Good movies with bad endings.

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by metal134, Mar 20, 2017.

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  1. Standoffish

    Standoffish Smarter than a turkey

    Location:
    North Carolina
    Sunshine

    An awesome sci-fi flick that suddenly becomes a silly slasher flick in the final act.
     
  2. Duke Fame

    Duke Fame Sold out the Enormodome

    Location:
    Tampa, FL
    Two more I'll throw in:

    The Kids are Alright (the Julianne Moore, Annette Bening, Mark Ruffalo movie, not The Who doc) - Don't think I've ever been more PO'd at a movie ending in my life. The treatment of the Mark Ruffalo character bordered on cruel. It completely ruined what was a pretty good movie up to that point.

    The remake of Oceans 11 - A classic example of why Hollywood is crap these days. 1. They can't come up with anything original. 2. When they remake a classic they destroy the best part of the original.
     
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  3. SurrealCereal

    SurrealCereal Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    I totally forgot it had an alternate ending. I had read about it before, but I never saw it until I watched it on YouTube just now. I'm not really sure which I prefer. The alternate ending is a bit more satisfying, yet is still very ambiguous, which I like. I had expected the alternate ending to imply Scotty had miraculously regained his sanity after watching Judy/Madeline fall to her death just to satisfy the censors, but it left what happens to Scotty almost as ambiguous as the regular ending.
     
  4. The Panda

    The Panda Forum Mutant

    Location:
    Marple, PA, USA
    I love that it has not one word of dialog. Can't say which I prefer, but the alternate sure was better than I expected.
     
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  5. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    Whether it's a 'bad' ending is debateable (and has been since its release) but "Hell in the Pacific" has the most abrupt out of nowhere ending of any film I've seen. I bet audiences for its first run thought the projectionist had lost a reel.
     
  6. Jackson

    Jackson Senior Member

    Location:
    MA, USA
    The endings are a big part of what makes those movies memorable, Chinatown is my favorite movie, and Vertigo is not far behind.
     
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  7. Evil Strawberry

    Evil Strawberry Forum Resident

    Location:
    Indiana,USA
    I got 2
    Friday the 13th Part 2


    (SPOILERS!!!)
    IMO this movie didn't have an ending, I mean WTH Happen To Paul?! And I just Felt Rushed. It should have ended with Jason Killing Jenny and Paul Because THEY NEVER USED THEM IN ANY LATER SEQUALS!!! That and they killed Alice so Yeah. WTH?

    A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984)
    While not as bad as The Part 2 ending but Still not great. It just Feels Rushed and Unorganized.
     
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  8. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    True - a film about mankind's encounter with a much more advanced civilization should have an ending that demands something from the audience. For a complete understanding of how advanced that civilziation is, one needs to read the 3 sequels as well, which explore some very challenging concepts. I don't think Clarke is technically much of a writer, his prose wavers between the functional and the average, with an occasional burst of inspired description. His characters all talk the same, and some of his more ambitious explanations lack clarity. But he had interesting and often presicent ideas. The ending of 2001 is perfectly logical on one level, but complete understanding does require reading the entire saga. It's too bad no visionary filmaker has stepped up to make the 2 sequels after 2010. The ideas are a lot more interesting and awesome than "Interstellar"
     
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  9. junk

    junk Hellion

    Location:
    St. Louis
    Ya know....I always thought Gone With the Wind was a great movie until the end. I hate the way it ends.
     
  10. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    How did you think Chinatown should have ended? IMO, the entire movie is a study in those inhabiting a moral twilight (literally - note how many scenes are filmed at dusk, and figuratively - every major character in the film is compromised in some way) that inevitably will descend into darkness.
     
  11. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    Literally gave me a headache - I think it's an overrated movie with an overheated ending.
     
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  12. jbmcb

    jbmcb Forum Resident

    Location:
    Troy, MI, USA
    Showing my 80's upbringing, but Explorers. The first 2/3 is spot-on perfect 80's kids exploration movie. They find some crazy gizmo. They build a spaceship together out of junkyard parts. They figure out how to use it. Great music by Jerry Goldsmith and direction by Joe Dante. Good kid acting, interesting characters, good pacing, the whole deal.

    Then they get into space and the whole thing falls apart. The aliens are idiots. Stuff happens for no apparent reason or explanation. The whole thing was meaningless. Even the lead character says something like "This just all feels wrong.."

    According to Wikipedia, the movie was rushed to begin with, then the studio rammed the release date up roughly a month, getting rid of a big chunk of time for final editing. It feels like it. They got up to the third act and just slapped some film together for an ending.
     
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  13. Maggie

    Maggie like a walking, talking art show

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    The only thing the alternate ending adds is the radio report that the police are looking for Madeline's husband in Europe and were closing in on him. The censors at the time in certain places required that bad guys not get away with their crimes. And also, I guess, there is the added suggestion that Scotty ends up with Midge.

    I'm not sure why Hitch hated it. It's pretty haunting, except for the joke in the radio report that follows the news about Madeline's husband.

    IMO the only thing about Vertigo that's not great is the scene where Judy writes the letter confessing everything. Hitch liked it at first, then wanted it removed but the studio insisted.
     
  14. jbmcb

    jbmcb Forum Resident

    Location:
    Troy, MI, USA
    I think the problem was Stane wasn't fully developed as an antagonist, so you didn't particularly care. We had loads of character development for Stark, which was great, but almost nothing for Stane ("He's Ruthless-Greedy-Businessman Archetype" doesn't really cut it, especially if you have a likable actor like Jeff Bridges playing him.) Also, after showing how long it took Tony to get used to his armor, it isn't really explained at all how Stane could use his, so that was odd.

    They should have had the *real* mandarin in the first one. They could have had him be the leader of Tony's kidnappers, recovered Tony's original Iron Man suit and done something with that, then set up a two-movie character arc for Stane to culminate in the sequel.

    The ending of Iron Man 2 was disappointing as well. Iron Man and War Machine fight a bunch of drones, get set up for a huge fight with Mickey-Rourke-bad-guy, and it's over in two minutes. Less fighting drones and more fighting main bad guy please.
     
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  15. Dr. Funk

    Dr. Funk Vintage Dust

    Location:
    Fort Worth TX
    Evelyn Mulray should have lived. I agree with Robert Towne who wrote the screenplay, he wanted Evelyn to live, but Polanski idea trumped.
     
  16. daglesj

    daglesj Forum Resident

    Location:
    Norfolk, UK
    Yeah the problem with the Iron Man movies has always been the endings. I thought Bridges turn as Stane was great and I think you raise a point that towards the end the arc isn't great enough that you care, you are a bit disappointed that Stane is the bad guy but you don't care enough. Had they carried Stane through to the end of two or three... to reveal he was against Stark all the while...
     
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  17. Boo Rad

    Boo Rad His horse was fast as polished steel

    Location:
    Austin, TX
    I 'm still trying to wrap my head around the ending of Electra Glide in Blue (after watching it about 10 years ago). I loved the movie but that ending was intense and totally unexpected. However, I can't argue that it left a deep impression on me. Guercio knew what he was doing.

    I was telling someone about the movie a few years back and they asked if I spotted the members of Chicago. I had to watch it again. I totally missed the small appearances by Kath and Cetera.

    [​IMG]
     
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  18. WillieDaPimp

    WillieDaPimp Good bad, not evil

    Location:
    Columbus, OH
    Children Of Men
     
  19. The Hud

    The Hud Breath of the Kingdom, Tears of the Wild

    Rat Race

    A quite funny film that ends with a Smash Mouth concert for some reason.
     
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  20. Claus LH

    Claus LH Forum Resident

    "The Last Laugh", which is otherwise a great classic, has a cringe-inducing "happy finish", ostensibly put in either at the insistence of the studio or as a black joke by Murnau, where the melancholy tone gets undermined for the sake of easy sentimentality. The film even has a title card that lets the audience in on the 'joke', but it still feels completely wrong.

    Abbas Kiraostami's "A Taste of Cherry", which is somber and darkly funny (an Iranian man keeps looking for someone to help him commit suicide) ends with a jarring, visually ugly sequence shot on low-end video that takes you out of the mood entirely. Director claims he had a point with this, but it feels uncalled for.
     
  21. mr. steak

    mr. steak Forum Resident

    Location:
    chandler az
    Wasn't the best movie but yeah that ending was complete ****. A 180 WTF.
     
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  22. PhilBorder

    PhilBorder Senior Member

    Location:
    Sheboygan, WI
    Yes, but even Towne eventually agreed that Polanski was right
     
  23. the pope ondine

    the pope ondine Forum Resident

    Location:
    Virginia
    forgot about that one, ooof, hat was bad
     
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  24. Steve Martin

    Steve Martin Wild & Crazy Guy

    Location:
    Plano, TX
    Edge of Tomorrow

    Thoroughly enjoyed it, then the last few minutes made no sense and totally ruined it for me.

    And it wasn't even the end of it, they renamed it Live Die Repeat.
     
  25. Sternodox

    Sternodox SubGenius Pope of Arkansas

    Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens. Kitten Natividad totally had all her clothes on in her last scene!
     
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