Bridge to Terabithia – Alternate Ending
Posted by comixster on September 7, 2008
Yesterday, I finally got around to watching the Bridge to Terabithia DVD which has been lying in my collections for more than a year now. To be honest, I don’t know anything about the movie, never knew that it was an adaptation of a novel and I just assumed that it’s just the typical fantasy movie for kids as it was afterall produced by Disney.
CAUTION: the following lines may contain some spoilers from the film, so please stop reading it in case you haven’t seen it yet.
While I was watching it, I immediately realized how wrong my initial assumption was as the movie is more than just the standard stuff being released under the same genre. In fact it has a lot of substance in it and would probably be a favorite film for teachers to assign to their students for a reaction paper (film review).
THE STORY: Anyway, the story revolves around the life of a misunderstood yet artistically-talented kid (Jess) and how she found his perfect friend in the character of a newly-transferred, tomboyish student named Leslie. Leslie, whose parents are both writers, is a great writer in her own right and the two kids click together naturally due to both of them having artistic inclination and love for adventures. In the film, Leslie encourages Jess to always keep a wide open mind (which he did) and which eventually allowed them to enter their imaginary world of Terabithia.
Everyday after school, they would swing across the river using a rope and have their adventures in Terabithia. You can definitely feel the joy and fun that both kids have with each and every adventure they share, thanks to the great performance of Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb. The film actually shows the type of bond that the two friends had developed and how completely synchronized their imaginations are. I can already imagine the number of great stories these two kids can produce if they are to collaborate in the future. Talk about great synergy, their friendship also allowed each of them to overcome challenges which are seemingly impossible on their own such as getting back and later on befriending the school bully, Jess’ overcoming his fear of the bullies and lending a hand to help their music teacher which he has a big crush on (Zooey Deschanel).
One morning, Jess got a call from his music teacher inviting him to go on a trip to the art musuem. Before they left for the art musuem, Jess thought about inviting his friend Leslie to join them but eventually decided to go on alone with his teacher which again he has a huge crush on. Jess had great fun in the musuem and went home in high spirits. As with all stories, when things seem to be looking all sunny and bright – better be prepared as the dark and gloomy part is just around the corner. Jess got home and was welcomed by the sight of his family crying (they thought Jess was dead and his body missing) who gave him the sad news that his friend Leslie has just died while crossing the river. It seems that the rope they used to cross the river snapped, Leslie hit her head on something and eventually drowned. Jess was immediately overcome by guilt and sadness after hearing the news.
The story ended with Jess building a bridge to cross the river and had her sister join her to re-live their (Leslie and Jess’s) adventures with Jesse as King and his siter as Princess of Terabithia.
CRITICAL RECEPTION: I looked around the internet and it seems that the film was well received and actually got unexpectedly good outcome in the box office charts. The film also received a lot of good reviews and actually benefited from good word of mouth from those who had seen it.
There were a lot of complaints though, mostly from parents who are not familiar with the story coming in, who had difficulty from stopping their crying children after the movie. I, for one, was shocked on the film’s ending as I keep telling myself (near the end) that no way is Disney going to end the movie with the girl dead. I’m so sure they’ll pull something in the end to make it a happy ending – which never came.
I completely understand what the film (or the novel) was trying to go for with this kind of ending – that there are some things in life which can’t be explained but we just have to go on living our lives and be happy – but I do feel that this is just too much for kid’s to handle. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t teach kids the realities of life but it’s just that what happened to Leslie was just too heavy (sad) and the time allocated to it is too sudden and short for kids to understand. It’s been quite common that the endings and sometimes the core stories of films which were adapted from books are changed to better suit the audience and I was just surprised that Disney still went for this type of ending, considering the age of their targeted audience.
ALTERNATE ENDING:
Right after I watched the movie, I searched the internet for an alternate ending of this movie and there seems to be none. With all extras that DVD nowadays try to include in their package, an alternate ending is a very common addition (even movies like I am Legend has it), you would think that Disney would try to include an alternate ending for this movie (which it so badly needs) but nothing’s there. So what I did was just try to come up with my own alternate ending for the movie.
ALTERNATE ENDING (1)
A very obvious loophole which could have been used as the Deus Ex Machina or the big reveal in the ending was to show that Leslie was just trapped in the other side right after the rope snapped. Her parents never found the body and just assumed she drowned in the river and died. Some might claim that this is lame since the first thing that the people will look for her is on the other side but again this is a fantasy movie and not CSI and you could always reason out that the forest was so big that they missed her during their search or that she passed out and fell asleep in their hideout and didn’t hear the rescuers calling her name.
ALTERNATE ENDING (2)
Right after Jess and his sister have crossed the newly-built bridge, they could have shown that Leslie was in there together with all the characters in Terabithia welcoming the two and she continues to be part of their adventures even if it’s just in Jess and his sister’s imaginations. This is an ending that would definitely make the kids happier and wouldn’t take too much away from the original source.
Anyways, hope these two alternate endings help other people who felt that the movie is lacking something. If not, please don’t let these things affect your enjoyment of the movie. In closing, the Bridge of Terabithia is a great movie-not your typical kid’s fantasy movie-but it would be great if the parents know what to expect in it before having their kids watch it.
Comixster's storyboard 
Luke Atkins said
I totally agree with you on the first alternate ending, as thats what I expected the movie to follow. I don’t fully agree with the second one, because that involves a bit too much… strangeness I guess. We wouldn’t what the characters to go nuts, believing their dead friend is still living and playing with them in their fantasy world.
I hate the author for having the child die. Children should be taught about death from the death of adults and older people, not children with whom they can relate to, I remember back in school being shown a movie (I can’t remember the name), 2 movies actually, that dealt with death and murder of children, and it was honestly a little traumatising, where as countless other films involing the death of adults didn’t and don’t affect me much at all.
Ryan Bullong said
I liked the idea of both of the alternate ending but I thought Leslie was already with them sort of it them in their hearts and memories. I’m oaky wit the original ending of Leslie death because the movie was based on the original bridge to terbithia movie in 1985 and the book in 1977.
The author of the book wrote it 2 tell a story about her son David Paterson’s real life friend Lisa Hill who died from lightning strike when he was eight years old. It was a surprise to know that the this story was a inspiration to make the movie bridge 2 terabithia 1985 and the remake in 2007 that’s y it is a really good story cuz it tells we all have 2 live life as it was always after a something like death has happen.
pradeep said
i relay like this story….i want to see story board..teach my kids..
Superg said
(my comment also contains heavy spoiler!)
I really love this movie! Like you I had a totally different expectation because I heard that its would be something like Narnia so I thought ok they probably entered a forest and found a tunnel to a fantasy land or something, but it didnt matter to me much because I really enjoyed the movie until the devastating ending which made me cried my eyes out everything I watched it, I think I’ve cried 7 times I just could not deal with it and believed that there should be something like an alternative ending or just something. Anyway I’ve been searching through the internet for an answer such as why did leslie die what was the purpose of it all? The author said it was so make sense of her son’s best friend’s death who also died in a tragic accident but after watching it so many times I cannot seem to figured out what she mean by making sense but I guess in a way the little girl (Lisa) and her friend David (Author’s son) ‘s imaginary world continues to live on, which is nice because Jesse and Leslie’s friendship made such a huge impact on me it made me smiled and cried and sang along with their music lessons (of course also thanks to the amazing acting of Josh and Annasophia and the director and everyone else).
Anyway, since then I have also seen trying to see if theres a chance of a continuation of the story but the author said there won’t be one (in her official website theres an interview), therefore I have since created my own alternative ending that after building the bridge to Terabithia Jesse has managed to hold on to himself and slowly rebuilding his life and his relationship with his family, but sometimes still visit Terabithia, one year on after what happened, Jess visits Terabithia one more time and starts to think of Leslie again, but she appears in front of him and told him that she had never died and was rescued by a family and she was not able to let anyone know because she had lost her memory until now and then run off to continue their adventure in Terabithia!
Sorry if my alterative ending is silly but we are all creative beings in our own right 😛 Im just keeping my mind wide open like Leslie said 😛 What I think is that Leslie hasnt and will never die not in my imagination world 🙂
L22 said
I would go with the second ending with my own variation.
Your first ending is bad, no offense. That would have really turned a great movie into a piece of junk kiddies’ story. Disney has been portraying death, etc in some of their movies ever since “The Lion King” when Simba’s father died (and maybe others). I remember being sad about that and I must have been about six or seven at the time, but I still had the capacity to understand death and the meaning and not have to go to a therapist about it. [I don’t know – maybe adults these days are just really sensitive or something and would prefer their kids to watch the nonsense trashy cartoons they show on the kid’s channels these days – seems like a good way to zap brain cells indefinitely])
I’ve watched “Bridge to Terabithia” three times and I’ve realized that Jess in the ending was really selfish and never learned his lesson about ‘Including Leslie’. To explain my reasoning, I have to go back to when he decided not take Leslie with on the fieldtrip to the museum with his music teacher. During the funeral he told the teacher that they should have invited her and felt guilty about it. He was also sometimes distant and insecure around her at times even though she was a good friend to him.
At the end of the movie, Jess and his sister walk into Terabithia, a magical imaginative world, and Leslie is nowhere to be found. She was the original creator of this world and she helped inspire Jess to be creative and gain confidence in himself, and yet he does not think of her or imagine her there with their creation. Is his imagination so limited or did he just forget about her after she died? This makes me wonder what the whole point of all that CGI creature crap meant anyway at the end. Be creative and don’t forget to invite your little sister along? What a bad ending.
My idea of the ending (which incorporates the second idea) would be something like Leslie appearing in a gust of wind or flowers or stepping out from behind one of the creatures, etc. She‘s smiling and waving at Jess and only he sees her. His sister can be looking elsewhere or something captivated by the ‘world’ around her. Then she disappears like a ghost. Then Jess smiles, letting go of his best friend but always remembering her for who she was as a person and what she did for him, etc. It would also emphasize the whole importance of creativity and confidence in who you are that Disney was trying to force feed us. Then you have the close up of Jess’s eyes. The end.