I've never read the book, but I thought the main girl dying was a buzzkill ending and came out of nowhere.
"Get up! Say yay! to the slumber partay!"
I never pass up an opportunity to plug my fanfiction, which was the first completed "Leslie didn't die" story:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3447735/1/Groundhogs-at-Terabithia
but I thought the main girl dying was a buzzkill ending and came out of nowhere
Pissed me off! Since then, I've refused to rewatch this movie! There are so many movies with bad endings these days, it's all the rage! It wouldn't kill them to make a few with heart-warming, good endings. Also, I've seen plenty of bad crap happening in real life, why the hell would I want to see MORE in the movies?? I watch movies to escape real life!! Geez!!
shareI dont think the girl had to die, that seemed a bit extreme for this movie with its childrens movie tone. I think it was a mistake, maybe she should have got sick or something with her having to be taken over the "bridge" to get better. The movie really went down hill after the death and i think the teacher taking him to the museum was a little weird.
shareAs I've said on a few other threads on this board, most of which have expired, I'm a retired school psychologist, mostly at the middle school level. The book by Katherine Paterson was ubiquitous, and frequently on the Recommended Reading List, at the library of pretty much every elementary and middle school I ever worked in. As Katherine Paterson explained several times, the story was based on the death of her son David's (the same person who produced the movie and co-wrote the screenplay) best friend, a girl named Lisa Hill, when they were about seven.
I retired about a year and a half after the movie came out. I occasionally showed movies during group counseling as starting points for discussion. During my last year, I seriously considered using BtT for that purpose, in discussing dealing with loss. As much as I like this movie, I had to decide against it for the same reason that the ending left me empty (as did that of the original book): Jess blew through the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) in about a week when in real life it normally takes about a year (specifically going through the four seasons without the lost loved one), and two years is still considered within normal limits.
You just can't rush or force the five stages; they have to come at their own times. My own theory, based on what Katherine Paterson has said or written, is that she was losing patience with David's (and probably her own) grief over Lisa and tried to rush him through the five stages through the book. Jess learns of Leslie's death at the end of Chapter 10 and he's crowning May Belle the new queen/princess at the end of Chapter 13. The grieving process needed to be both fleshed out and lengthened considerably for the readers/moviegoers as well as Jess to grieve Leslie's death properly.
The viewer/reader going through Leslie's death is what the military calls "practice bleeding": enduring suffering and draining resources with no real gain or benefit.
Her dying was fine, I was hoping a bit that the kid would get to see her in the woods one last time before finally leaving so they could have a proper goodbye though... But I didn't dislike the fact that didn't happen
We crash into each other, just so we can feel something.
yall do realize this is based off of a book right? the author Katherine Patterson wrote the novel after David Patterson (her son) had a friend Lisa Christina Hill who died after being struck by lightning in Bethany beach Delaware at age 10 on august 14, 1974 theres even a tree dedicated to the girl outside Takoma park elementary school in in Washington
the girl dies in the novel as well and yes the part where the boy goes on a trip to the museum with his teacher is also in the novel
"Touchdoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooown Auburn"