Rise of the Guardians(2012)

Submitted by Evan B

Pooper:
After recovering memories of his past life, Jack Frost realizes he’s always been heroic and he rallies the rest of the Guardians and children that believe in them to defeat Pitch.

Long Ending:
The film begins with Jack Frost (voiced by Chris Pine) awakening under the water. He has no memories of his past life or how he came to exist. Jack soon realizes that the Man in the Moon (which created Jack) has given him powers over snow and ice and the ability to fly. However, he is invisible to all the humans he interacts with.

Hundreds of years later, various magical entities interact on a daily basis with humans. They include North (voiced by Alec Baldwin), who operates a shop full of elves and yetis that build toys to be delivered to kids on Christmas; Bunny (voiced by Hugh Jackman), a giant boomerang-toting Australian rabbit who leaves painted eggs on Easter; Tooth (voiced by Isla Fisher), who has a fleet of hummingbird-like fairies that collect children’s lost teeth and leaves them gifts in exchange; and Sandy, who uses his magical sand powers to give good dreams to children. The foursome come together as a group called the Guardians whenever the children of the world need protection. North learns that an ancient being of darkness and fear named Pitch (voiced by Jude Law) has returned and begun spreading nightmares across the globe in the form of dark horses (literal night mares). He calls the Guardians together and they are told by their creator, the Man in the Moon, to recruit Jack Frost to the team.

Jack is playful but mischeivous, delivering unexpected snow days to children and often interfering with the Guardians’ work with his icy powers. Nonetheless, the group reaches out to him. Jack is a bit bitter towards the Guardians as they can be seen by mortals (unlike him) because people believe that the Guardians exist but have never heard of Jack Frost (all magical beings can only be seen if people believe in them). Jack isn’t convinced that he’s worthy of being a Guardian, but he goes along with them to save the world. Pitch used to rule the world with fear and darkness until the Guardians banished him. He’s now managed to find a way to spread fear once again by coopting Sandy’s powers to create his nightmares. The Guardians clash with Pitch and though they thwart his plan to take over, Pitch does manage to completely take over Sandy and also captures all of Tooth’s fairies and the teeth she’s collected.

Tooth explains that she collects teeth because each tooth contains memories of the person’s childhood. The fairies then use these memories to cheer up the people whose teeth they were when they are sad. Jack realizes that if they recover the teeth from Pitch, Jack can use his childhood tooth to finally learn who he was before he became a magical entity. The Guardians and Jack decide to work together to create the best Easter ever, hoping the goodwill it creates will weaken Pitch and allow them to defeat him.

The night before Easter, Jack hears a voice calling out to him. He follows the sound of the voice to Pitch’s lair, where Pitch has Jack’s childhood teeth. Pitch, who also has become invisible to mortals since he was banished, asks Jack to join him so that he and Jack will become visible together while ruling the world with cold, dark nights. Jack considers this, but his love for mortals wins out and he rejects Pitch’s offer. Pitch overwhelms Jack and breaks Jack’s staff (which he used to control ice and cold) before stranding Jack on a mountain. However, Jack manages to get ahold of his teeth and uses them to access his lost memory. He learns that he was part of a loving family. One day, Jack and his little sister went to skate on a frozen lake when the ice began cracking. Jack managed to save his sister’s life by throwing her to safety off the lake before crashing through the ice himself and passing away. The Man in the Moon then resurrected him as Jack Frost. Jack realizes he truly is a hero and worthy of being a Guardian. He conjures his ice powers himself to fix his staff and flies back to the other Guardians.

When he returns, he finds that Pitch managed to stop Easter from happening and as a result, almost every child in the world has stopped believing in the Guardians and have begun believing Pitch. Jack finds some children he interacted with earlier and is able to keep their belief in the Guardians alive. Not only do the kids’ belief in the Guardians remain strong thanks to Jack, they also come to believe in Jack as well and he becomes visible. The children join the Guardians in standing against Pitch and his nightmares. No longer fearing Pitch, the children are able to turn the nightmares back into dreams. As more nightmares are transformed, Sandy reemerges from the darkness and is able to restore children’s faith worldwide using his dream power. Pitch tries to flee but is attacked by his own nightmares (which feed on fear), and the nightmares drag him away. Jack, now visible and celebrated by children, accepts his role as a full-fledged member of the Guardians.