Understanding Time Bandits' Ending
-
Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Film and Television Discussion
SamIMDB2 — 10 years ago(June 16, 2015 11:01 PM)
http://avwire.com/2015/06/17/understanding-time-bandits-ending/
-
Kuruwin — 10 years ago(July 06, 2015 08:56 PM)
beep your clickbait.
Warning: Spoilers ahead.
Time Bandits is a Terry Gilliam childrens movie with grand spectacle, hilarious dialogue and an extremely dark that confused many audiences. But to understand the ending we must first look at the rest of movie and its themes. There seems to be four major themes: disappointment, romanticism, adventure/fantasy and consumerism. The films opening sets the tone and shows one of the main themes of the film: disappointment. The first scene opens with a special effect filled intro, implying something large and epic but only to land on a suburban house. We are then introduced to our protagonist and parents who seem to be infatuated with materialism. Our protagonist, Kevin, seems to be in love with history and disinterested in the present. Kevin goes to bed and can hear a distant fire truck siren.
He is then intruded by a band of dwarves running from The Supreme Being, whos chasing these dwarves through rips in the fabric of time. Time Bandits then begins to show us historical figures that weve all seemed to glorify and the film disappoints us by showing us their personal problems. We also meet an important character at this point: Evil himself. But what is he after? Technology. Thats right, the physical manifestation of Evils goal is obtain the understanding of and use technology. Towards the end of the movie Kevin has a philosophical talk with the Supreme Being about Evil. The Supreme Being says he kills people just to test his creation.
Sign-Here
Now, the infamous ending of the film: Kevin wakes up to find he is in a fire and the movie is assumed to have been a fantasy. That is, until Kevins parents touch the Evil in the microwave and explode. Many audiences were shocked and disturbed by this ending and felt it did not fit the rest of the movie, but looking back on the rest of the story there may be a greater explanation for Kevins dream. The movie is Kevins way of accepting his parents fate. His parents were killed in the fire caused by a microwave, ultimately killed by the only thing they cared about: technology. Kevin sees their obsession with technology as Evil. But what about the Supreme Being? He seems to treat life more like a business and his creations more like toys than actual people. Control in the hands of someone whos not quite sure what hes doing.
The only one who seems to be genuinely good in the movie is Agamemnon/the fireman. He is the only one who listens to young Kevin and even Kevin said that Agamemnon didnt care about money. He seems to be the only glimmer of hope, one who winks in spite of tragedy. Ultimately the film is about the disappointment of reality and the escape of fantasy. Sometimes we dont to search for the truth since ignorance will keep us blissfully joyful but sometimes even our fantasies can be disappointing. Time Bandits was Terry Gilliams way of saying, not everything will be okay.