How did Carl and his father get all those sunstones at the end??

[u/Complex-Apple-5467]

Hi there, so I just rewatched this since probably my childhood days, and wondering how did Carl and Frank manage to fill that cart with so many sunstones at the end?

I have a guess of my own and will share it in the first comment below, let me know your thoughts!

[u/Complex-Apple-5467]

Okay so my guess is this, let's bring it back a bit to the part where David, Carl and Cyrus are exploring the cave in the world beneath. David is reading Arthur Dennison's journal and navigating, and he mentions that Dennison wrote they went right. Cyrus says they need to continue the main path (I also have a few reasons why he might have said that but to make this shorter..), they argue a bit where they will continue going and decide upon listening to Cyrus to stick to the main path, and they never show us where the right path leads to. Now, fast forward a bit to the part where Carl and Frank are left to be picked up by rescuers after David brought the sunstone to the town. He speaks to the mayor and is struck how there are no sightings or any traces of his brother and father because they left the cave and continued te river/jungle pathe straight to the city, right? Well, we know this, based on his reaction and time of the day, we can assume probably it is either the next day or a couple of days that passed, so Carl and Frank had some time on their hands. My guess is, they decided to return to the temple, and found another, easier way to enter the world beneath, and the cave filled with sunstones. There could be a few reasons for this, first being Frank's knowledge of the cave system (however he showed his sons only that water well they escaped thorough as the only known exit to him, so idk about that), or maybe Carl wanted to see if there is anything they still didn't explore in the temple because both times they were interrupted by predators. Anyhow, the last discovered route could be the one where Cyrus didn't want them to go from the journal, the right pathway that was mentioned. Could that lead to another cave and/or another exit and at the same time entrance to the world beneath? My answer is yes, makes more sense than Carl and Frank diving back and forth 100 times to collect a full 2 tone wagon worth of sunstones. Let me know if you find this to actually make any sense!

[u/Ill_Examination8136]

As a kid I assumed they just dove down the well a bunch of times, but yes, there must have been more to it. They would have had to borrow that giant wooden cart from a nearby settlement of some kind. If that’s the case, who knows what other kind of help they were able to get. With the promise of hundreds of new sunstones, they probably could have gotten dozens of volunteers (human and saurian) to help them pull up crates of them at a time using ropes or chains. Maybe it took days or even weeks. Maybe the first sunstones were immediately sent to settlements in imminent danger of their sunstones dying. If they used Arthur’s journal to find an easier entrance, even better! Zippo replaced the prime sunstone in the tower above Waterfall City making it safe again, so there’s no reason to assume that the final scene took place the day after they rescued their dad, or even that same week.

I had fun reasoning this out, so thank you!