Endings in Movies

Peyton Manning

Its ok Karl, dont fear, this isnt a list thread for people to 'big up' their favourite movie climaxes. Im interested in a genuine discussion about how the majority of scripts in movies these days seem to be afraid to end a movie without some sort of morally obliged feel-good ending. Ive noticed it with a lot more movies these days - particularly the last 2 I've watched which are I Am Legend and 3:10 to Yuma. I saw I Am Legend in the cinema on Tuesday, and like most people, I was dissapointed in the ending. I hadnt read the book at that time, so it wasnt for the reason that it didnt correspond with it. It was just incredibly rushed, and constructed solely to ensure that the viewer saw some sort of resolution in the end. I thought the first half of it up until

the woman and her child appear and Will Smith saves the world

was genuinely brilliant. It had so much potential but in the end, it was dissapointing. I ordered the book on Amazon as soon as I got home, it came on Friday and I was finished it on Friday night. Boy was I angry. The ending to the book is downright disheartening - and f*cking phenomenal because of it! Had they stuck to that idea, this film could have been so much more!

The same goes for 3:10 to Yuma. An absolutely cracking film with great performances from Bale, Crowe and in particular, Ben Foster. It would go down as one of my all time favourites if it wasnt for the cheesy, cheesy ending. (I copied the following from my review in the Film Reviews forum).

Are we really meant to believe that Russel Crowe's character, who is built up as this remorseless outlaw who's robbed thousands and killed dozens, suddenly has this realisation after spending a day with a guy (Bale) who is an asshole to him the whole time? Whats more, he has many chances to escape but chooses not to, and actually aids Bale in getting him to the train station? I mean, he could have easily escaped before the scene where he tries to choke Bale out. And to add insult to injury, he shoots his whole crewe who risked their lives to try and save him from prison - even Ben Foster's character who remained incredibly loyal to him when the rest of the gang wanted to let him get shipped off to prison? Ridiculous, I really think that the ending could have been done better instead of this lame attempt to leave everybody happy and everything wrapped up in a little ribon. It would have been so much more effective had, after Ben Foster shot down Bale, that Crowe went off with his gang once again.

.

Now on the other hand, look at Requiem for a Dream. It is generally regarded as one of the best movies of (semi) recent years - and its ending is utterly utterly depressing, hopeless, disheartening and downright evil. And thats the beauty of it. Not everything has a happy ending and this film benefits by showing us that - something I really feel a lot more movies could do.

This is probably just a rant so I should add a question to encourage discussion and here it goes - do you think producers/directors etc. are under pressure to have a happy ending in their films, or to reach some sort of moral realisation? Is this because there is a greater chance of box office success with feel good endings?

Driver 8

No Country for Old Men

Purely for the arguments it's going to start over the next few weeks. And I'll say it again, the ending's perfect.

Oh, and 3:10 to Yuma? Not a thing wrong with that ending either.

padi89

Driver 8 wrote: »

Oh, and 3:10 to Yuma? Not a thing wrong with that ending either.

I thought it was terrible,the ending was like a scene from Brokeback mountain

Cokehead Mother

Archimedes wrote: »

This is probably just a rant so I should add a question to encourage discussion and here it goes - do you think producers/directors etc. are under pressure to have a happy ending in their films, or to reach some sort of moral realisation? Is this because there is a greater chance of box office success with feel good endings?

Well take Requiem for a Dream. A lot of people think it's great the first time they see it but don't want to watch it again.

Not the way to get DVD sales, my friend!

Driver 8

"I thought it was terrible,the ending was like a scene from Brokeback mountain "


What? Brokeback Mountain? That Oscar winning film, widely regarded as one of the best of the decade?

Seriously, what an odd comparison. First of all, it doesn't fit the film you're comparing it to at all, and secondly, you're comparing it to a well respected, highly regarded movie, which hardly serves your argument.


...unless it was a gay joke. In which case, bravo sir. I marvel at your wit.

ixoy

I do believe they're under pressure from the studios to have a neat ending. If I remember correctly, "Se7en" was shown to a test audience who disliked the ending and wanted something more "audience friendly". Fincher then basically ignored with them and stuck with his classic ending - and it was all the better for it. An ending that was on less of a high note would have been a mark against the atmosphere established beforehand.

Similarly, I loathed the ending of "A.I." and have not watched the movie since. If they had cut to credits five minutes before they did, I think we would have had a solemn, dignified ending (that I'm guessing would've been far closer to Kubrick's original plan). Instead we get fiercely sentimental muck that could not sit well with me.

People seem to want the nice ending, even if it doesn't always seem to fit. I want more natural closure, that fits in with what we've seen but we are getting less of it these days, more's the pity.

senordingdong

Wow, never knew that about Se7en, that's a favourite movie of mine!

For me the worst was Stranger Then Fiction.
I wasn't looking forward to the movie as I was dragged in against my will.
It surprised me, and I was blown away, and then the

tragic and suited

ending was changed in a way that stank of last minute.

More recently was Dan, In Real Life.
The ending was a cop out of a guy who just gets all the bad luck,and then at the end, recieves a truck load of good luck for the sake of a happy ending.
I think it wasn't suited.

Driver 8

Ixoy, the ending for AI was planned from the very beginning, right back to Kubrick's plans. People simply assume it was Spielberg's idea because it seems more in line with his themes. So if you want to blame someone for it, blame Kubrick.

ztoical

A time to Kill was one of the worse ones I thought for that. Its a good court room drama and ends fine [just like the book] but then theres a scene tacked on at the end [doesn't really effect the story so I don't think its a spoiler sorry if it is] where they have the little black girl and the little white girl playing together and everyone gets to go awwwww the world will be ok we can all get along. Blah!

If films want to shove morals onto to people thats all well and good but they should do in the context of good filmmaking. If it has to be tacked on at the ending its going to feel forced. L.A. confidential I thought managed to get the balance right in staying true to the source material [in this case the book] and pleasing the hollywood machine by getting the happy movie ending in.

grames_bond

i liked the ending to 3:!0 to yuma the point is that

crowe has a consious, bale promised his daughter he would get him on the train, so the last thing bale sees is crowe gettin on the train, you still see him at the end about to escape, so its not like he bacame a good guy or anything, he liked bale at the end of it and wanted him to be proud, theres noting wrong wit hthat, even if bale stayed alive, he would have done his job,in his eyes... he needed the money and crowe respected that!

well thats my 2 cents on it anyway

yabadabado

For me the worst was Stranger Then Fiction.
"I wasn't looking forward to the movie as I was dragged in against my will.
It surprised me, and I was blown away, and then the

tragic and suited

ending was changed in a way that stank of last minute".

the thing with that film was there was a happy ending because the narrator/writer (emma thomson) in the film decided thats how she wanted her book to finish id say that was always the ending from the original script

Sad Professor

ixoy wrote: »

I do believe they're under pressure from the studios to have a neat ending. If I remember correctly, "Se7en" was shown to a test audience who disliked the ending and wanted something more "audience friendly". Fincher then basically ignored with them and stuck with his classic ending - and it was all the better for it.

They still made him tack on that final epilogue scene with the Hemingway quote. Fincher hated it but had to compromise somewhere. Afaik in Fincher's original ending Pitt only fired once followed by a cut to black and several seconds of darkness, roll credits.

razorblunt

I thought the ending for se7en stayed in was because it was written into Brad Pitt's contract that it stayed in the cut meaning there was nothing that could be done about it.

Retr0gamer

ixoy wrote: »

Similarly, I loathed the ending of "A.I." and have not watched the movie since. If they had cut to credits five minutes before they did, I think we would have had a solemn, dignified ending (that I'm guessing would've been far closer to Kubrick's original plan). Instead we get fiercely sentimental muck that could not sit well with me.

Thought the ending was excellent to that movie. Don't know where you are getting sentimental muck from.

I thought it was quite bleak since he never really got what he was looking for and it still remained intangible and out of reach, All he got in the end was something artificial like himself.

Unless of course you thought they were aliens at the end of the film and then you need to watch it again.

When it suits the story I'm all for a bleak and realistic ending rather than a happy one which is totally out of place. Was well disappointed with I am Legend and a whole heap of hollywood films recently which just seem to cop out with happy endings. It just all smells like a rehash of the Balde Runner test screening nonsense.

senordingdong

yabadabado wrote: »

the thing with that film was there was a happy ending because the narrator/writer (emma thomson) in the film decided thats how she wanted her book to finish id say that was always the ending from the original script

Perhaps but I really loved the movie, and that last second change made me hate it so ****ing much. I'm so angry thinking about it.

L31mr0d

Firstly AI I agree about the ending

it should of ended 10 minutes earlier, the bit where hes frozen into the ice and the camera pans out and fades to black should of been the ending.

Secondly, 3:10 to Yuma, I disagree

I've already detailed my reasoning in the review section (as has the OP but he must of felt the need to repost it here :rolleyes:) but the ending was to show the true character of Ben Wade, he was a man of principle and honour, he seen the lack of it in everyone around him which is why he would kill them, but after spending days with Dan Evans all he could see was a good father and a selfless man, he decided that it wouldn't be so bad to go to Yuma, a prison he could easily break out of if he could give this honourable man something for his son to admire. He killed his posse in the end because he realised that they all where without the honour and principles that himself and Ben shared

Mark Hamill

senordingdong wrote: »

For me the worst was Stranger Then Fiction.
I wasn't looking forward to the movie as I was dragged in against my will.
It surprised me, and I was blown away, and then the

tragic and suited

ending was changed in a way that stank of last minute.

I liked the ending of Stranger than Fiction, I thought it fit the film very well. I always saw that film as being as much about how Emma Thompsons character changes as how much Will Ferells character changes and she says it herself at the end:

"What type of person would she be if she let someone who was willing to die just to make a better book die?" (I'm paraphrasing) the point being, IMO, what type of person are you to want someone (like Will Ferrels character) to die just to make a better ending. Not dying made the ending better.

. Besides wasn't there something near the start

about how his digital watch was going to save his life?

. The ending may have been changed, but they did try to work it in with earlier dialogue.

senordingdong

I don't know Mark. I think it would have been much better if the movie ended when

the camera zoomed away from Ferrells corpse after he was hit by the bus.

. I think it would have been a tragically beautiful end.

Mark Hamill

senordingdong wrote:

I don't know Mark. I think it would have been much better if the movie ended when

the camera zoomed away from Ferrells corpse after he was hit by the bus.

. I think it would have been a tragically beautiful end.

Maybe next time you see the film, turn it off at that point:D.
If you think about it, the movie had a pretty tragic ending anyway,

Emma Thompson had to "sacrifice" her masterpiece in order to save a man "whose selflessness is too worthy of life"

.
I think that most bad "happy endings" are bad because they're just too easy. Its too easy for the good guy to stop the bomb with three seconds to go, its too easy that in I am Legend:

a women appears to save Will Smith

, and I think that in Stranger than Fiction it would have been too easy to

kill Will Ferell

.

senordingdong

I did actually sit down to re-watch it, and I turned it off at that point.
It was a much better film experience. I really do feel like it would have been better....tragic hero and all that jazz. Ya know, considering Hoffmans input on the matter to Harold etc...

Driver 8

Ok, let me just say this-

There Will Be Blood has the most bat**** insane ending of the year. I loved it, you may well hate it. We'll see

yabadabado

in stranger than fiction the ending stopped emma thompson's chracter having a masterpiece and hoffman said it to her it was the greatest modern work .personnally i think that it was a very good ending and the book changed both ferrell's and thompson's lives for the better and the ending wrapped that up perfectly

Laserface

in total agreement with the OP

watched 3:10 to yuma last night after many months looking forward to it.
The ending was even worse than Optimus Prime going on about the Safety Of America with his tiny metallic lips

grrrrrr

watching Unforgiven again tonight before i bounce off the walls

L31mr0d

Laserface wrote: »

grrrrrr

I'd love for people to explain how they think 3:10 to Yuma should of ended.

RKDus

There are tons of hints in 3.10 to Yuma that Russell Crowe's character is going to do what he does. There is nothing sudden about the ending at all, it's building through the whole film.

faceman

There are 2 things here. Film as a medium, is both there as an artform and a method of entertainment.

It seems for the majority of people (as the studio's would have you believe), film is a method of entertainment. People use it as an escapism, want to pay their money, sit down and be entertained. With that logic, there is probably an expectation that people dont want to walk away from a film feeling worse than when they went in! I understand the logic, but dont necessary agree with it.

Interestingly enough, irish censorship law has 3 grounds on which a film (or book etc) can be banned, one of which is if a film has no moral redemption! Thankfully our censors nowadays dont take that too literally!

For some educated discussion debate on it, have a look at the interview with Blatty and Friedkin that mark kermode conducted on the Exorcist. They have a bit of a debate on the film's ending.

The book has a more upbeat ending (similar to the directors cut) but friedkin didnt like that ending. Its interesting to hear both their justifications for their endings.

grames_bond

L31mr0d wrote: »

Secondly, 3:10 to Yuma, I disagree

I've already detailed my reasoning in the review section (as has the OP but he must of felt the need to repost it here :rolleyes:) but the ending was to show the true character of Ben Wade, he was a man of principle and honour, he seen the lack of it in everyone around him which is why he would kill them, but after spending days with Dan Evans all he could see was a good father and a selfless man, he decided that it wouldn't be so bad to go to Yuma, a prison he could easily break out of if he could give this honourable man something for his son to admire. He killed his posse in the end because he realised that they all where without the honour and principles that himself and Ben shared

i completely agree with you here, we seem to be on the same wavelength. i really enjoyed the movie INCLUDING the ending

L31mr0d wrote: »

I'd love for people to explain how they think 3:10 to Yuma should of ended.

exactly!! if you are going to moan about it, explain why it was a bad ending (which it clearly wasnt)

Otis Driftwood

Maddest ending ending Ive ever seen is in Miikes Dead Or Alive.

Its is MENTAL and I loved every minute of it.

d11gunner

Great thread.

Couldn't agree more on AI. Could have been a masterpiece. :mad:

Sticking with Spielberg, Minority Report would have been a far superior piece if it ended about 15 minutes earlier (you know the scene!).