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Endings you wish you never knew.

Betty Blue

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Most of them.

I prefer to dream up my own endings.
 

Lightyear

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The conclusion to the third book of Pullman's "His Dark Materials" story. A stupid fight. A stupid/thoughtless view of god not worthy of the rest of the story. It was a shame, I really really found the first two books to be wonderful.

I thought the same thing. I love the first book, the second one was still pretty great, during the third one I thought, "Seriously? You've got to be kidding me." Basically the same problems I had with SUNSHINE, it could have been interesting but then it just turns silly.

Oh, and another movie that was pretty good and intriguing during its first two thirds is Wes Craven's "Red Eye", I loved the psychological mindgames the characters were playing. And then in the last third Craven decided to go all predictable "Let's chase the heroine up the stairs!" on us. Sigh.
 

Totenkindly

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I thought the same thing. I love the first book, the second one was still pretty great, during the third one I thought, "Seriously? You've got to be kidding me." Basically the same problems I had with SUNSHINE, it could have been interesting but then it just turns silly.

I didn't really see it as "silly" in that the question of whether human beings should bother to save themselves if the cosmos itself has decreed their fates is actually very very real to me. we've screwed up a lot on our planet and seem to bring terrible things with us no matter where we go, disrupting the balance of nature; is it really such a great loss for humanity to be wiped out by a natural event? Should we "play god" like that?

And there was a redemptive answer there -- in the response of the characters to Pinbacker, not necessarily in Pinbacker himself. Cassie, not wanting to remove Trey as merely a number in the equation; Mace doing what he did to save the ship (which balances out the sometimes harsh lines he took); Capa doing what he did in a heroic effort by him; I think Pinbacker just brought this horrific reality to the entire story and made us question whether we were even worth saving, and in the process of answering it, the characters ending up showing a kind of bravery and faith that suggests that "yes, we are."

Which is why it doesn't bother me. I guess if you focus on Pinbacker instead, then the movie is unsatisfying.

This is far different than Pullman's "cheap shot" at judeo-christian values in the third book. It was a hatchet job and not really worthy of the rest of the text.
 

kyuuei

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The ending of Sunshine by Danny Boyle was just unbelievably shit. I am not a big Boyle fan but at least the first two thirds of the movie were beautifully shot, philosophical and intriguing and then Boyle (SPOILER ALERT) decided to turn this whole thing into a slasher/ horror movie. He promised that he would deal in the movie with the conflict between science and faith, which is a great subject, but all Boyle did was to send a crazed, religious zealot through the spaceship who killed off members of the crew while uttering such great lines as: "I spoke with God. He told me to take us all to Heaven." Really Boyle? As a Christian I actually feel offended that that's all you have to offer on the subject.

:/ I thought it took a very drastic turn as well.. I did enjoy that movie a lot, and I thought it was an extremely literal interpretation of the struggle between science and survival vs faith and God.. But I did not like how the guy was protrayed to be so insane. I sure understand pretty much being insane from being cooped up for months in a ship.. but I think the dude was almost incoherent by the time they found him. It wasn't a struggle of the mind at all-it was all taken to a literal, physical approach.. and people couldn't really relate to the faith side of it after that.. you wanted science to win, because faith and God seemed like a crazy killer aiming at taking all of us out because of a personal opinion. And I think the entire movie was much deeper than that..

I liked the way it ended, so far as
but that aspect of it is a bit off-putting.
 

Rasofy

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They definitely did go for the "cheap shock value" in the movie ending, which is TOTALLY different from the tone set by the story. I think I was amused, surprised, and disgusted, while also being slightly admiring of the panache involved. ("Wow. They actually had the balls to do that.")
Heh, well summed. Have you ever heard a joke that is so bad, but so bad, that is actually...kinda good? :laugh:
 

Lightyear

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I didn't really see it as "silly" in that the question of whether human beings should bother to save themselves if the cosmos itself has decreed their fates is actually very very real to me. we've screwed up a lot on our planet and seem to bring terrible things with us no matter where we go, disrupting the balance of nature; is it really such a great loss for humanity to be wiped out by a natural event? Should we "play god" like that?

And there was a redemptive answer there -- in the response of the characters to Pinbacker, not necessarily in Pinbacker himself. Cassie, not wanting to remove Trey as merely a number in the equation; Mace doing what he did to save the ship (which balances out the sometimes harsh lines he took); Capa doing what he did in a heroic effort by him; I think Pinbacker just brought this horrific reality to the entire story and made us question whether we were even worth saving, and in the process of answering it, the characters ending up showing a kind of bravery and faith that suggests that "yes, we are."

Which is why it doesn't bother me. I guess if you focus on Pinbacker instead, then the movie is unsatisfying.

I think my dislike of the ending isn't helped by my general dislike of Boyle's style, I can see why people would love his movies but I hardly ever connect to his music choices or how he edits his movies etc so I just didn't have the patience to try to see the deeper philosophical meaning behind Pinbacker, I just thought "WTF was that ending Danny Boyle?" :)
 

King sns

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Movie called "Shades of Gray" .....

I'll ruin it now.

They all die. The wolf hunter dies by letting a wolf eat him.

The end.
 

Z Buck McFate

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About Lost- I guess I wanted it all to tie back in to what the focus seemed to be more in the beginning. I loved how they were thrown into a situation together where they had to face/reconcile some sinister force (the others, who- the less we knew about them at first, the more sinister and possibly less human they seemed to be), all while reconciling that ‘otherness’ that existed between them within the group. Even Jin and Sun- who were a distinctive little ‘other’ group amongst them- had ‘otherness’ to reconcile between them. We’d see something scary about Jin from Sun’s perspective, then once we saw Jin’s perspective it made sense- e.g. Sun didn’t have access to what really happened that night before he came home with blood all over him. Or with Shannon and Boone: at first- from the ‘present’ perspective on the beach and Boone’s past perspective- she seems like a spoiled, whiny little bitch. But then her past perspective makes it understandable.

And- the way it drifted off that focus (the people) onto the ‘mystery of the island’ for awhile- I was hoping it would come back to the original focus and tie it all together like BAM! The ‘mystery’ of the island is really the ‘mystery’ of existence and being human that we live everyday without focusing on it! ASSUMING (stuff about ‘others’, all the fear and insecurity that contributes to the realities that we spin everyday, it’s a mystery of the human condition we neither think about nor focus on enough so it manifests in weird ways) MAKES AN ASS OUT OF U AND ME!!11! The mystery isn’t in the island, it’s in us! Soylent Green is people! …But instead we got the Dallas ‘it was all a dream’ ending. I had a friend who kept saying- the first couple seasons- “I am going to be so pissed if it turns out they were dead the whole time.” And I was all “There’s no way....” Lol.

Overall I still think it’s a really good series- I just would have been able to appreciate the end more, I think, if I’d been given a heads up and told it wasn’t going to lead to the epiphany I was hoping for. Then I could have just sat back and watched without the same expectations. I suspect I’ll be able to watch the end again and appreciate what’s there once the disappointment subsides.
 
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I wish A.I. ended twenty minutes before it did. If it ended with David on the bottom of the sea, it would have been nearly a perfect movie. Then they had to go and push past that natural ending for twenty minutes of future aliens.
 

Totenkindly

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Movie called "Shades of Gray" .....
I'll ruin it now.
They all die. The wolf hunter dies by letting a wolf eat him.
The end.

omg. And I was going to see that!!! (j/k)

Well... i guess it was a happy ending for the wolf.


It could have been worse. It could have been "50 Shades of Grey"... (this comment just had to be made)

Gawd. I thought the same thing.
I wish A.I. ended twenty minutes before it did. If it ended with David on the bottom of the sea, it would have been nearly a perfect movie. Then they had to go and push past that natural ending for twenty minutes of future aliens.

I had some negative feelings about that ending as well. I mean, it hit me pretty hard... but it felt kind of tacked on the end and different in tone from the rest.

Heh, well summed. Have you ever heard a joke that is so bad, but so bad, that is actually...kinda good? :laugh:

heh. Well, I saw a few of those in the dark jokes thread here this past week. *doh*

But yeah. It totally ruined the story that King wrote, but it was so... "wow... they WENT for it!" unbelievable.
 

Totenkindly

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instead we got the Dallas ‘it was all a dream’ ending. I had a friend who kept saying- the first couple seasons- “I am going to be so pissed if it turns out they were dead the whole time.” And I was all “There’s no way....” Lol.

Shit. So you did misunderstand the ending?

it was not a dream. The only time the characters were "dead" was in the alternate timeline in Season 6 (where everyone was acting a little strange, the facts were different, etc.)-- because it is occurring WELL beyond the actual lifespans of all the characters involved at some far distant point on the timeline and was merely a construct made by their joint psyche to find each other before moving on.

But everything you saw on the island actually did happen. It wasn't a dream, and they were not dead. Everyone who died, died in the timeline as shown in the series; the six people who escaped the island DID reach safety and they died eventually of old age (presumably).

This is another reason why I think ABC screwed things up with those stupid pictures of the wreckage -- it made it look like no one survived the wreck. That was incorrect, they just added those pictures to give something to people to look at rather than just smacking them abruptly with the Lost logo.


But I like all the other suggestions you made and things they could have explored. I also think the show was stronger when they were exploring the others and concept of other. That's a good point.
 

EJCC

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I was pretty upset by how Doakes died in the "Dexter" books. Not the show, but the books. Which one was it? "Dearly Devoted Dexter"? The second one, whatever it was called. Freaked me out. :( I mean, the whole book freaked me out, but that image of Doakes at the end still haunts me.


Edit: Regarding the "Lost" ending, I didn't mind it at all. I thought it struck a nice balance, to try and satisfy both types of fans of the show, i.e. the mythology fans, and the "omg which guy is Kate going to choose??" fans. I also thought the final minutes of the episode -- especially the last shot -- was just gorgeous. The perfect, and most poetic, way for it to end.

I also appreciated that, with such an imperfect cast of characters, the final season and the revelation of the final episode gave each and every one of them a chance at redemption.
 

Lightyear

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A bad ending of a book:

I hated the ending of "The elegance of the hedgehog", finally things started to look up for the heroine, hope, light and love started entering her life and BOOM the author had to smash that with a big fat hammer of depression. Yeah, why have a nice happy ending when one can be all "Life is cruel and in the end meaningless" about it. I literally threw the book against the wall of my room because I was so annoyed by this tacked on downer ending.
 

Z Buck McFate

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Shit. So you did misunderstand the ending?

it was not a dream. The only time the characters were "dead" was in the alternate timeline in Season 6 (where everyone was acting a little strange, the facts were different, etc.)-- because it is occurring WELL beyond the actual lifespans of all the characters involved at some far distant point on the timeline and was merely a construct made by their joint psyche to find each other before moving on.

But everything you saw on the island actually did happen. It wasn't a dream, and they were not dead. Everyone who died, died in the timeline as shown in the series; the six people who escaped the island DID reach safety and they died eventually of old age (presumably).

This is another reason why I think ABC screwed things up with those stupid pictures of the wreckage -- it made it look like no one survived the wreck. That was incorrect, they just added those pictures to give something to people to look at rather than just smacking them abruptly with the Lost logo.

Well it’s not that I thought they were all dead from the moment they got to the island, it’s more like- in the practically autistic mechanism which is my INJ brain (emphasis on the *J*)- it veered way off course from what I was hoping for/expecting and so it’s practically in that “they were dead the whole time” category until I can watch it again. Admittedly, I didn’t get it- and I have to forget all the stuff I was hoping for/all the attachments I had to an anticipated ending have to fade before I can go back and actually see what happened. I’ve read pieces on it (the one MacGuffin posted a while back was interesting), and I actually look forward to the day when I can watch it and the ‘slate has been wiped clean’ enough to actually see those things. It’s kind of like when you accidentally pick up someone else’s glass and take a big swig of beer when you expect it to taste like cola- even if the beer is actually good, the initial reaction can be like “UGH!” I have to wait for the expectation to go away to see what’s really there. I’m still in the “UGH!” phase.

[eta:] Yeah, being a hardcore J is awesome.
 

Totenkindly

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... It’s kind of like when you accidentally pick up someone else’s glass and take a big swig of beer when you expect it to taste like cola- even if the beer is actually good, the initial reaction can be like “UGH!” I have to wait for the expectation to go away to see what’s really there. I’m still in the “UGH!” phase.

Ha, totally get that! I have a weird story about it, in fact... When I was 14 or something, I went with my parents to visit friends of theirs, and there was bread on the table that I thought was banana bread, so I took a big bite. turns out it was zucchini bread. I was very ill from the experience (because I had been expecting banana flavor) and for years after could not even bring myself to taste zucchini bread. I'm talking about 25 years. I think I finally had it within the last few years, tentatively, and thuoght... "oh.... that's actually not too bad. I can eat this."

A shock experience like that can really stick with.
 

Viridian

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The entire last third of the movie "Hancock".

A-yup. It's like they tried to smush two movies together. Or maybe they just wanted to justify Charlize Theron's appearance. :thinking:

I thought Stoker's Dracula was anticlimactic. There, I said it.

Also, I have a few bones to pick with the ending of A Series of Unfortunate Events...
 
F

figsfiggyfigs

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The ending to The Five Year engagement. I didn't think the movie could get worse, but the ending guaranteed it could.

Edit: Regarding the "Lost" ending, I didn't mind it at all. I thought it struck a nice balance, to try and satisfy both types of fans of the show, i.e. the mythology fans, and the "omg which guy is Kate going to choose??" fans. I also thought the final minutes of the episode -- especially the last shot -- was just gorgeous. The perfect, and most poetic, way for it to end.

I'm one of the rare few that agree. I effin' loved the end.
 
R

Riva

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Assuming the thread is not limited to sad endings -

Cowboy Bebop -

Why on earth did he have to go on a suicide mission? It makes no sense. Spike is the ultimate survivor but chose to end his life because some girl died?

Lost -

Wtf? I feel they took us for a ride.
 
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