Bridge to Terabithia/Trivia

• Creator Breakdown: The Bittersweet Ending is inspired by a real life event that happened to the author's son. That same son would become the producer and co-writer for the 2007 film.
  • In a 2009 radio interview, Paterson recalled that it took weeks to summon up the courage to write the ending, to kill off the girl she had brought back to life.
• Fake American: Everyone except the main cast of the movie.
• Hey, It's That Guy!: Massive amounts in the 2007 movie. Leslie is Violet Beauregard, her dad is Mesogog, Jess' dad is T-1000, and his music teacher is Trillian.
• Name's the Same: There is an island in The Chronicles of Narnia called Terebinthia; the author read the books as a child but asserts the connection was unconscious. And also points out that C.S. Lewis probably took the name of said island from the terebinth tree, which is often mentioned in The Bible.
  • The fact that the kids constantly reference the Narnia books for inspiration in creating their own kingdom renders this argument moot.
• So My Kids Can Watch: Robert Patrick aka T-1000 described his reason for taking the part in the film with precisely these words.
• Write Who You Know: An interesting variant in the 2007 film, in that Jess and Leslie base the creatures and inhabitants of their imaginary world off of people they know. In particular, the Squoagers and Hairy Vultures are monsters based off the bullies Scott Hoager and Gary Fulcher and even resemble them to a degree. The troll is based off Janice Avery, and does a Heel Face Turn after Leslie comforts her, while the Dark Master is based off Jess's father, and disappears at the end, when the two of them finally understand one another. The wish-fulfillment of this arguably helps them both - but Jess in particular - to grow stronger in Real Life as well.
  • In the more traditional Meta sense, the characters and story are based off events and people from Katherine Pattinson's own life - Jesse off her son David, Leslie off his best friend Lisa Hill, etc., and Jesse's loneliness reflects Pattinson's own inability to fit in at school with others. Plus the poverty off the situation during the Seventies post the Vietnam War era. And the religious connotations off her own upbringing, since she learned from her father (a missionary who often traveled as part of his duties).