Coraline had a lot of talent behind it when it came out in 2009. The movie was a stop-motion animated release based on the beloved dark fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman, directed by Henry Selick, who was best known for directing The Nightmare Before Christmas. It was also a beautiful film, one of the highlights of 3D animated releases when that format returned to popularity in the 2000s. What resulted was a brilliantly dark movie that received high critical praise and has become a successful box office hit thanks to its recent re-release.

Coraline tells the story of the тιтular character, an 11-year-old girl whose family moves to a new state, and she has to figure out how to fit in while her parents remain busy. She discovers a doorway in her house leading to the “Other World,” where different versions of her parents have all the time in the world for her. All she has to do is give up her regular life – and her eyes – but Coraline soon learns that not everything is as it seems and has to fight to return to her real life.

What Happens In Coraline’s Ending

Coraline Frees The Ghost Children & Locks Bedlam Out Forever

The “Other” version of Coraline’s mother, a creature known as Bedlam, kidnaps Coraline’s real parents to force her to return to her world. However, the young girl has other plans: She wants to help the other kids that Bedlam captured regain their stolen spirits and escape the Other World. She makes a bet with Bedlam that if she finds her parents and the eyes of the ghost children, the creature will set them all free. If Coraline fails, she will surrender her soul to Bedlam. Bedlam agrees as she likes games, and the race is on.

Coraline finds the eyes to free the kids, but knowing Bedlam won’t honor their deal, she sets out to free her parents. Realizing they are trapped in a snow globe, she grabs it and races back to the real world with Bedlam in pursuit. Coraline makes it back home and severs one of Bedlam’s hands. This leads to the big climax, where Bedlam’s hand tries to capture Coraline and regain the key to the door, but Coraline’s neighbor, Wybie, arrives in time to help destroy the hand, and they throw the hand and key down a well.

The film ends with Coraline’s family holding a garden party for their neighbors. At the party, Coraline starts bringing closure to Wybie’s grandmother as she explains what really happened to her missing sister all those years ago.

Who Is The Jerk Wad?

The End Credit Teaser Was For A Contest

At the end of the credits, a note read: “For those in the know: JERK WAD.” However, for those who were not “in the know,” this made no sense. There was one connection everyone likely got since Coraline called Wybie “jerk wad” in the movie, but what did this have to do with the credit notation? It turns out that this was a contest.

When Coraline was released, the film’s website told fans to look in the credits for a special secret code (hence the “For those in the know” line). Viewers would then return home and enter the code into the website for a chance to win a pair of Coraline-themed Nike Dunks. This was the era before social media was king, so website promotional work was crucial at the time.

Coraline’s Ending Is Similar To The Wizard Of Oz

Coraline Realized Her Dreams Came With Great Danger

Coraline was a dark fantasy fairy tale, something that Neil Gaiman specialized in. This strongly connects it to two other movie properties based on classic fantasy novels. Coraline and the classic Disney movie Alice in Wonderland have much in common. On top of that, there are also similarities to the beloved classic The Wizard of Oz. In all three movies, a young girl is swept away into a fantastical world that proves more dangerous than she could have imagined.

Both Coraline and Dorothy want to escape their homes, feeling there has to be something better out there. Dorothy wants to escape her drab, monochrome life in Kansas for great adventures, while Coraline wants to escape her new life of boredom where her parents have no time for her. Both stories see them in a world where it seems their dreams come true. For Dorothy, it is a land of color with fantastical characters; for Coraline, it is a home where her parents have time for her.

However, both young ladies find nothing but danger. For Dorothy, it is the manipulative Wizard and the evil Wicked Witch. For Coraline, it is the evil Bedlam. In Alice in Wonderland, it is the Queen of Hearts. In every case, the young women must figure out how to solve the mystery that will return them home. In all three cases, they thought their wishes had come true, but all three realized there was a danger to always getting what they wished for.

How The Coraline Ending Differs From The Book

Coraline director Henry Selick mostly remained faithful to Neil Gaiman’s novel, making very few major changes to the story. The ending was also mostly the same, with Coraline leading Bedlam’s hand to the well and then casting it into the deep, dark hole with the key to the doorway. However, there was one main difference between the two endings. Wybie Lovat did not exist in the Neil Gaiman novel.

This was an essential addition to the Coraline movie. While he wasn’t necessary in the novel, he provided a great foil to Coraline in the film. He was there to show an anтιтhesis to Coraline, the opposite of her personality, to deliver a nice, rounded story. Wybie wasn’t in the novel; he would have removed some of her loneliness and lessened the scare factor. That wasn’t as important in the film, and he was a big part of the story’s ending.

In the book, Coraline gets rid of the hand and key on her own. This was important for the written word since it was her, and vicariously the reader, who had to solve the problem on their own. In the movie, Wybie shows up at the end and helps Coraline defeat the hand. She finds that he isn’t the “jerk face” that she thought he was, opening up the ending for her to have a new family with the neighbors around her parents’ home. That was the movie’s story, which differs slightly from the novel.

The Real Meaning Of Coraline’s Ending

The movie Coraline and the novel have two different themes regarding Coraline’s character journey. In the book, Coraline has to figure out that there is no place like home, and that is where she is meant to be. That is also part of the story from the film, but there is one additional layer to the movie. In Coraline, it is also about her finding family and accepting that she can be part of the larger community around her. She doesn’t have to be a loner.

When Coraline started, the young girl wanted to be left alone by everyone but her parents. The fact that her parents were too busy for her made her feel even more alone, and in some ways, she didn’t mind part of that. She was cruel to Wybie and pushed everyone away from her. In the Coraline ending, she realized she wanted her real parents, warts and all. However, she also accepted her new neighbors as an extended family and found a sense of belonging she didn’t have when the movie began.