Are there any animated kids movies that have sad endings besides Disney’s The Fox and the Hound (1981)?
Unless I’m still not understanding the ending properly, despite being in my 30s.
Tod and Copper try to literally kill each other and are literally at each other’s throats with 0 acknowledgment of being friends in the past. Tod saves Copper’s life from the bear (Which I do understand the bear did nothing wrong by attacking and attempting to kill Copper and Amos. The bear has to defend its space and probably felt threatened and rightfully so.), despite the fact that they literally just tried to kill each other. Copper in turn saves Tod’s life and refuses to let him be shot. But they still never become friends again. They remember each other and saying how they’d always be friends, but seem that they’ll never be friends again and never see each other again.
Amos, the villain, also never gets his bad karma returned! He only gets a trap on his foot. That’s nothing compared to what Copper, Chief, Widow Tweed, and Tod went through the entire movie.
To me it’s still the deepest Disney movie I’ve ever seen. And that’s only acknowledging the ending, the rest of the movie is still deep and has even more depth to me as an adult.
Is the ending realistic to real life? Yes, in real life, friends can drift apart and never each other again and friends can become enemies. Yes, in real life, innocents can suffer and the bad can get rewarded.
But, for an animated Disney movie for kids, definitely not a typical ending and sad! They don’t become friends again and give each other no apology or acknowledgment other than their passing looks and unsaid understanding when Copper leaves with Amos.