# Time Bandits - what's the ending about ?



## gsv (Jul 7, 2009)

In case the thread title isn't clear enough, *SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS!*
I assume you know the film. If you don't start another thread!

Right, I was thinking about the end of Time Bandits last night. It's always been a bit weird.

Why does the fireman look like Agamemnon?
Is there something cyclic going on in time, or some kind of reincarnation?
Is Kevin meant to have a revelation about this?
Why does the Supreme Being leave a piece of concentrated Evil in the microwave?
Why does the Supreme Being set Kevin up to be left alone?

Or to put is another way, W★T★F 

GS(v)


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## Santino (Jul 7, 2009)

I always felt it was a cop out. 

If you can't think of a proper ending, Terry, just say.


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## gsv (Jul 7, 2009)

Ah poo, wrong forum. Mods, can you shift me sideways please? Ta.

GS(v)


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## Pickman's model (Jul 7, 2009)

gsv said:


> In case the thread title isn't clear enough, *SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS!*
> I assume you know the film. If you don't start another thread!
> 
> Right, I was thinking about the end of Time Bandits last night. It's always been a bit weird.
> ...


have you ever considered contacting terence gilliam and asking him?


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## Gromit (Jul 7, 2009)

Its a comedy

The lump of evil is left behind because its a set up to a joke.
The lump is in the microwave so that we get that it was just a dream but no wait something is there to prove that it is't
His parents touch it because thats what people do when told not to touch something, its funny. They are expendable as they weren't very exciting parent and slaves to the consumer evil.
Now the Agamemnon part is harder. He's also from the dream or is he? But I like to think that he tracked Kevin through time after he vanished, got there a bit early and set himself up with a job in the meantime. What do heroes do in the 20th century with no monsters to slay? Fireman is a heroic job.


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## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Jul 7, 2009)

It's a comedy, I don't think it's supposed to have great meaning. I think the end is just proves it wasn't a dream and has something a little nasty and dark about it. It's maybe all about always thinking you are going to get the hollywood ending. It was just a dream, no it wasn't. Oh no my parents are dead, but wait here is that Agamemnon to give me a better life? No, I'm left here all on my own. Well it's not all bad, this George Harrison song is pretty good.


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## Crispy (Jul 7, 2009)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> It's a comedy, I don't think it's supposed to have great meaning. I think the end is just proves it wasn't a dream and has something a little nasty and dark about it. It's maybe all about always thinking you are going to get the hollywood ending. It was just a dream, no it wasn't. Oh no my parents are dead, but wait here is that Agamemnon to give me a better life? No, I'm left here all on my own. Well it's not all bad, this George Harrison song is pretty good.


sums it up quite nicely


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## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Jul 7, 2009)

I also wonder if Agamemnon turns up to make you think it's a dream again, but I like the way it just leaves you with Kevin alone and the camera pull out before merging into the map which maybe highlights the insignificance of Kevin's predicament in the grand scheme of things. 

I've always liked the ending and as a kid I thought the film was amazing. I think kids quite like the dark stuff.


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## kyser_soze (Jul 7, 2009)

It's saying that evil always remains, and that there will always be a hero around to fight it, or something. Altho I do like Gromit's take on Agemenmnon the fireman hero thing.

The scenes with Napoleon are some of the funniest stuff on film I reckon...og, and the whole ripping of upper m/c revolutionaries and the gap between them and proletariat in the Robin Hood sequence...


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## bouncer_the_dog (Jul 7, 2009)

The one thing you can rely on from a Gilliam film is a downbeat ending. It was a one in the eye to Hollywood. His parents are dead and his house is burnt down. In a way a happy ending, depending on your perspective.


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## May Kasahara (Jul 7, 2009)

"Him on one side, you on the other, it's like standing at the bottom of a bloody well!"


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## kabbes (Jul 7, 2009)

Kevin shouldn't have fucked with the ultimate evil, should he?  Silly little boy.  What does he expect?

It's REALISM, dude.


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## Gromit (Jul 7, 2009)

How long have you been a robber?
Four foot two. 
My foot four two, well that is a long time, jolly good.


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## kyser_soze (Jul 7, 2009)

'Have you met the poor? Wonderful people. Haven't got two pennies to rub together, but _that's because they're poor!!_'


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## Gromit (Jul 7, 2009)

Lets not forget that the underlying theme of the film is the search for happiness. 

The dwarves seek it through money
Kevin through adventure
Evil through technology and destruction
Kevin's parents through consumerism of gadgets

The dwarves don't get their hapiness cause God was merely using them. 
Kevin's adventures leave him with less than what he started with. 
Evil is defeated. 
Kevin's parents are killed by a microwave, sorta. 

The only ones left happy are God. Evil worked out quite nicely. Pleased with his test of his creativity. 

And Agamenmon who finds hapiness through noble service to others as a king or a fireman. Rather than selfish desires.


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## Crispy (Jul 7, 2009)

Nice try 
It is just a bunch of time travel adventures with a ridiculous ending though.
Wouldn't a Time Bandits TV series have been quite cool? A new time period every week


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## sir.clip (Jul 7, 2009)

I've always wondered about what happened too Kevin, I awaited a time bandits 2 for years to explain what happened to him.
I thought he might end up in care or a nut house..

Then I decided it was the perfect ending. kevins parents who always argued & were more obseseed with the material world are killed by pure evil. 
Agamemnon pops up again too remind Kevin that his journey was real & that life is just a journey we all  really undertake alone. 
Agamemnon winks at kevin. Stinking Kevin..

Found this online " 

“We got to the end of the film, we really didn’t have a good ending,” Gilliam recalls. “Then I remembered my first conversation with Sean and he said wouldn’t it be great if he played the fireman. He happened to be in London, he was a tax exile then, he had one day to see his accountant. I said, ‘Could you stop be the studio?’ So he stopped by the studio and I put him in a fireman’s outfit and did two shots- one where he puts the boy down and winks and then he climbs in the cab, shuts the door, winks. That was it! I didn’t write the scene until a month later. We shot with doubles the whole end sequence and it works.”


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## _pH_ (Jul 7, 2009)

I *heart* time bandits. Gonna have to watch it again now and over-analyse the ending rather than just accept its beautiful simplicity


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## gsv (Jul 7, 2009)

Crispy said:


> A new time period every week


A different time slot each week. On a different channel if they're really clever!

GS(v)


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## fogbat (Jul 7, 2009)

gsv said:


> A different time slot each week. On a different channel if they're really clever!
> 
> GS(v)



With different characters. 

And actors.

And plots!



Do you think they might be doing this already?


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## Santino (Jul 7, 2009)

sir.clip said:


> “We got to the end of the film, we really didn’t have a good ending,” Gilliam recalls.


That's what I said! Ahhhhhhhhhh.


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## upsidedownwalrus (Jul 7, 2009)

I think it's one of those things which is deliberately just a bit random in an attempt to make Urb-type people sit around and analyse it to death


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## hegley (Jul 7, 2009)

gsv said:


> Why does the fireman look like Agamemnon?



An homage (or pisstake) to/of Wizard of Oz?


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## ATOMIC SUPLEX (Jul 7, 2009)

Crispy said:


> Nice try
> It is just a bunch of time travel adventures with a ridiculous ending though.
> Wouldn't a Time Bandits TV series have been quite cool? A new time period every week



They made it, it's called quantum leap, doctor who and sliders and it was shit


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## prunus (Jul 7, 2009)

fogbat said:


> With different characters.
> 
> And actors.
> 
> ...



Ho ho ho!

Genuine LOL. 

One of my favourite films, ever.   Can't wait until my little ones are a little older so I can watch it again afresh through their eyes.

Actually, oldest is 6 - too young, d'you think?


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## Crispy (Jul 7, 2009)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> They made it, it's called quantum leap, doctor who and sliders and it was shit


Distinct lack of dwarves and Great British Comedians and Stage Actors in those though.


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## Wonky (Jul 7, 2009)

I loved that film when I first saw it as a child but I was very sad how he was left all alone at the end...


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## ska invita (Jul 7, 2009)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> Well it's not all bad, this George Harrison song is pretty good.



Never noticed the George Harrison song, but it makes sense cos George Harrison  was the main funder of handmade films, which most probably produced this (came about when they could get funding for life of brian if i remember correctly)


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## elbows (Jul 7, 2009)

Hard to beat the end of Brazil for a Terry Gilliam end twist mind argh.


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## Crispy (Jul 7, 2009)

ska invita said:


> Never noticed the George Harrison song, but it makes sense cos George Harrison  was the main funder of handmade films, which most probably produced this (came about when they could get funding for life of brian if i remember correctly)


Yep, he was going to do music for the whole film, but only that one song is in it. There were shenanigans of some sort.


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## upsidedownwalrus (Jul 7, 2009)

ATOMIC SUPLEX said:


> They made it, it's called quantum leap, doctor who and sliders and it was shit


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## Lynn Walker (May 13, 2012)

I can't believe nobody got the ending.  Kevin's still got his photo of the map!  Seeing the fireman reminded him of Agamemnon and the way to get back.  It's a happy ending, folks!


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## Reno (May 13, 2012)

The ending of Time Bandits first makes you think it's going to be a The Wizard of Oz "it was all a dream ending" which the Sean Connery double role hints at. In The Wizard of Oz the actors also played double double roles in the alternate and the real world, so the film tips its head to one of the greatest children's fantasy films of all. And then Gilliam throws in another twist (the photo of the map) and goes "fuck that" and blows up the parents, so I'd say the ending is playing with audience expectation of how a children's film should end. 

People seem to not like ambiguities anymore in films. They want everything neatly tied up and explained for them. That's why American remakes of foreign films make everything obvious the originals left for the audience to work out for themselves and that's why prequels are so popular now. Nothing can be left up to the viewer's imagination anymore. That's why a lot of people now think an ending like this is "lazy" even though if you think about it for a second, it would have been so easy to wrap everything up neatly.


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## Drolleen (Jun 9, 2012)

The ending of the film is a tad preachy, and scary, and it stays with you (I have seen the film 26 years ago): 

The parents, representing the rat race generation that Terry Gilliam abhors. They have no place in a world with no evil (now that god has gotten rid of all evil).  That's why they have to disappear.

The rest are not evil, but not good. That's why Kevin needs to "Stay here to carry on the fight" as the supreme being is saying.

The lesson is scary, but beautiful in its own right:  Even those closest to you may be evil seeking traitors. You have to fight for imagination, and goodness, and against greed and pettiness all by yourself, with just a little bit of help from an occasional kindered spirit, symbolized by Agamemnon/The fireman.


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## nitelyechos (May 9, 2013)

http://www.smart.co.uk/dreams/bandqs.htm
*Why did Gilliam kill off Kevin's parents?* "A basic theme of _Time Bandits_ [was] the notion of this little boy searching for his heroes and finding most of them coming up a little short. Napoleon is a drunken runt obsessed with height and Robin Hood is an upper-class twit who hasn't a clue about poor people. Even Agamemnon, who treats the lad well, turns him down when the boy wants to learn swordplay. Instead, Agamemnon teaches him magic tricks which he says at one point are far more useful in life. Kevin's having learned to deal realistically with hero worship is one of the reasons I left him alone at the end of the film without his parents. I felt he was now capable of looking after himself in life - not only because he had been through this adventure, but also because he had discovered that heroes are not usually what they're cracked up to be."
......Terry Gilliam is a fantastic writer and director, but as a person he's just weird.


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## Reno (May 9, 2013)

nitelyechos said:


> ......Terry Gilliam is a fantastic writer and director, but as a person he's just weird.


 
Do you know him ?


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## ska invita (May 9, 2013)

ah, the era when people were properly dead at the end of a film, and a children's film at that.


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## OldMule (Dec 30, 2016)

At the end of the movie, Kevin awakens and the house is on fire.  Kevin's parents "touch" evil and are instantly annihilated.  Kevin is in possession of his pictures, including a picture of the map.  The Supreme Being told Kevin that "someone has to carry on..."  with a wink and a nod.  Kevin sees a fireman who looks remarkably like Agamemnon and perhaps that reminds him of something.  While with Agamemnon, he said he never wanted to leave.  

Don't you see it?  He hasn't had a dream.  His experiences were real (at least the movie is telling us that).  He has a tiny copy of the map and we know it's usable with his magnifying glass!  Where do you think he's going to go now that he's an orphan?  Back to Mycenae!!!!!


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