have been a dream. But evil turns up in the oven in "reality" so perhaps it wasn't a dream after all. Also Sean Connery turns up as the fireman when he was a King of Greece.
Overall I think its meant to support the whole kids' fantasy that only kids really understand whats going on and parents are too full of themselves to see whats really happening.
In the commentary on the DVD, Gilliam said that the parent's need to listen to their kid, but thy don't. So they die. lol. He said, he thinks that's how it should be in a children's film, and that the Connery character can be looked at as a sort of guardian angel.
shareThat's interesting and it makes sense!
Terry Gilliam's message could be a bit dangerous though.
So many children put the house cat in the microwave after watching "Alf". πββ¬β πΈβ
Were parents killed after their children watched "Time Bandits"?
I don't know if you noticed, but at the beginning of the movie, all the furniture is completely covered in cellophane, and then when we get into Evil's lair, all the furniture there is also covered in cellophane. There had to be a connection between the two- most likely it was a Brazil-esque anti-materialistic comment (the parents were always squabbling about household appliances and the like, after all).
So I guess at the end the young boy has finally divorced himself from all of that malarkey. Whereas it could easily be interpreted as "depressing" and downbeat, in my mind the whole movie's about a child getting in touch with his dreams and transcending materialism. Sounds very Gilliamy to me.
It was also very Dadaist. Using randomness and absurdity to overcome the mundane. "Don't touch that!" BOOOOOM! was just the Time Bandits equivalent of the Fish-Slapping dance. The Pythons loved making comments via silliness.
I didn't read all the posts so sorry if this was said, but I feel like he will live with present day Sean Connery or his gang or some variation... The pictures to affirm no dream, and the wink from Connery right after the explosion seem to indicate that something good is in the works for Kevin.
shareWhat I see, is that Terry Gilliam was trying to comment on the obsession over new appliances that were being developed in England.
Through the beginning of the movie, the parent's are focusing on their personal belongings, electronics, appliance, and pretty much ignoring their son. Even during the fire the parent's are already outside concerned over, I think a blender or toaster?, but anyway, completely negligent of their kid.
I think that he wanted to make the message to stop materializing and pay attention to the things that really matter, like your kids. He told them to not touch it, but they instinctively do the opposite, emphasizing how they ignore him. (So they blow up!)
He says don't touch it, and they're like "eh, what could it hurt?" BOOM!
shareI've always found the ending a little bit sad. Imagine being a kid Kevin's age and suddenly becoming an orphan.
shareNot to mention that his house burned down too. And Sean Connery just winks and leaves him there. WTF?
shareOh heck, there's no WTF. He's still dreaming, even though he dreamed he woke up. There's fireman and neighbors all over the place, you think they'd have no reaction (in real life) to a couple of people just blowing up? Then they play the song over the credits which basically says the whole thing was a dream...anything Gilliam says to the contrary is likely as a result of him realizing how piss-poor the original intention was - but the evidence is all over the place, it's tough to clean that up.
shareI see all the wierdness afterward being due to all the crazy stuff that just happened with the supreme being and I would assume that after all that time travel and whatnot, some crazy changes may have happened to the world that the kid knew.
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He's grown well beyond the need for his parents. And if you didn't notice, he's got a picture of the map. The universe is now his playground.
"Are you in the army?"
"No man, I just have short hair."
it's a bit of a stupid ending, if the parents don't listen too him then why does he deserve to become an orphan?? Gilliam doesn't get it, killing the parents isn't punishing them, it's punishing the kid....
shareExactly. As a kid, I always assumed he went back to live with Agammemnon, and that's why Sean Connery was there.
shareThis. It seemed obvious to me. They even replay the scene where hey take the photo of the map. Kevin has everything he needs to go back and find Agamemnon. Kevin then saves him from being assassinated and the grows up to be his heir. Simple.
shareI saw this in the theatre at the age of 10. The ending made no sense to me at the time. I just finished watching this with my son, now 10 as well, and the ending makes a little more sense.
In the beginning,we are introduced to the tech-loving parents, who are obsessed with fast cooking ovens and dual speed hedge trimmers.
Later,we are introduced to "evil", who claims that he will take over the universe once he understands technology.
The end sequence shows the parents once again ignore their son and grab for the chunk of "evil" in their toaster oven (modern tech), which destroys them.
I thought it was a bit of a heavy-handed attempt at an anti-consumerist message upon my most recent viewing. But who knows. I simply love the film.
KnApf
What better way for a kids movie to end than have the annoying parents blow up.
More movies should have annoying parents blow up, especially ones that don't listen to their children when they say don't touch something.
Anyway he has a new father in King Agmenennon, so he is on the next portal out of there and off to greece.
"Revelation Earth" a book by Evane Adamas. released Oct 08.
"Can people handle the truth"
I thought it was a bit of a gag...out of nowhere the parents just blow up. I saw it and LOL'd.
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