Different ending to little bobby
Answers
Answer:
A few years ago my friend, Stephen Greenfield interviewed me for an article and my answer to this question is as good a one as I think I have ever given. If after reading the Q&A you're still questioning the ending, sit-tight until I have my Blog figured out you'll be able to get a copy of the original screenplay and the original novella.
Here ya go:
"What's the Message?" Article by Stephen Greenfield Many years ago, friends warned me about seeing Radio Flyer. This 1992 film was the result of a very hot script auction (reputed to be $1 million). The production was the subject of additional controversy when the 27 year-old writer, David Mickey Evans, having negotiated a pay-and-play contract to direct the picture, was deliberately slowed down and caused to go over schedule, so that he could be thrown off the project after two weeks and replaced by Richard Donner. Donner is the esteemed director of the original Superman movie, the Lethal Weapon series, Conspiracy Theory, and more. That move escalated the budget of the small, deeply personal story from $18 million to $30 million.
Mixing warm, reminiscent fantasy with frighteningly real drama, Radio Flyer is about a young boy (Bobby), who endures the secret abuse of a sadistic stepfather (The King), and Bobby’s distressed older brother (Mike) who desperately tries to end that abuse. The concerned brother is inhibited from telling anyone, especially the mother, because knowledge of the abuse would destroy her happy relationship with the stepfather. So the kids can’t tell anyone: not the mother, not the concerned policeman who sees that something’s going on, not anyone. Nor do they attempt to run away to escape the abuse.
What these kids do, in fact, is build a pretend airplane out of a Radio Flyer wagon, and in the end, the seriously abused brother flies off into the night sky.
When I saw this, I thought, these kids seemed so concerned about mom’s feelings, don’t they think she’s going to be SHATTERED when she finds out her son has flown off, never to return?
To me, and to many other critics of the movie, the message seemed to be that although child abuse is a real problem, there is no solution short of suicide. Exactly what did the filmmakers think a child seeing this movie was going to think? That they, too, could build an impossible device and fly it away to solve their problems? I have kids, and I’m certain this wouldn’t be a message for any child I cared about.
But there are many stages between the idea and intent that forms in the writer’s mind, and what gets filmed, edited and ultimately interpreted by the audience. Over the intervening years, I had become acquainted with the writer, David Mickey Evans. Before revisiting my reaction 18 years ago to “Radio Flyer”, I realized I had a unique opportunity to go right to the source! David answered my questions with some very candid replies:
Stephen Greenfield: How did the story change from what you ultimately sold? Were there changes the studio compelled you to make, that you perhaps only did because you (at that time) didn't want to rock the boat directorially?