Although only Chris is mentioned to have died in the film, Teddy and Vern's deaths are also given in the novella. Vern dies in a fire during a house party and Teddy dies in a drunk driving accident. Vern and Teddy are spared in the film: Vern marries out of high school, has four kids, and works as a forklift operator.
Recently, while attempting to break up a fight in a restaurant, Chris was stabbed to death. Gordie writes that despite not seeing Chris in over a decade, he will miss him forever. He ends his story with "I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve.
A few months prior his brother, Denny (John Cusack), a popular athlete, died in a car accident. Gordie's mother (Frances Lee McCain) has been silent and distant since then and his father (Marshall Bell) asks him why he can't have friends like Denny's or play sports like him.
His dad was given to fits of rage. One time he held Teddy's ear to a stove and almost burned it off." His father has PTSD and often takes it out on Teddy.
The kid wasn't sleeping. The kid was dead." The reason the story is being told, and the fates of Gordie's friends, with the final narration revealing how Teddy never got to live his dream of joining the Army and Chris' life came to a sudden, pointless end, in spite of how hard he worked to build a future for himself.
1986 - Stand by Me - the final last ending scene (Goodbye)
Was Teddy suicidal in Stand By Me?
He almost tried to commit suicide after standing on the tracks while a train was coming towards him, but avoided being struck with the help of his friends. As an adult Teddy attempts to get into the military but according to Gordon LaChance [the narrator of the film] His eyes and his ears kept him out of it.
It is a tale of survival and maturity. While there is a dark catharsis in staring death in its bloodied face — "The kid wasn't sick, the kid wasn't sleeping, the kid was dead" — Gordie, Vern, Teddy, and Chris also realize that true maturity means separating mere mortality from the urge to cause it.
The final two chapters describe the fate of Gordie's three friends, none of whom survive past young adulthood. Vern is killed in a house fire after a party. Teddy, while under the influence of alcohol, crashes his car and he and his passengers are killed.
The other boys soon find the corpse of Ray Brower, confirming he indeed died from being hit by a train. Soon Ace's gang shows up, threatening to fight Chris and his friends for possession of the corpse.
According to director Rob Reiner (via FSR), King's response to the film was "[Y]ou've really captured my story. It is autobiographical. All that was made up was the device of the hunt for the body." In King's own words then, Stand by Me is based on his own life.
River tragically died at the age of 23 from a combined drug overdose in West Hollywood in the early hours of Halloween, 1993. At the time of his death, he was filming Dark Blood, which was finally released incomplete 19 years later, in 2012.
In the book it is said that Gordie loves Chris, however it is never specified as to what love Gordie is referring to (romantic or platonic). The two are extremely touchy with each other and overall act like boyfriends. They're always there for each other when no one else is.
Chris literally giving Gordie a shoulder to cry on, when he breaks down in tears after seeing Ray Brower's body (which reminds him of his deceased older brother Denny), saying that his dad "hates him." Chris and Teddy's friendship, although strained, has some heartwarming moments as well.
Most of Stand By Me takes place in the late summer of 1959, when the four boys hear that a boy has been struck by a train about thirty miles from town.
Why does Teddy want to dodge a train? Because he wants to prove to his friends that hes not scared of anything. He says he doesnt want to live anymore.
Those may look like cigarettes that the kids smoke during the movie, but they didn't contain tobacco. Instead they were made from cabbage leaves - a demand that the anti-smoking Reiner made.
Obviously, the underage actors in Stand by Me weren't smoking real cigarettes during filming. Director Rob Reiner had particular instructions on the type of prop cigarettes used in the scenes for the film.
What does Gordie find himself unable to say to Chris?
He can not tell Chris what their experience together has meant—they stood by each other (the only ones who did, Vern and Teddy ran away)—he can not tell Chris what Chris's friendship means to him; he can not tell Chris that he loves him. Have things changed for Gordie at home?
Why do the boys in Stand By Me want to find the body?
They hear a rumor that the body of a missing boy has been seen not far from their hometown, Castle Rock. They decide that they must be the ones to find the body, and that finding and reporting it will make them town heroes.
