Time Bandits TV show for Apple TV

[St_Eddie]

At the end of the film, Kev's shit parents are dead and the Bandits have buggered off but he has that poloroid of them holding the map. I reckon a couple of years of study, he'll learn how to read it and jump back to ancient Greece.

The film never makes it clear as to whether any of the events actually happened though, given that the things which Kevin encounters on his adventures are all there in toy form, within his bedroom.  Kevin wakes up with the house ablaze, which implies a dream but then his parents blow up from touching evil and Sean Connery reappears as a fireman, which implies that it wasn't a dream but that wouldn't explain the toys.  Gilliam purposefully left it ambiguous and unanswerable.

[Gulftastic]

But the photos surely prove it DID happen?

[St_Eddie]

But the photos surely prove it DID happen?

But the toys!

[Mister Six]

Surely the parents blowing up and the zoom out to the map is more convincing than some toys? That's just a little fake-out. Call it a coincidence or synchronicity. There are certainly weirder things in the film.

[St_Eddie]

Surely the parents blowing up and the zoom out to the map is more convincing than some toys? That's just a little fake-out. Call it a coincidence or synchronicity. There are certainly weirder things in the film.

What's to say that the parents blowing up and what have you isn't a dream within a dream?  Have you never paid attention to the lyrics of the song which plays over the closing credits ('Dream Away' by George Harrison)?

Midnight sunshine silent thunder
Sky as black as day
Only a dream away

Waking while you're still deep sleeping
Finding you're not here
Watching a dream appear
Tumbling through a thousand centuries
You don't know where you'll land
It's so dark in mythology
Treasures of history to be found
Near the legends of time
All the handiworks remain there
Only a dream away

Greedy feeling wheeling dealing
Losing what you won
See the dream come undone
Stumble you may with the elementary
Lucky you got so far
All you owe is apologies
Measure the mystery and astound
Without taking up time
So the handiworks remain there
Only a dream away

Either way, the fact that I lean more towards the imagination/dream side of things shows that it's not cut and dry, right?  Gilliam put those toys there for a reason and I doubt that it was a fake-out because it's not something you pick up on during your first viewing.  Pretty sure Gilliam wanted to leave it ambiguous.  Neither interpretation is correct and neither is wrong.  I like that about the film.

[Jerzy Bondov]

Gilliam said those lyrics are basically Harrison having a massive go at him for being a cunt. Shame we can't ask Harrison.

I always read it as ambiguous right up until the parents explode. I always saw that as the film going 'yep, it was all real, bye then'

[St_Eddie]

I always read it as ambiguous right up until the parents explode. I always saw that as the film going 'yep, it was all real, bye then'

That's cool.  A huge part of the joy of film lays within one's own personal interpretation and unless Gilliam goes on record and says "it all actually happened.  It wasn't just a dream", or "it was all a dream", then both interpretations are equally as valid, in terms of the artist's intent.

Gilliam said those lyrics are basically Harrison having a massive go at him for being a cunt. Shame we can't ask Harrison.

Haha.  The lyrics are quite funny when read within that context.  Kinda brilliant that even the lyrics to the closing song can have their own interpretation.

[Norton Canes]

Time Bandits was made by Handmade Films, the film shingle that former Beatles guitarist George Harrison hatched with Denis O'Brien that began with Life of Brian, the 1979 comedy made by Gilliam and his Monty Python cohorts. While the company generated films like Mona Lisa and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, mounting debt that was guaranteed by the former Beatle led Harrison to exclaim My Sweet Lord, and he ended up suing O'Brien after the company dissolved. But Time Bandits, a quirky cult favorite, might never have gotten made without Handmade, so a TV series is a fitting nod to a bold little company's legacy

Just realised, that was blatantly AI-generated.