Don't you hate specific endings in movies, books, etc?

I just REALLY REALLY HATE those endings in any story that are either -
A: Perfect, everyone lives perfectly, except one or two people who wern't "deserving" in the movie. Often everything is so perfect, that crime, time, aging will stop. Everyone lives indefinately happily, forever, fearless of random metorites raining down and smashing their house, infact normal things are made into perfection.

B: Horrible ending where everyone dies. Usually the very nice people who should be able to survive "whats going on" are killed off in a very slow, and often painful proccess with too much gore. (Example - Cube 2:Hypercube) Or are often killed very "quickly" in the end, but often will "know" they'll die, and often are scared to the point you'd think they empty their bladder and require a pants change.

Don't you feel they're unrealistic?

hehe, Have you watched "Saw" or "Saw 2" ?

Not your traditional movie right there.

-Cameron

Navck said:

..Don't you feel they're unrealistic?

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Matter of taste. For me, realism isn't the point of entertainment. I get enough of that in real life, so...

I like the perfect happy endings. I don't like the perfect unhappy endings. I probably like the ambiguous ones in the proportion to which they look like they're a happy ending...

I like movies that leave you thinking about them when they end-- movies like Big Fish, Thirteen, or Equilibrium. I don't like movies that just close with a real ending.

I hate the ones that just wrap everything up in the last 5 minutes in a way that has absolutely no relation to the rest of movie. I don't mean the ones like Sixth Sense where they hit you with a twist on what you thought you were watching. I'm talking about the ones where you go "Where did that come from?" I can't think of any specific examples cause the movies are usually so bad I don't tend to remember them.

The other type I find annoying is where they just chop it off at the end, no conclusion of any kind. You just sit through the whole movie waiting to see where it's going and then all of a sudden the credits are rolling. The most recent one I recall like this was Prime.

Both of these seem to caused by the same thing, writers concentrating on the details of the story instead of seeing it as a complete project. Sometimes they seem to realize they are running out of film time and just wrap it up with no thought to what came before causing the first type of film. The second type of film seems to be a result of not even seeing the end of the movie coming, just "Oops, times up."

I don't like movies or books with bad endings; whether they're real, realistic, stupid, campy, or whatever. :thumbsdow :thumbsdow :thumbsdow


Cheers.

Two movies come to mind for the odd-endings.

Tears Of the Sun, the story goes 95% of the way according to what one would expect, exciting and full of tension and then it seems as in the last few minutes the director decided that some of the good guys had to die and he throws in a mass killing where hundreds of baddies die and the heroes get their ranks cut down.

Nid de Guêpes, it's a great story about a group of bankrobbers who get surrounded by terrorists and confront eachother. One by one the good guys are picked off untill you're left with a kind of empty, desparate feeling. I watched it twice and went trough the directors commentary to make it clear why they had to die. But you don't see them get killed. sometimes it's just a gunshot which is heard or flames which cross the screen and you know a character has died, but you're never sure. The director even points that out in the commentary. "he confronts his greatest fear, which is the fire, to save the others, but we assume that by doing so, he has sealed his own fate and dies."

Kristofg said:

.."he confronts his greatest fear, which is the fire, to save the others, but we assume that by doing so, he has sealed his own fate and dies."

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Bummer....

I agree
I get tired of the typical American "must have a sweet/happy ending"
I also get tired of the Japanese "honor is only regained when everyone is dead"
but neither is as bad as the typical depressing French ending.

I remember when I was younger going to see "Roadhouse". Okay not a classic of western filmmaking but a decent enough action movie...until the end. I have rewritten the ending of that movie about 30 times in my head and it STILL sticks as a blatent example of writers "filming" themselves into a corner and then cheating to get out.

However, what I hate the worst is any book or movie that simply serves as a "bridge" to the next book or movie and doesn't stand alone. Having a larger story arc that it fits into is all well and good but the story should also have it's own beginning, middle, and end.

On the other hand, how about some movies with GREAT endings like
Unforgivin (Clint Eastwood).
Pulp Fiction

I have seen many movies where they purposely killed off a great character in the movie to supposedly help things but it instead left the movie with mostly average characters to finish it with. If a movie has a good reason to kill off or not kill off the favorite characters and it fits well I mind less than just zapping folks for the sake of shock or so called realism. A lot of movies the hero ends up getting hit a dozen times and has blood all over him while most of his buddies die of one shot. Realism plays a purpose somewhere in the movie, if they are trying to make it realistic they should stick to it..... but if they are just trying to make it heart pounding in depth action with good dialogue and you know the action may be off the wall... I have less problem.
I do get sort of irked when the hero takes on 100 guys and gets not a scratch but then one super bad dude beats him within an inch of his life and he finally undoes him in a lame way.
I also detest movies that *run out of funds* at the last and seemingly cut things off unfinished. The ending leaves you exiting the theatre feeling disoriented and wondering why you paid money for it. I also don't care for movies that have a diabolical genius evil guy that ends up making a really stupid mistake that lets the hero finally get him in the end... otherwise the hero would be toast.
Movies with villains that remain a mystery at the end sometimes irk me also.... as the ending leaves no suggestion for a sequel and you are left wondering who the bad guy really was for sure