What kind of an ending was that?

That was the only part that stuck with me from seeing it as a kid, being left alone, scary.

A very dark and surprising one. I love how this film refuses on conclude things on a typically upbeat Hollywood note.

I've been chasing grace/ But grace ain't easy to find

I saw this in the movie theater when I was about 7 or 8 and couldn't make sense of the ending. But consider the source. This is your typical Pythonesque ending.

I always saw it as a reminder that he, namely Agamemnon, hadn't forgotten about him.

The obvious answer is that Connery stole the map during the final battle, replaced it with a fake map, and is now traveling the universe unleashing ultimate cruelty and unholy debauchery.

Seriously though I know it's hip to avoid happy endings, but I don't see what it achieves here. Kevin Smith famously originally ended Clerks with the main character suddenly being murdered before the credits rolled. Thankfully an experienced artist encouraged him to remove that ending as their was nothing gained from it apart from a cheap attempt to shock the audience. In Time Bandits I just don't see what point it makes. True his parents were daft and out of touch with Kevin, but their death would obviously still be upsetting the their son. I'm not sure I see the allegory involved since the characters hadn't truly seen any real transformation.

Great ending.

I have just watched this movie for the first time since, perhaps the mid 1980s when I was a young teenager. I remembered it was a flawed and bizarre move (like the Fifth Element). A movie that was absolutely brilliant one moment and then became so stupidly bizarre the next, that you almost wanted to stop watching. Of course it would then go back to brilliance again and alternate between both states through out. Aside from this, I knew there was something about the ending that really angered me as a youngster, but I couldn't exactly remember what it was. Now I've just been reminded after all these years. Good ole Terry was too softhearted to see any of the dwarfs die, but he didn't mind creating a senseless death for the poor boys parents leaving him an orphan. WTF.

There’s a possibility that Gilliam is or was a Communist, or had Leftist leanings, in which case the family unit is a threat and the state becomes your ‘parents’ instead. The film also heavily criticises consumerism, possibly as an attack on capitalism, and associates it with evil.

Either way, it’s an extremely cold and haunting ending to a children’s film, but very memorable!