A theory about the beloved kids’ film Madagascar might just be as wild as the animated characters themselves, but once you hear it, you’ll probably never view the movie the same way again.
Movie theories are nothing new and likely date back as far as the inception of cinema. Despite that, they continue to captivate and entertain us.
If you look up any film, you’ll likely find a variety of imaginative fan theories suggesting the story isn’t quite as it appears.
Fans who support these theories often present some form of evidence or reasoning. An enthusiastic Reddit user did precisely that for the original Madagascar film, which debuted in 2005.
This particular theory emerged after the viewer, Reddit user qtpiebunnyforever, rewatched the movie on the streaming service Peacock.
The film is slated to leave the streamer on September 1, so if you’re interested in revisiting this animated classic and testing the theory yourself, you may want to act quickly.
If you need a refresher on the film’s plot, it follows four animals from New York’s Central Park Zoo who find themselves stranded on Madagascar.
The central characters are Melman, the giraffe; Gloria, the hippo; Marty, the zebra; and Alex, the lion.
In short, Marty becomes curious about the outside world, leading the group to board a shipping vessel and eventually end up on a seemingly deserted island.
The theory suggests that most of the film is actually a ‘fever dream’ or hallucination experienced by Alex the lion.
Although the theory is too detailed to fully explore here, it essentially claims that everything occurring after the animals fall off the ship isn’t real.
The Reddit user pointed out that Alex’s crate seems to drift in a different direction from the other animals, stating: “When he crashes on the island there is a sequence showing how he starts to develop what appears to be hallucinations due to starvation and fatigue from the intense heat he is ironically not prepared for…
“As soon as he starts to have these heat and starvation induced hallucinations, he miraculously ‘snaps out of it’ (at least we are lead to believe) because he miraculously sees Melman just feet away from his struggling to get out of his own crate.
“But how can Melman be there when we clearly saw that he, Marty, and Gloria got washed away into a completely different section of the ocean, just trailing behind the ship?”
The Reddit user also highlighted another significant moment: “Around the middle of the movie, the four main animals get shown the center of the island by the lemurs and to everyone’s astonishment, the middle of Madagascar looks EXACTLY like the mural painting of the ‘island oasis’ seen back in their home zoo in NYC.
“NONE of them can believe it. Which would make sense if its not real and Alex is just dreaming of the perfect story to make himself feel better after the events on the ship.”
Admitting they were ‘rambling’ about their theory, the Reddit user concluded that all the evidence led them to believe that what occurs after the penguins commandeer the ship is ‘a hallucination of Alex’s because he is really stranded and alone on some random island with no one and nowhere to go’.
“He is slowly dying and wishing he could do things over with his friends and try harder to be more open to the outside world like Marty wanted before he dies alone,” they asserted.
Quite a somber interpretation for a children’s movie, but you never know!