 An ending like a walk through town after nightfall
- Did you have plans from the very beginning to have the two brothers battle each other?
Itoi I did. Things turned out that way this time, but there were several other, even worse choices to choose from.
- Such as?
Itoi For example, ones that would make you really wonder about the main characters when looking in from the outside. There were a lot [of options] like that. But because I knew there were a lot of scenes for me to choose from for the last battle, I just went back to the drawing board. And unfortunately for my work team, I just told everyone, hey, I dunno how the ending is gonna span out, and I just went on making it.
- So even as the other sections moved onward in production, the last battle was the one that had not yet been decided.
Itoi That method of production is the same as that of Director Miyazaki5. When he works on his final scene, Mr. Miyazaki just says, "I don't know the ending, either." But if you don't take on that technique, you might not be able to suprise yourself as you work on it.
- I see.
Itoi For the N64 version, I was thinking about alternately just not having any dialogue whatsoever for the final battle. I wanted to keep the scene even more vague, and just leave it entirely up to the imagination of the player.
- What do you mean by "vague"?
Itoi Like what happens when the dragon is revived, and whether there was any hope left... it was kind of halfway explained in the ending. This time, too, shares that feeling of doubt about whether there really was hope or not, but everyone seems to be pretty unconcerned in the end. It's a sort of expression of human strength, this time, so it's more positive than the N64 version.
- In the end, the dragon is revived and the island is completely destroyed, but everyone is still alive, aren't they?
Itoi That's right. So to bring out the strength in these human beings, no matter what, Hinawa and Claus had to make sure to tell everyone their goodbyes.
- Oh, is that right?
Itoi That was the theme of the last battle.
- In the end, Lucas was able to pull out the last needle. But if it had turned out so Claus had pulled the needle, then...?
Itoi Indeed, what would have happened if Claus had pulled it out? I'm sure the same thing would have happened, except that in the end, everything--even the breath of life itself--would go extinct. Even the dragon, too.
- Even the dragon?
Itoi Yeah, even the dragon. If that were the conclusion, then even the creator himself would no longer be alive, so there was no way that I could write that... Not if it were to be the end of me as well. There's no way I could have an ending like that. It's nothing more than simple philosophy. (laughs)
You had mentioned how in the N64 version, when you reach the ending, it's as pure white as the morning after a long, dark night.
Itoi This time around it sort of seems that way, too, doesn't it? So at that "END?" scene, it tells us, well, it's over. You get the feeling that the creators, the characters from the game, and you--the player--make it safely to the morning and are all walking around a garbage-strewn town together. Children might not understand this, since they have never really walked through a town after a long night has passed.
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 Note 5: Director MiyazakiHayao Miyazaki is the director of the famous Studio Ghibli, which has produced such animated films as "Spirited Away", "Laputa: Castle in the Sky", and "Kiki's Delivery Service". Mr. Itoi has written taglines for Studio Ghibli films. He also provided the voice of the father in the film "My Neighbor Totoro".
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 The world's end, 5.5 billion years later
- In the very end, the letters in the MOTHER 3 logo become completely wooden, and the letter O becomes the Earth.
Itoi Yes, that's right.
The metallic portion disappears and Mother Earth is restored to her natural state in the ending logo.
- How did you think of that?
Itoi I felt like, what if the earth has been doing this many, many times, and has just been completely restoring itself? Human beings think that somewhere, they will live on forever, but actually, there isn't such a think as "forever". In all of the information I have come to learn since becoming an adult, there is some information that has influenced who I am today. One of them is how the Earth will no longer exist 5.5 billion years from now.
- So even the seemingly infinite Earth will someday go extinct.
Itoi I've been told that the Earth was formed 4.6 billion years ago, and that there are only 5.5 billion years left, but it's easy to just put that into simple words. So the ending is basically a presumption of this idea that the world will disappear in 5.5 billion years, and until then, it's like we're all just playing the game. In the world that we are destined to perish in, we help one another, we hate one another, and we love one another. Some may say that when the earth perishes, we will go to another star, but even that star will perish some day, too6.
- That's right.
Itoi Just as each of our lives will end, what we think to be the biggest thing in the world--the planet itself--will someday come to an end as well. There's sort of a feeling of refreshment in coming to realize that. If people think that the world will just go on existing forever, they'll think of an endless number of things that they're going to have to keep on improving.
- It's only natural to think that way, isn't it.
Itoi Yeah. But to me, those thoughts of endless improvement are a display of self-denial. After all, what is "good" and what is "bad" changes depending on the situation. On top of that, there might be some people out there with dangerous thoughts, like, "in order to make the world a better place, I am going to kill you." Take war, for instance. Isn't that what it's all about?
- That's true.
Itoi But when the world ends 5.5 billion years from now, just knowing that everything is bound to come to an end makes it easy to avoid being pulled in that direction. I would think that because things are going to end either way, we can affirm everything that is alive today.
- So you're saying, let's acknowledge everything that exists on earth now.
Itoi Yeah. If we think of the world as one big, magnificent game board, for example, on that board, we acknowledge even mole crickets as participants. (laughs) Same with bad guys. This game has the message, "I'm even gonna treat you nasty people as participants!"
- Mole crickets, too. Bad guys, too. (laughs)
Itoi That's right. The knowledge that the world will come to an end in 5.5 billion years actually gives me courage. There's nothing that I can do about everything coming to an end, so as long as I have my life, I'd like to appreciate it. I did my best to be here, so I want to go out with a bang. But that's both a good thing and a bad thing. Of course, it's no good to go around making trouble for other people, but even if there is someone who is clearly troubled, even then I want to die thinking, "I know why you were born!" I want to die after living to the fullest. And I want to tell others to do the same. I want to tell mankind to do the same.
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Note 6: Even that star will perish
When a star approaches the end of its life, it suddenly balloons to an enormous size. In 5.5 billion years, our planet is fated to be swallowed by the sun when this happens It is thought that at the end of the universe, the planet will become cold, motionless, and unchanging. So, as Itoi said, there is no such thing as "forever".
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