Friends, this is a sad day for me as it marks the end of an online show that my wife and I love dearly. We now have to find something else to cuddle up under the blankets and watch as we fall asleep.
With that in mind, I thought I would try my hand at another analysis post. This won’t necessarily focus on one movie, or even one series. It will more focus on serial movies and how the ending are handled. So let’s get to it, shall we?
Everyone loves a good ending, everyone. But what makes a good ending and what makes a bad one? Is a good ending the fairy tale happy ending where the hero gets the girl and rides off into the sunset? Or the ending the ties up all the loose ends? Not necessarily.
In this day and age, a lot of people will tell you that a dark ending is often more preferable to the fairy tale ending. Take… the butterfly effect for example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqKWxAmOLaM&feature=related
This ending where Ashton Kutcher kills himself is the original ending to the story. At the last minute, the director cut this ending in favor of a lighter ending, thus making the theatrical version unwatchable as opposed to just a really bad movie. So in this case, a darker ending would have been preferable.
Another example of a good ending that doesn’t necessarily fit into the mold is from a movie I consider legendary: “No Country For Old Men.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-iQldPiH64
This ending was powerful because it leaves you hanging. Did the bad guy finally redeem himself and show mercy, or did he kill her? We’ll never know. It’s the questions that this movie left wide open that makes this ending good, and this is one of the few movies that can actually pull off an open ending without the promise of a sequel.
So while the cookie cutter ending works, in the right circumstances, so does the ones that are outside the box.
So let’s move into the realm of the serial movie. Over the last few years, we’ve seen the rise and fall of 3-7+ part movies. These include Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Twilight, Harry Potter, Star Trek, and even Pirates of the Carribean to a lesser extent.
So in the multi-part movies, which ones got their endings right and which ones did not?
Probably the biggest crime in movie making is leaving an open ending when you know there will not be a sequel. Unfortunately one of the best examples of this kind of travesty is Star Trek: Nemisis.
So this movie ends with Data dying and… possibly being reborn in his more primitive ‘brother.’ You see Riker and Troi going off onto their own ship, and in a cut scene, Dr. Crusher was leaving to work at Starfleet Medical. The entire thing cuts out with the Enterprise E in drydock getting rebuilt after it’s fight with the Scimitar. So why is this ending so bad?
Maybe I’m nitpicking here, but the movie left too much open. The ‘new’ Data plot, plus who wasn’t curious whether or not Worf stays with Starfleet or joins the Klingon Empire with Martok, what about Geordi LaForge, he’s still there!
Just because you pull two crewmen off the ship, doesn’t mean the show is over. Star Trek 6 pulled Sulu and Rand off the Enterprise and put them on the Excelsior, and it’s still one of the best Star Trek movies out there. So there could be a sequel with Riker and Troi on the Titan. I guess my major problem is that you knew the TNG crew was getting up there and this was likely to be their last movie, so you expected more of a solid ending. Star Trek 6 had the Enterprise being decomissioned and Sulu going off on his own missions. This was a solid ending.
Nemisis, in my opinion, would have been a much more solid film had they come to Picard and told him that the Enterprise was too damaged to be refit, retired her, given Picard a promotion, and broken up the crew. That would have made sense.
Another rather famous disaster is one that is actually more tragic… mostly because they got it perfect the first time, AND THEN ROYALLY MESSED IT UP!!!
Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. In all my days I have never seen one minor alteration mess up the ending for an entire series. Let’s explore it shall we?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALEnOpzqFpk
This ending, the original featured Sebastian Shaw playing Anakin Skywalker (Luke’s father). Note the look in the man’s eyes. It’s bittersweet. He is clearly happy to see his children together, alive, well, and happy, but at the same time, you see the sadness in his eyes. Sadness caused by the time he never got to spend with them. This, to me, is unbelievably powerful. It shows that Luke successfully saved his father, but it also shows the humanity that returned when Anakin became his former self.
Now let’s look at the… remastered version…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFvFjrb2jMI
Ugh… no emotion, no regret for lives lost, or the time he didn’t get to spend with his children. Just more of Hayden Christiansen’s bad acting. This is why I own a copy of the original and refuse to recognize this as anything more than a fandub ending from an idiot with too much time on his hands.
So now that we’ve established what doesn’t work, let’s move on to what does… Lord of the Rings. I could devote a whole post to analyzing the ending(s) to this movie BECAUSE THERE WERE LIKE 12 OF THEM!!! I would have preferred it if the movie had either ended with Frodo and Sam on the side of the Mountain, or with Frodo and Gandalf sailing away on the ship. Sadly niether was the case. I can’t really bash this movie too bad because they did literally tie up all the loose ends in the series. So I will give them a pass for over-extending the endings.
Another series that I feel does this really well is Pirates of the Carribean… I am of course ignoring the second movie and going for the 1st, 3rd, and 4th.
I love the Episodic nature of these movies. Each is an individule storyline that gets completely tied up at the end of the movie so you think there won’t be a sequel, BUT HEY! Right there, after the credits, there is a new plot point where a sequel could pop up, if not, well it was a good thrill to see a little extra.
So now we reach the bottom of the barrel. I take back what I said earlier about what the worst crime in a movie ending is, because movies like Dungeons and Dragons commits an even bigger crime: They push an ending saying that there is going to be a sequel. Thus leaving everything open. I have two major issues with this:
1. You’re assuming your audience will love the movie enough to justify a sequel.
2. You’re focusing more on profits then making a good movie!
Case and point, D&D flopped and the movie had no sequel… Thus the ending only made a bad movie worse and gave the audience the finger. Perhaps if the crew were focused on the story opposed to the dollar signs, they would have come up with a better script, plot, cast… okay I’ll stop.
So I guess in the end, the only good ending is the ending that either, surprises you, satasfiess your questions, or really makes you think.