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.

Motivations and intentions
 Dipper:  Dipper has anxiety about his love life, he's entering university and the final trip to Gravity Falls is the moment where he wants to tie up all loose ends. He came with the intention of confessing his feelings to Wendy so they can become an official couple. However, he has a pep talk with Pacifica and he realises that he may have feelings for Pacifica as well and becomes conflicted about what he wants.

Mabel: Mabel has dreams of Broadway and approached the college to sign up but she's put under pressure from her teacher and she's struck with fear. In Gravity Falls, she's suffering from writer's block and hoped her stay in Gravity Falls would allow her to reconnect with her glory days.

 Wendy:  After leaving highschool and moving out, Wendy started questioning what she wants in life and began questioning her own identity. Wendy knows Dipper still has feelings for her but doesn't feel the same way because of her identity crisis. When Dipper tries to confess his feelings to Wendy, the words just don't come out. After a brief talk about Pacifica, Wendy kisses Dipper on the cheek as a test but neither of them feel any chemistry. In the end they both agree that they're better off as friends.

 Soos:  Soos is moving into a stage of his life. Melody announced she was pregnant to him and Soos is scared of becoming a father since his own dad abandoned him and he's afraid of the responsibilities of parenthood.

 Pacifica:  Pacifica has been working at the diner and has made a lot of money through tips. Through the movie, it's revealed that she never forgave her family for using her to maintain their public image. She matured greatly as the loss of her family wealth has made her more down to earth since she no longer has the safety net of her family to fall back on. Pacifica is conflicted about her relationship with the Pines twins, Mabel reconnects Pacifica to her past as a bully and she has feelings for Dipper but doesn't know how to act on them healthily. She tries put these feelings in a box by talking badly about Dipper but he overhears this and it breaks his heart (especially since he came over to ask her out after talking to Wendy about it).

 Bill Cipher:  Bill broke out of Stan's mind and has possessed Lewis, he travels from place to place to convince the elder gods that the world is too corrupt, broken, and evil to be saved and the world must be destroyed to be rebuilt for the new one. However, Bill is just using this as an excuse so he can reduce the universe into a plaything so he can have as much chaotic fun as possible until he moves onto the next dimension.

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 has to take an axe out of the stone. She walks into a field of violets and finds a double-bitted axe that has a pommel with a unicorn head design embedded in a stone. Wendy figures out that she has to remove it. Wendy holds it but receives receives has visions of being abandoned and hears voices that berate her, she lets go out fear and starts crying. Wendy then steadys herself and tries to force the axe out while screaming back at the voices but she just falls backwards. Wendy tries breaking the rock itself but fails.

After struggling to remove the axe, she gently moves it while thinking of her friends and brothers which allows the axe to be dislodged but it does not entirely remove it. She then thinks of her father and the last conversation they had after her mom left, he told her that he'd love her no matter what because she's still his daughter. With this final thought, she pulls the axe from the stone and holds it up high. 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
Wendy must fight one of Vita's 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. They shake hands, the champion unlocks the door and Wendy passes the trial.

Dipper
Dipper walks into a room and sees a bird sat on a perch, it has scratch marks on its body and its feathers are missing due to overgrooming and stress. Dipper is told that he must nurse the bird back to health. Dipper's vaguely recognises the bird but dismisses this. His first thoughts are to search the room in order to recover the feathers, which he does but the bird is stressed out by the sight of Dipper. Confused, Dipper then tries to befriend the bird by feeding it but it rejects him and bites his finger instead. Dipper tries to clean the bird's cage but it freaks out and squawks at him in anger.

Frustrated, Dipper tries to figure out what to do next and he finally remembers the bird from the journal. He recognises it as a phoenix and realises he must set the bird on fire so it can ressurect itself. Dipper captures the bird through a bird cage and uses a rag from his clothes to set it alight. The bird stretches its wings as it bursts into flames after letting out one final screech. After moving around the ashes, Dipper finds a nestling and dusts it off, afterwards the bird quickly grows up into fledgling. The phoenix shows affection towards Dipper before he opens a window to let it out. The door opens for Dipper and he walks out, passing the trial. It's also revealed that Dipper had kept the phoenix feathers out of sentimentalism.

Mabel
Mabel is placed in a dark cold area and told to find a way out. Mabel traverses through the area and is unnerved by the number of mannequins. She keeps seeing something in the corner of her eye and she's spooked when a mannequin head is suddenly thrown at her and smashes against the wall. Unsettled but not afraid, she continues walking until she sees something in the distance. She sees a person moving but unaware of something behind them. A monster stands behind them and knocks the person to their knees, before using a wire-like object to cut through the person's neck and decapitate them.

Mabel is horrified and hides until the monster disappears, she walks up to body but sees that it was really just a mannequin. As Mabel keeps walking, the monster jumps down in front of her. A terrified Mabel is then forced to run from a giant spider into an arena, where 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 in the future.

Designs
 Dipper:  Dipper wears a blue coat with an orange henley shirt, he wears grey pants and black shoes. Dipper also wears a leather waist bag that contains a journal of his own that he uses to make notes during the movie, the bag has an emblem of an owl with an emblem reading "Sapere Aude" which means "Dare to know".

 Wendy:  Wendy wears an unzipped emerald green plaid/flannel hoodie that has its sleeves rolled up to her elbows with a grey t-shirt underneath. She wears dirty jeans with hiking boots.

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.
 * The violets, the labrys, and the unicorn are LGBT symbols and Wendy's trial was designed to represent a sexual awakening and coming to terms with her sexual identity. On Twitter, Alex Hirsch teased the idea of Wendy being bisexual in a pairof tweets and Wendy's storyline was designed as a coming out story. The ending of the movie also shows Wendy holding hands with an unknown woman as they watch a movie together, implying that she's in a relationship with another woman.
 * When Dipper talks about his trial, Dipper describes the Rabbit's belt and Mabel recognises the pink gas as The Visions of Heartbreak Past. The heroes agree to not talk about it because the monster is definitely related to Love God and an unknown mother.
 * Dipper's trial represents Dipper's inability to let go of the past and the phoenix represents his relationship with Wendy.
 * In the movie, Dipper held onto his feelings for Wendy all his life despite the harm they were doing to his self-esteem and he had to finally confront these feelings. He tried buring these feelings, he tried accepting her friendship, and he tried appealing to her identity crisis but none of the these options worked. In the end, Dipper consoled Wendy and helped her find love with another woman, accepting that she'll never see him in the same way. In the story, the phoenix rejected Dipper's help and reacted aggressively towards him when he tried to help, it's only when Dipper helped it with its ressurection that it truly appreciated him and helped him in turn.
 * In another act of symbolism, Dipper also changed with the phoenix. His argument and discussion with Wendy about Pacifica broke the rest of Dipper's self-seem issues and personal feelings of inadequency. By breaking Dipper's heart, Wendy pushed these feelings to their breaking point but allowed Dipper's confidence to reset and heal properly. Which is proven by Dipper becoming increasingly confident in the movie.
 * Mabel's trial represents her fear of the future, the spider represents Virgil. Like the spider, Virgil is an intimidating figure who was feared by Mabel, only to learn that the spider is integral for her progression and ultimately a benign figure who will help her when asked.
 * Mabel's fight against the spider was inspired by Eddie Gluskin from Outlast Whistleblower and Shelob from Lord of the Rings.