• Options
• Login
• Register
• Desktop Style
• Accelerated Mobile Pages Theme

Dark, scary sad endings in children’s cartoons, shows and movies?

• Index

  • Science Fiction and Fantasy Community Forums
  • Science Fiction and Fantasy Entertainment
  • Science Fiction and Fantasy TV Shows
  • Dark, scary sad endings in children’s cartoons, shows and movies?
• Dark, scary sad endings in children’s cartoons, shows and movies?

• Dark, scary sad endings in children’s cartoons, shows and movies?

  badlands > April 18th, 2024, 04:39 PM

  There are a lot of children’s cartoons, movies and T.v shows that have sad endings like AlF and My girl. 
  Kubo and the two strings has a tragic ending, which probably why it bombed at the box office. Everyone dies in the story including the main character. 
  Secret Saturdays, a cartoon about crytids, as the main character die all the time and his brother and best friend get cooked alive  at the end. 
  
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Saturdays
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubo_and...wo_Strings

• RE: Dark, scary sad endings in children’s cartoons, shows and movies?

  RobRoy > April 19th, 2024, 06:07 PM

  (April 18th, 2024, 04:39 PM)badlands Wrote: Kubo and the two strings has a tragic ending, which probably why it bombed at the box office. Everyone dies in the story including the main character.

  
  To be fair, it's been some time since I saw the movie, but I don't recall that main character drying, nor the ending as tragic.  It certainly wasn't the ending that Kubo wanted, but the story had what I considered a very hopeful ending. There are lots of reasons why movies may or may not do well.  In this case, one of the reasons might be that it was also more realistic than most Western audience like for their "cartoons".  Cartoons are, even now, considered children's fare, which creates problems for stories that are actually aimed at more mature audiences.  There was also some problems with casting, as the story is clearly Asian and I want to say specifically Japanese, but the majority of the cast were not.  
  
  Others reasons certainly abound.
  
  All that said, the movie was well-regarded by critics, received a number of nominations and awards, and was up for at least one Oscar, as I recall.

• RE: Dark, scary sad endings in children’s cartoons, shows and movies?

  Michael > April 25th, 2024, 03:06 AM

  I prefer happy endings, myself, or at least happy endings for some characters. But some writers feel it's important to show children that life doesn't go on forever, that there is loss, pain, and remembrance.

• RE: Dark, scary sad endings in children’s cartoons, shows and movies?

  RobRoy > April 25th, 2024, 11:20 AM

  (April 25th, 2024, 03:06 AM)Michael Wrote: I prefer happy endings, myself, or at least happy endings for some characters. But some writers feel it's important to show children that life doesn't go on forever, that there is loss, pain, and remembrance.

  
  Yeah, which also caused some of the trauma of my life.  Thinking about Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, etc.  I was always a dog lover, so any time dogs got hurt or killed, it was serious for me.  There was a war movie, whose name I never knew, where a little boy's dog gets killed.  I was pretty young, but I remember being quite inconsolable and not understanding why, even in war, they would "choose" to kill the dog.
  
  Along those same lines, I recall, vividly, an NBA basketball game, where a player apparently got so frustrated with someone on the other team that he actually punched him.  I was completely shocked by this and thought the aggressor should be arrested and put in jail.  Again, very young at the time, and I couldn't tell you names or even the teams playing.

• RE: Dark, scary sad endings in children’s cartoons, shows and movies?

  Michael > April 25th, 2024, 04:44 PM

  I saw Bambi in the theater (early 1960s re-release - so I was quite young) and though I loved the movie I was never able to watch it again. To this day I just don't want to watch the movie.

• RE: Dark, scary sad endings in children’s cartoons, shows and movies?

  RobRoy > April 26th, 2024, 09:21 PM

  (April 25th, 2024, 04:44 PM)Michael Wrote: I saw Bambi in the theater (early 1960s re-release - so I was quite young) and though I loved the movie I was never able to watch it again. To this day I just don't want to watch the movie.

  
  I totally get that.  This was a plot point in "Friends" for Phoebe.  Her mother stopped any movie before it got tragic, and told Phoebe some happily-ever-after version.

• RE: Dark, scary sad endings in children’s cartoons, shows and movies?

  Michael > April 28th, 2024, 01:07 AM

  Heh! I didn't watch Friends that much but it sounds like something Phoebe-ish.
  
  I've noticed, when reading reviews of various Chinese Dramas on MyDramaList, that a lot of the fans prefer happy endings. They can get quite huffy if a show has a vague or ambiguous ending, or if a favored character dies.
  
  I kind of understand the sentiment. On the one hand there is an emotional appeal to not knowing if all the "good" characters will live to see the happy ending. There's usually at least one "good guy" who bites the dust (often in a sacrificial move).
  
  The Xanxia (Immortal Heroes) shows can kill off characters a little more liberally because their genre's rules allow various ways to bring them back to life (sometimes after hundreds or thousands of years). In a way it's a lot like watching a live adaptation of a role-playing game.
  
  But the dramas from any culture that end with a depressing loss or devastation just lose their appeal for me. Maybe that's why I don't like horror movies so much. I can watch them with my wife but I don't get emotionally attached to the characters because so many of them are doomed to die (some within a few minutes of being introduced).
  
  Maybe I've been spoiled by 70s-style episodic television, where story arcs lasted at most 3 episodes (and more often you just had the occasional 2-parter). You knew the characters would be back the next week with virtually no consequences from whatever horrible experiences they went through in the last episode.
  
  Many of the Star Trek shows kind of did the same thing, even though they had long story arcs from TNG onward. You'd think Picard would never want to enter a room with 3 or 4 lights situated together again, but they never revisited that or many other traumatic experiences that should have had him and half the crew visiting Counselor Troi on an almost daily basis.
• Next Oldest Next Newest