I see two possibilities for what happens to Peter and his family after the credits roll, when Surprisingly Realistic Outcome happens:
- Peter eventually reverts back to Peter Banning, going back to his lawyer job and neglecting his family as before. Nothing really changes.
- He continues on as Peter Pan, quitting his job so he can be with his kids and have nothing but fun with them. Sadly, his wife is not amused when they become so poor Peter decides to have them eat nothing but imaginary Neverland food, and leaves him, taking the kids with. From there Peter either lives on the streets as a bum, or somehow returns to Neverland.
- Isn't a big point of the movie that Peter finds a third option to picking either extreme of being an ageless child or an over-responsible adult. He does realize his greatest happiness is being able to share in their world as opposed to than living in that world for himself, and there are other jobs than 24/7 lawyership.
- Bingo. He could easily take a step back from work or move entirely into a field other than acquisitions; say, penning stories about new adventures in Neverland?
- Maybe it wouldn't unfold as depressingly as in the second possibility, but it is quite possible that he eventually lapses into Peter Pan and returns to Neverland after his kids grow up and are out of the house, perhaps even finding some way to become a child again.
- Isn't a big point of the movie that Peter finds a third option to picking either extreme of being an ageless child or an over-responsible adult. He does realize his greatest happiness is being able to share in their world as opposed to than living in that world for himself, and there are other jobs than 24/7 lawyership.
Hook faked his own death.
- Even in Neverland being eaten by a giant stuffed crocodile seems a bit unbelievable. Seeing he couldn't win the fight, he hid inside there and climbed out when the coast was clear.
Hook's obsession with Peter actually led to his immortal body aging.
- The end of the film shows that Hook's an old bald man under the wig, and he has a great fear of time slipping away. Either Hook's obsession with his enemy magically made him age at the same rate as Peter, or his visits to the real world were far more numerous than suggested.
- This does actually make sense when you consider that the lost boys have been getting by just fine eating nothing but imaginary food.
- This troper just assumed Hook's been that way since Peter's glory days; his age froze around fifty when he first came to Neverland and the hair has always been a wig.
- When Hook's hairdo was fashionable in the last days of the Golden Age of Piracy (compare Governor Swann in Pot C), it was usually a wig. This fashion often went with shaving the natural hair, resp. had bad side-effects on one's natural hair.
Hook has a terminal illness that would kill him outside of Neverland
He claims in one of his fits of depression that he hates living in Neverland. So why do it, when he could just pop off to the other world with his riches and live it up modern-style? Because he's got some terminal disease that would quickly do him in if he left Neverland for too long.- Of course, simple aging and natural mortality could be enough for him and he'd rather live in his this storybook world rather than get even a year older.
Either Hank or Jane Banning is a descendant of Peter's birth parents
The Bannings, the American couple Wendy found to adopt Peter once he came back to Earth for good, are descendants of the baby that Peter's birth parents had some time after he "ran away". At some point in the hundred+ years in between, one of the generations of the family moved to America. Thus, one of Peter's adoptive parents is actually his great-great-grandniece/nephew. His still unknown birth-name could even have been Banning all along! Robin Williams is in Neverland.
Because Neverland is the very best of Heaven, reserved for only the greatest human beings... Peter has a mental breakdown, and his "return to Neverland" and redemption as a father is a hallucination
The film begins with Peter Banning attending a grade school stage production of Peter Pan, so the story is widely known in the world of the film. How could Peter Pan be both a real person (Peter Banning) and a popular children's tale? It isn't; only the latter exists. Missing his son's baseball game is the last straw for Peter's already strained marriage. His wife leaves, taking their children with her. Peter finally gives into the stress and experiences a psychotic break. He inserts himself into the story of Peter Pan, imagining the events of the film. Rufio was reincarnated into Jake Long
Before he died, Rufio's final words were that he wished he had a dad like Peter. Neverland was somehow able to grant his wish, and he was reborn to parents Jonathan and Susan Long. Some of his previous life remained as he grew up, such as his skateboarding skills, love of the color red, and tendency to wear too much hair gel. And since he was born into a line of dragons, he was able to do what Rufio was never shown doing onscreen; fly.