Team RWBY's Commentary of Bridge to Terabithia (Part 2 - Final)
"So, sadly, both of our stars have to return to the real world, where things still seem less than perfect. Though, to be fair, still pretty damn close to perfect.", Ruby continued with the second part of their review, as she and her three teammates observe Jess and Leslie saw the teacher heading to her car before the bullies pass by and said beeping towards Jess; this caused the four to snicker, "HA! Oh, never change that joke! Never do any variation with it! We don't know what it is, but it's just timeless! You just got it! You got the perfection of laughter in that one little collection of words! Oh! Ingenious! Absolutely ingenious! HA! Keep it up, and a career similar to Rob Schneider could be your future, pal!", seeing the bully Janice trip and blames Jess, telling on him to the bus driver as he tells him to get out.
Yang imitated, "You have your magical kingdom you're in charge of? Well, I have mine. Bus World! Where I can throw any kid off with no legal repercussions whatsoever! Don't mess with the king, baby! Bus World!", summarizing afterwards, "But they still manage to find peace in their fictional realm where friggin' everything seems to amaze them.", while Jess asked Leslie why she is so good at building stuff, "I mean, hammering a nail into a door? Fucking witchcraft!", continuing, "But even their world at times can come crashing down.", and then mimicked Jess when the film shows a tree falling on his and Leslie's treehouse with the latter presuming it's a giant troll, "Oh, will you shut up already?! We almost died!", also saying when Jess saw squirrels while Leslie said they were the sneaky foot soldiers of the Dark Master, "Let's cut open their teeny-weeny stomachs and feed on their nutty little entrails! Terabithia, goddammit!"
"But Jess decides his world isn't Rockwellian enough. A pointless animal sidekick will fix that up, as he adopts a dog out of nowhere and just...gives it to Leslie. Yeah. Kinda random. How do you think the parents feel about that? Well, apparently, they're just as everlastingly perfect as she is, so. of course, they don't mind. Don't believe me? Just look at how downright Utopian these loafs of Wonder Bread are.", Blake described with the next scene having Jess visits Leslie's place where the parents Bill and Judy invite him to join them painting their house while the father gave advice from Teddy Rooselvelt, "It's just like my parents said before they left Bethlehem, 'Son, do your best to cure cancer, hug puppies, and quote scholars with impeccable articulation.'", wondering, "But seriously, can this world get any more sappy or schmaltzy-", just before upbeat pop music played during the painting montage, "Oh, gods!"
Weiss feared, "Stop it! You're making Full House look like a Holocaust drama!", the following snippet showing them finishing their paint job in the house as Judy asked if it was worth it, causing Weiss to imitate, "Well, we suck as painters, but at least we rock as a Sears catalog commercial.", resuming the story, "So now the dog is in their fictional world, which their imaginations seem to make more and more real by the day.", watching the following part where a giant troll in the forest chases them while the dog fends off the troll by gnawing something between the troll's toes, and soon mimicking Leslie and Jess, "'We should probably feed the dog.', 'No! He's a magic dog that doesn't need food, and can fly off cliffs whenever we toss him!', 'Uh, that doesn't sound right-', 'Terabithia, goddamnit!'"
"This fictional world, we guess, strengthens their courage as they stand up to bullies who block people's entrances into the bathroom. Are there no adults in this fucking school?", questions the red-black-haired huntress, "But they figure out another way to get back at Janice... They forge a love letter from a boy she likes, and she actually believes it's from him, making a fool of herself in front of everybody.", seeing many students in the school bus taunt Janice of her love affair while Jess' sister May Belle looked satisfied, "Okay, his sister enjoyed that a little too much. That wasn't just a funny little moment, that was Count of Monte Cristo-style vengeance.", outlining after, "But they find out that maybe their joke went too far, as they start to feel sad for the bully and even manage to get some interesting information out of her.", the next part showing Leslie and Jess have a conversation as the former mentions at some point of her giving her a stick of gum.
The blonde huntress hoped, "Oh, well, we do hope it was Juicy Fruit gum! It is the almighty savior!", preparing, "Then, get this, they actually decide to bring religion into the mix. Yeah, we know. I'm scared, too.", seeing more of the film with Jess and Leslie heading home in the rain but not before the former says 'Girls can't wear pants', "Girls can't wear pants? Uh, look, guys, we don't know when's the last time you've been to church, but unless you worship at Our Lady of Donna Reed, We don't think this is an issue. But, bizarrely enough, even their fictional world starts to play a part here, too. Hey, they are honoring a carpenter who brought people back to life and turned water into wine. No talk of magic will be allowed in here!", as they saw Leslie open her purse to capture the shining light whilst she, Jess and May Belle were in the church mass, "Oh, glorious day!"
"And to make things even more awkward, they start talking about their religious experience on the way back.", the black-haired huntress said, "Just remember, guys, the last time Disney tried to talk about religion, we got a perverted old man jerking off to a sexy fireplace. Unless you plan to turn this into a creepy-ass song number like Hellfire, tread lightly.", before the four were disturbed when May Belle said 'God damns you to Hell if you don't believe in the Bible', "Did she just say...? She didn't...", covering their mouths in shock and horror, "We have no words.", and remarking when Leslie told she seriously doesn't believe what May Belle said as he was too busy running everything, "WHIMSYYYYYYYY!", adding, "And speaking of which, we have even more whimsy to partake in, as yet another trip down Imagination Lane takes place."
The white-haired huntress worried, "But, oh, no! More poorly CG'd monsters off the port dumb!", seeing Jess and Leslie try fighting the Terabithian creatures but were struggling, "Leslie's like, 'Wow. We suck even in our own fantasy.', and Jess would say, 'I can't be cool anywhere.'", witnessing the two running in the forest away from vultures squawking 'dead meat', "You know, here's my problem with these fantasies. If they were really using them to solve their problems or tie it in more to the story, we could forgive them more. But, apart from a monster having a bully's voice or a bully's face, there's no other connection to anything going on. So the movie just sort of stops dead in its tracks for these scenes that have no suspense because we know it's not real, and no investment because we're not learning anything about them."
"How much more interesting would it have been if they sat down and talked with the troll who looked like the bully, or maybe some of their adventures were connected to their real-life worries?", thought Ruby, ""Wouldn't that be more dramatic? Wouldn't that be more interesting? But, no! They use it to green-screen a background of them running against a forest, which...why didn't you just film them running against a forest?", before the four of them imagine the speeder bike chase scene from Return of the Jedi playing over the part where Jess and Leslie run across the forest, "At the end of the day, they go back home and say goodbye to one another.", the girls seeing the farewell scene between the two kids and sharing one last look as the rain falls.
Yang says, "Well, we sure hope nothing bad happens to either of them after this totally random goodbye that isn't in any way being embellished for any reason whatsoever.", yet she couldn't help but play a clip from Return of the Jedi where Admiral Ackbar says 'It's a trap', "Okay, we thought of our fair share of Admiral Ackbar references.", synopsizing, "The next day, Jess gets a call from his music teacher and sees if he wants to go alone with her downtown to an art museum, which he accepts. And, yes, that sounds exactly as creepy to you as it does to me. Again, we don't know if this was a more acceptable thing during the 70's, but nowadays, this would raise some serious red flags. We... We don't know what to say about that..."
"My goodness, these forced whimsical moments! Can't once just something go incredibly wrong in this movie?", groaned Blake, "Well, good! Somebody better be dead!", before hearing Jess' father Jack tell him the bad news that his friend Leslie was sadly dead, with the four members of team RWBY felt horrified while the Faunus regretted, "...I feel so guilty right now.", reacting, "Yikes! They killed her off? I mean...damn!", while Jack told his son that Leslie drowned in a creek when the rope she used broke, "Well...I'm sure they'll do a lot of over-the-top romanticizing with this, too. What, does he have flashbacks of seeing her, or, like, her spirit in the forest or something?"
Weiss impressed, "Actually, to the movie's credit, the majority of the film dealing with the death scene is handled pretty maturely. Jess goes through denial over his best friend being gone, takes long silent walks by himself, snaps at his sister.", also seeing the excerpt of Jess running from the Dark Spirit in the forest only to show Jack who then comforts Jess as he broke down in sadness, "Even the fantasy world plays an interesting role. He sees a dark spirit heading towards him that he tries to run away from, which is really his father forcing him to confront the reality of her passing, resulting in him finally breaking down."
"Where were these scenes earlier? This is really effective! ...Well, for the most part. There's still one or two moments that still seem a bit heavy-handed. For example, what song are they singing in class the next day?", the red-black-haired huntress said before they heard Ms. Edmunnds and the students sing the morning song while Jess sat at his desk sadly, "Okay, kids, next we'll be singing the happy songs of Hope Floats, Under the Sea, and Rolling Down the River. Jess, you look sad for some reason.", then seeing Scott mock Jess that he's now the fastest kid in the class without respecting Leslie's passing, "OH! Oh- No! No! No, no, no! No, no, no, no, no, no! No, he did not! He did not! He did not! No, no! There's yoh, and then there's no, and that was no! No! That was n-no! No, no, no!"
The blonde huntress aggravated, "Okay! Normally, we wouldn't say that violence is the solution, but in this test, we say definitely choose answer F, for fuck his ass up!", as Jess suddenly punches the bully Scott for disrespecting Leslie's death, "Don't make him get out his cake decorating kit!", then seeing the part where Jess gets off the bus and the bus driver apologizes to him about his friend's death, "Now get off. I don't want any evil spirits haunting my domain. Bus World!", climaxing, "But speaking of bridges, he decides to build one for himself. Obviously learning from that sorcery she taught him with hammering nails into wood, he builds his own bridge and decides to bring his sister into his fantasy world."
"And sure enough, her imagination allows them to once again see the exact same visions somehow.", the black-haired huntress said while they saw part of the conclusion where Jess' sister May Belle and him imagine Terabithia with the newly-built Terabithia, asking if he would be the king and he replies if only she is a princess, "'Wait...does that technically make me your daughter?', 'Look, my best friend's dead, and my teacher's hitting on me. I don't know what's normal anymore!'"
Weiss soon concludes, "And to top off this story about realizing life by accepting death, how about a completely unfitting, up-tempo pop song sung by Miley Cyrus?", asking as they listen to the closing credits song when the movie ends, "And you know, doesn't this music kind of sum up what's wrong with the movie?"
Team RWBY then makes their closing opinions of the movie;
"I give it credit for what it's trying to do and for actually succeeding in some areas. The death scene is handled well, the fact that our two leads aren't romantically involved is very rare, and the idea of creating a world to cope with the harshness of life is not a bad one.", Ruby verdicted.
Yang critiqued, "But the dialogue needed to be updated, the whimsical tone is just too over-the-top, and a story like this only works if the kids act like real kids, not like unrealistic heavenly archetypes that are only made that way so you can feel more bad when one of them dies."
"Imagine if the death scene of a child happened in, say, The Sandlot or To Kill a Mockingbird. It would've been much more effective because you identified with these characters because they were written as normal kids, not angelic memories of being a kid. So it would've hit you a lot harder.", thought Blake, "But when you make them too perfect, they don't seem real."
Weiss says, "So while we don't think it's a bad movie, as some parts did get it right, We don't think it fully understood that fun little moments should just be portrayed as fun little moments instead of the most important, whimsical experiences life has to offer. And therefore, they're harder to feel for when something as heavy as this happens to them."
"Though, to be fair, it does make everyday activities seem a lot more exciting. I'm Ruby..."
"...I'm Yang..."
"...I'm Blake..."
"...and I'm Weiss."
Team RWBY says in unison, "We remember it so you don't have to.", leaving their commentary chairs and about to head out the door...
...but as they open the door, they saw a few familiar friends of theirs that have visited from their neighbor planet Earth.
The four were first surprised, then satisfied, then teary, and finally joyous as they saw them in a matter of a few moments.
"Welcome back, guys.", Ruby greeted.
End of Team RWBY's Commentary of Bridge to Terabithia
Up Next: Team RWBY's Commentary of Winter's Tale
