Does Corpse Bride have a happy ending?
I know you were brought in late on Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride
and from what I gather, weren’t responsible for much
of the story, but I’m curious about your thoughts on
one particular story element.
Is the ending a happy one for Victor?
The way it plays, it seems as though it is intended to be a happy ending for him when he winds up with Victoria, but from the audience’s perspective, I‘m not sure we see evidence that he would be happier with Victoria than he’d be with the Corpse Bride. The inclusion of the scene where Victor connects with the Corpse Bride while playing piano with her is of course necessary to propagate the plot, but seems to indicate that he’d be just as content living among the dead as he would be with Victoria.
– Rob
Los Angeles
You point out one of the real challenges with Corpse Bride. Generally in a fairy tale like this, you’d be really clear about which woman the hero is “supposed to” be married to at the end.
At the start of the movie, it seems pretty straightforward: Victor meets Victoria, and both of them are surprised how much they like each other. Corpse Bride seems like a monster when she first appears, but is quickly revealed to be funny and sweet. She’s rotting, but not rotten.
As we worked on the story, Corpse Bride kept becoming more and more likable, to the point where we started to wonder exactly the question you ask, “Shouldn’t, maybe, Victor end up with Corpse Bride?”
The solution wasn’t to diminish Corpse Bride, but rather to beef up Victoria. Over the drafts, we made sure to give her more initiative (such as escaping the mansion to plead for the Pastor’s help) and make her situation more dire (the wedding to Barkis was a surprisingly late addition).
Through it all, we never wanted to back away from what was unusual about the story: it’s a love triangle in a kid’s film, and you’re sort of rooting for all three characters.
Corpse Bride’s decision to stop Victor from drinking the Wine of Ages (added in the last draft) is less about saving his life (after all, death isn’t so bad) and more about seeing herself in Victoria. It goes back to want-versus-need. Corpse Bride wants to be married, but what she needs is to free herself from her self-imposed curse. While we’re deliberately unclear about the exact cosmology of the afterlife, the Land of the Dead seems to be a kind of goofy Purgatory. Her transformation at the end would seem to be the next step in the process of life.
But is it a little wistful? Yeah.
And I wonder if that lack of clearly happy ending limited the upside to the film — which I have to say, performed much better than any movie called “Corpse Bride” could be expected.
But I wouldn’t change it. To me, it’s nice to be able to show kids a movie where everything resolves well but not perfectly. I think it’s more honest to show that you can be happy and sad at the same time.
Articles
November 7th, 2005 at 4:02 pm
They’re Romeo and Ghouliet (har!), destined to forever live in separate worlds alas.
November 7th, 2005 at 11:08 pm
The surgical way in which you talk about editing or writing screenplays makes me uneasy. Maybe it’s because I have some fantastical notion that stories should be more personal, less planned and aimed at eliciting very definite reactions and so on. Is there any other way of writing a film? Or must the screenwriter always have perfect knowledge and control over what each beat, each moment is doing to his/her audience… Is the “accidental” screenwriter a bad writer?
November 8th, 2005 at 1:27 am
“I think it’s more honest to show that you can be happy and sad at the same time.”
I agree whole-heartedly, however it seems that in most cases (for the sake of the audience) absolute happiness and closure is substituted for a true emotion or ending.
Needless to say, that’s something that needs to change.
November 8th, 2005 at 10:05 am
Reminds me of an argument with the suits on MRS DOUBTFIRE, when there was pressure from above to deliver a conventional happy ending with the children in the story seeing their divorced parents reunited.
Thereby playing fast and loose with the mental well-being of every child of split-up parents in the audience. Williams backed up the writer and his star clout swung it.
A truthful happy ending is one where the characters are left as happy as they can hope to be, and adjusted to those things that have to be.
November 8th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
hey! where’s the spoiler warning?
December 6th, 2005 at 9:01 am
Will there perhaps be a alternate ending on the dvd when it releases?
It would be nice to see something like: Victoria find’s a man in the land of the dead and Victor marries The Corpse Bride and everything end’s up happy that way… Or something like that?.
December 6th, 2005 at 9:07 am
I add this to my last comment.
And that The Corpse Bride does not go away from every one.
I cind of cried inside when she did.
February 23rd, 2006 at 10:42 am
I thought it was another opportunity in one of Burtons films where the character should have gone with both (like in Planet of the Apes) Why settle for one? He could have had the best of both worlds. And in the end its never realy all that important who the guy ultimately chooses, it could just as easily be either. So when in doubt, I say choose both, I’m sure Claude Chabrol would agree.
May 2nd, 2006 at 11:55 pm
I liked how the Corpse Bride dissolved into butterflies in the end. I loved how she evolves as a character through her own decisions and not because someone landed them on her. I couldn’t come at the music in the movie though! There are heaps of great kids movies where spiders don’t sing!
May 19th, 2006 at 1:37 am
I think it would had been nice show to children that they can resolve their problems in other ways than they’re used to, and also that love is a very complicated thing and one can fall in love very quickly and not just with one person, in our western civilization we have a lot of tabus about it, it’s time to show children love is a complicated thing and it’s different for each person and case, and more importantly one should not keep silence and do nothing if you can resolve things in a way where everybody is happy even if it it’s not “normal”.
Do not think I didn’t like the ending, it was very original and emotional, but I would have liked, for the first time, an ending where everybody is happy even against what it’s normal in our society, teaching tolerance and the complexity of love.
Also, what happens at the end with the corpse bride doesn’t seem what she needed or something good, I looks like she just dissapeared, ceasing her existence while she could have been eternally happy with Victor ( and Victoria if you agree ), but if John says even they don’t know about what exactly happens to her or the alterlife in the universe of the movie, my opinions are just vague ideas.
P.D. Since you ( John ) said that Victoria’s marriage to Barkis, and victoria stoping Victor from drinking the Wine of Ages, are late adittions to the story, It would be very nice to know what was going to be the ending of the movie before those adittions.
Thank you for this great movie.
May 27th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
I have been waiting a life time for a movie like this to come along. In my opinion, I certainly think that the corpse bride(Emily) does have a happy ending. The reason why I think this is because, she wanted to marry Victor Vandort, but then, it turns out she dosen’t marry him. BUT,when she saw Victoria Everglot, she relized that Victor and Victoria love each other so she set Victor “free” out of her reach. Now how does this give her a happy ending? Well, see, she let Victor have his one true, first love and she was set free by Victor, so they each got exactly what they were looking for in the first place. Plus, it also feels good when someone else is happy and so that makes you feel good on the inside. Now that is what I call a happy ending! By the way, I think Victor and Victoria make a good couple! Also, to tell you the truth, at the end my body kind of cried inside and shed tears of happiness because Victor and Victoria finally are together, and sadness because the corpse bride has to come out of the picture,but not completely, because she is really still there! But I felt also good about that part because because she gets what she wants:to be set free! And like always, their is a movie you can never stop liking till the day you die, and for me,this so happens to be the one. I love this movie, it makes me cry, Thankyou for this gift that I shall never forget. P.S. Danny Elfman did a fantastic job on the music, and the rest of the cast and crew, well lets just say you to were breath taking! Keep up the good work, and if it were me, I would give this movie 4 stars!- Madison P. Smith
May 28th, 2006 at 6:45 am
I have been waiting a life time for a movie like this to come along. In my opinion, I think the corpse bride(Emily)sertainly does have a happy ending. The reason why I think this is because she let Victor Vandort go to his true love,Victoria Everglot. Now how does this give her a happy ending? Well, first of all she was set free by Victor and that was what she wanted in the first place.So, she set him “free” by leting him go to his first true love. So they each got a fair trade and also, it feels very good on the soul when you make someone else feel better. Now that is what I call a happy ending! Also, this movie gave me a sorrow feeling on the inside because the corpse bride had to come out of the picture, but it also gave me a warm feeling because Victor and Victoria were together at last! So basicly, my feelings were mixed. And in everyone’s life there is a movie that they will never stop loving and this so happens to be the one. Thankyou for this.
P.S. I thought Danny Elfman did a wonderful job on the music,and the rest of the cast and crew, well lets just say you took my breath away! I hope they keep up the good work! And if I were them,I would give the movie 4 stars! No other movie like it,
July 25th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
the bride does have a happy ending…..
emily stutters saying he vows, and stops victor from drinking the posion. emily points to victoria who runs to hug victor. after victor fightin barkus, barkus drinks the posion. he dies and the bride says “you set me free.” and hands vicor the wedding ring. she runs up to the door\winndow.
she tosses the boke’ and is caught by a woman. the maggot leers her, and terrified, she tosses it to victor. the bride smiles and bursts into moths and butterflie to the moon, dessending to a long-awaited heaven.
January 20th, 2007 at 6:50 am
I like the idea of “A kind of goofy Purgatory”. And I note that within the inexact cosmology of the film we also get some notion of Heaven (Emily’s transformation) and Hell (At any rate, it doesn’t look as though Barkis is in for a very merry afterlife).
Strange with all of those concepts that many fundamentalist Christians still gave it a negative press. And you’d think they’d have appreciated the ending more than most (Emily’s willing sacrifice being the ultimate gesture of her love, and so forth). However, if “The Passion of the Christ” is a good example of what happens when you try to make a film to please the fundamentalists, it’s probably best to leave well alone…
January 22nd, 2007 at 6:55 am
Would also like to agree with some of the above posters, that a happier ending (i.e. one that somehow contrived to pair off both Emily and Victoria) would have been unsatisfyingly convenient. I suppose if the Johnny Depp character had been a bit more like Captain Jack Sparrow he could have had a brief fling with both ladies and then run off to sea, but I’m not sure that would have been any happier (and it certainly would not have made the censors happy). The ending as it stands has two great virtues: 1) It is true to the original folktale. 2) It is open to interpretation / religious preference (Emily might have gone to heaven, been reincarnated, or just had her life force returned to nature, however you prefer it).
February 6th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Corpse Bride was going nicely until the very end when she turned into blue butterflies under a bluish moon. She’d waited her whole life & death for a husband, but instead she dissolved into butterflies! That was about as upsetting as Spielberg’s ending to Kubrick’s dark and cold (and unfinished) A.I. (Artificial Intelligence). That haunting pain of a deep, BASIC, unfulfilled desire deeply disturbed my sensibilities.
Now, what happens when the mortal Victor dies? Will he be reunited w/the corpse bride?
My goodness, I cried for the CORPSE BRIDE, she never got MARRIED!
I couldn’t believe it was ending like that!
She never fully experienced love!
Are couples allowed in purgatory, but not heaven????
If man & wife are two parts of the same soul, then WHAT happened to those
people who never wed? Are they alone for eternity? Somehow, laughing it up at the purgatory bar is not a very good compensation for love.
What about a young woman who NEVER even fell in love, was always alone and dies that way?
My GOODNESS, why can’t you have a HAPPY ENDING FOR THE KIDS (& ME, TOO!!!)???
Instead of giving people angst, why not a deep, warm (non-Kubrick) inside?
Why couldn’t WARM, LOVING light absorb the non-bride “bride?”
I give you permission to freely use my ideas to remake Corpse Bride in happy ending way (just make sure she gets married this time)!
December 5th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I think Victor and Victoria should have been married, then Emily and Bonejangles, the singing skeleton, should have gotten together…
Not a Happy Ending….