Gravity Falls: The Final Chapter

Gravity Falls: Return to the Falls is a Disney XD movie based on the popular animated tv show Gravity Falls and was released in the summer of 2018

The Plot
The movie is set several years after the events of the finale and Dipper and Mabel are now nineteen years old and are both returning to Gravity Falls for the summer. Stan and Ford have both returned to the shack where they have been employed by Soos to run the shack alongside him as co-owners. After the first few weeks of living in the shack, Stan tells Ford that he had been getting hallucinations of Bill Cipher and Ford creates a machine so that he, Dipper and Mabel can see into Stan's mind. The trio makes the horrifying discovery that Bill has managed to resurrect himself with a spell and has managed to implant fragments of himself into a new employee of the Mystery Shack named Lewis.

Once Bill has been able to possess Lewis; Bill plans to meet the elder gods, beings who existed before the creation of the universe and Bill plans to convince them to destroy the universe, so a new one can be born and a new cycle of life can begin.

It's up to Dipper, Mabel, Wendy, Soos, Stan, and Ford to stop Bill and save their very existence.

Mabel's subplot
Since Dipper and Mabel have both finished College, Dipper and Mabel are stuck in what choices they should make in the future, Dipper was given an opportunity to attend Yale in Connecticut whereas Mabel wants to start work as an artist and performer in Broadway, and she and Dipper both wanted to use this summer as a farewell to their friends. As the movie progresses, Mabel loses motivation towards Broadway because of how difficult it is for her to move forward and take risks.

Dipper's subplot
Before the events of the movie, Dipper decides to use this summer to date Wendy after she tells him that they can date since they are at a point where the age difference is no longer a problem. When he arrives in Gravity Falls, he develops a crush on Pacifica and becomes confused on who he would like to be with;


 * Pacifica Northwest who shares a mutual crush with him but is afraid to tell him due to her history as Mabel's bully, which doesn't help when Dipper overhears a conversation between Mabel and Pacifica where the latter insults him while trying to deny her feelings for him.
 * His second crush is Wendy Corduroy, who was his first crush and safest choice despite both being subconsciously uncomfortable with dating each other. Wendy is uncomfortable with the idea about having watched Dipper grow up to be her boyfriend, and Dipper being conflicted about his feelings for Pacifica at the same time.

Soos' subplot
After Melody tells him that she is pregnant, Soos struggles to cope with approaching fatherhood, as well as fearing how he will be able to make enough money to support his family due to Stan and Ford's return to the shack. Melody also wants Soos to get a home of his own, which causes him to become anxious about independence and moving forward. Soos is also afraid of becoming his father, thinking he'll screw up as a parent and become a burden.

Wendy's subplot
Wendy realises that it's her time to move out of her family home and she's afraid of taking the first step into adulthood. Since her mother was no longer in the picture, she put herself in charge of looking after her brothers and took too much responsibility for them. Now that she's moving out, she's afraid of abandoning them.

The Trials
For each elder god. the heroes must undergo a trial. Each trial is unique and the number of contestants is chosen by the god.

Corpus's Trail
For Corpus's trial; Wendy must fight one of his champions and she is told that he is a ruthless, brutal fighter who won't stop until he succeeds. Wendy and the champion begin to fight and it's revealed that the two are equally matched. Once the two reach a stalemate, Wendy realises the champion never struck first and is only getting stronger the more she fights. She also realises that the champion is only fighting in self-defence; she throws her weapon aside, surrenders and apologises.

The champion stops short of beheading her and reaches his hand out as a gesture of forgiveness and as a peace offering. Corpus comes out clapping his hands and tells Wendy she passed the trial.

Anima's Trail

For Anima's trial; Soos, Dipper, and Mabel have to find a rune to escape a bathhouse but they must avoid the rising the water before they drown in it. As the water begins to rise, the trio starts looking but are eventually forced to run up the stairs to avoid the rising water. When they have nowhere else to go, they decide to climb out a nearby window and forfeit the trial, however, Mabel notices a glowing rune beneath the water but realises she can only see it in shadows.

Learning this from Mabel; Soos and Dipper use their clothes to block the sunlight and the trio dives into the water, they reach the rune and pull it out. This flushes the three out and they are reunited with Wendy and Anima, who tells them they have passed the trial.

Vita's Trail
For Vita's trial; Each hero must go through a trial individually and all four of them must pass.

Soos
For Soos, he is confronted with a boulder rolling towards him down a hill, each time he dives out of the way the room will get smaller. After diving out of the way several times, Soos realises he must grab the boulder and roll it back over the hill and roll it through the doorway on the other side. Soos grabs it and starts rolling it up the hill; as he is rolling it, the boulder starts speaking to him and cursing him in his father's voice and expressing pride for abandoning him.

Soos ignores it at first but realises the boulder cannot fit through the door. After enduring more insults, Soos finds the strength to fight back and starts berating his father for abandoning him and swearing to be a better father than him. By doing this, he successfully shrinks it to the size of a coin. The boulder still insults him but it's too small for Soos to hear and he simply walks through the door with the boulder in his pocket. This allows him to pass the trial.

Wendy
For Wendy, she's stood on the edge of a cliff and sees her 3 brothers who are running towards the edge. She instinctually protects them and gets more and more aggressive as throws them aside, not realising she's actually injuring herself each time she pushes them. When she looks over the cliff edge, she realises the water may not be as shallow as she thinks. She then convinces her brothers to hold her hands and they all dive into the water together.

After they land in the water, the water level rises and Wendy sees that she can now swim through the exit. She hugs her brothers one last time before swimming through the doorway, this allows her to pass through the trial.

Dipper
For Dipper, he enters a room and told to solve the puzzle. When Dipper moves the first puzzle piece, a pink gas emerges and floods the entire room. When Dipper starts hallucinating, he sees two figures composed of smoke that begin to attack. One is tall, wields an axe and floats around the arena, while the second is smaller but is incredibly fast and has a sonic scream. The pair speak by using Dipper's insecurities against him but are able to get under his skin by saying "You're not good enough".

Egged on to fight, Dipper realises he can't harm the figures but defeats them by tricking the two into attacking each other. The tall one severs the little one's legs and tries to embed her axe in the back of Dipper's head, fortunately Dipper dives out of the way; the tall one was shouted to pieces, while the little one had the axe embedded in her face. Once the pair disappates, Dipper rips off a piece of his shirt to block his nose.

It not over yet for Dipper though, as he now has to fight a monster that's imitating Stanford voice while hunting Dipper with an axe. Dipper learns that the monster is blind but has extraordinary hearing. Dipper lures it away by throwing rocks in another direction so he can solve the puzzle while the monster is distracted. Once he solves the puzzle, Dipper realises that he needs the monster's axe to complete it. He lures the monster to the puzzle where the creature accidentally puts its axe blade in the slot, shattering it to pieces.

Dipper runs through the door as the monster tries one last time to grab him but loses its hand in the process. Angry about the loss of its hand, the monster imitates Mabel before turning away, saying "Of course you won, you're the best of us". Dipper, shaken by the fight, has passed the trial.

Mabel
For Mabel, she's placed in an arena and forced to run from a giant spider after the spider starts attacking her and covering the area with cobwebs. After dodging web attacks and strikes, the spider tries to end the fight by hanging Mabel with its web but she causes a weight shift in the webbing. Mabel falls while the spider is caught up in its own webbing and is pulled upward to be hung by one its legs. After trying one more attack, the spider goes deeper into the ceiling after Mabel falls down and lands on the ground.

After reaching the end of the trial, Mabel learns that she needs the spider to pass the trial, she goes back and uses her grappling hook so she can reach the spider and cut it free with a knife. Grateful for her help, the spider helps her pass the trial without issue and gives her a vial of webbing that she can use.

Cast

 * Jason Ritter as Dipper
 * Kristen Schaal as Mabel
 * Alex Hirsch as Grunkle Stan, Soos and Bill Cipher
 * Jackie Buscarino as Pacifica
 * Linda Cardellini as Wendy
 * Carl Faruolo as Grenda
 * Niki Yang as Candy
 * J.K. Simmons as Ford
 * Thurop Van Orman as Gideon
 * Seth Green as Lewis
 * Greg Ellis as gate guardian Erimus
 * Clancy Brown as elder god Corpus
 * Ellen McLain as elder goddess Anima
 * Diana Rigg as elder goddess Vita
 * Rick D. Wasserman as chief god Omnes

Trivia

 * Wendy mentioning the Weirdness magnetism when the group discovers that the elder gods live in different locations references the fact that the magnet attracts all sorts of weird creatures and beings to Gravity Falls.
 * The names of the elder gods are Latin: Erimus is Latin for "We shall be", Corpus is Latin for "Body", Anima is Latin feminine for "Spirit" or "Intelligence", Vita is Latin for "Life" and Omnes is Latin for "Everything" or "All".
 * Lewis' lack of awareness towards Bill is because of the 'nevermind all that act' which prevents the townsfolk from speaking about weirdmageddon. Lewis is also new to the town and is only hired to work in the shack to fill Wendy's work shifts at the Shack.
 * Soos' trial is in reference to the legend of Sisyphus, a king who was punished for his self-aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only for it to roll down every time it neared the top, repeating this action for all eternity.
 * Anima's trial and Soos' trial were inspired by the Salad Fingers episode "Glass Brother". For Anima's trial, they had to wait until the room was dark so they can complete the puzzle. For Soos' trial; he had to overcome his insecurities to be a better man than his father. He's not free of his past, but he internalised the problem and was able to overcome it and move on to be his own person.
 * Wendy's trial is inspired by The Catcher in the Rye.
 * Dipper's trial was inspired by a few things;
 * The tall figure was inspired by Jude the Dude from Madworld and Kratos's leviathan axe from God of War (PS4)
 * The small figure was inspired by Zed from Lollipop Chainsaw and Sindel from Mortal Kombat.
 * The monster was inspired by The Lotus Root Monster from Sweet Home, Piggsy from Manhunt, and the Minotaur from Greek Mythology.
 * The Monster, The Tall Figure and The Small Figure were designed to represent attributes from Wendy, Pacifica, and Stanford
 * The tall one wield an axe, reflecting Wendy's family history as lumberjacks. Its power to float also reflects how Wendy was always just out of reach of Dipper's affections because while Wendy did find admirable traits in him, Wendy was just too old for him.
 * The Short one is evasive, reflecting how Pacifica avoided the consequences of her actions by using the Northwest wealth. Her sonic scream also reflects her cutting remarks as a bully.
 * The monster's use of Stanford's voice reflects how Stanford nearly lured Dipper away from home by taking him in as an apprentice, which caused an argument that nearly ended the world. The end of the fight also reflects selfishness and the lack of self-awareness from Ford, as he encourages Dipper to leave Mabel despite the act reflecting how Ford and Stan became estranged.
 * When Dipper talks about his trial, Dipper recognises The Monster's belt and Mabel recognises the pink gas as The Visions of Heartbreak Past. The two briefly speculate on how The Monster received such things and come to the conclusion that The Monster must be related to The Love God.