Good movies with bad endings | The Boneyard

Good movies with bad endings

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I saw No Country for Old Men again last night. Terrific movie but was struck again at how lousy the ending is.

We don't see the Brolin character killed, we assume but don't know if his wife is killed, then the weird car accident.....baffling, terrible end to an excellent film IMO.

Goes to top of my list for that topic---good movie but bad ending.
 

nwhoopfan

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The ambiguous ending has been done to death. Occasionally it fits the story, but mostly it is frustrating and a total cop out by the filmmakers. It's just another film cliche now.
 

nelsonmuntz

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War of the Worlds - A race advanced enough to execute a genocide against earth would have thought through that they may have an immunity issue with human diseases.
 

Fishy

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I saw No Country for Old Men again last night. Terrific movie but was struck again at how lousy the ending is.

We don't see the Brolin character killed, we assume but don't know if his wife is killed, then the weird car accident.....baffling, terrible end to an excellent film IMO.

Goes to top of my list for that topic---good movie but bad ending.

You are an absolute simpleton.

The ending was terrific.

There was nothing ambigious about it - it just wasn’t conventional and I suspect the perspective change from Moss to Bell was jarring for some. The good-ish guy didn’t win and the bad guy got away. There was a line in the book that wasn’t in the movie directly, but there was part of it - basically, no matter what happens, eventually, there’s an accounting. Everyone involved with the money or the drugs suffered an accounting; Moss was killed, the Mexicans were killed, Woody Harrelson, Moss’s wife (what do you think Chigurh was checking his boot bottoms for? Remember the hotel room scene?), etc. Even Chigurh, who got away, was still gruesomely injured.

In any event, it bears mention that both No Country for Old Men and War of the Worlds were adapted from books and the endings were preordained.
 

nelsonmuntz

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War of the Worlds - A race advanced enough to execute a genocide against earth would have thought through that they may have an immunity issue with human diseases.

Signs has an idiotic ending too. Advanced race attacks a planet covered in water when water kills them. Actually, most of M. Night Shalayman's movies have stupid plot twists.
 
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You are an absolute simpleton.

The ending was terrific.

There was nothing ambigious about it - it just wasn’t conventional and I suspect the perspective change from Moss to Bell was jarring for some. The good-ish guy didn’t win and the bad guy got away. There was a line in the book that wasn’t in the movie directly, but there was part of it - basically, no matter what happens, eventually, there’s an accounting. Everyone involved with the money or the drugs suffered an accounting; Moss was killed, the Mexicans were killed, Woody Harrelson, Moss’s wife (what do you think Chigurh was checking his boot bottoms for? Remember the hotel room scene?), etc. Even Chigurh, who got away, was still gruesomely injured.

In any event, it bears mention that both No Country for Old Men and War of the Worlds were adapted from books and the endings were preordained.


I have no problem with the outcome but to not show us? All of a sudden Brolin, the main character, is dead? And no closing scene with his wife and Chigur?

It would be like Rocky ending having not shown the fight but just a cut to him in the locker room hugging Adrianne.

Weak.
 
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War of the Worlds - A race advanced enough to execute a genocide against earth would have thought through that they may have an immunity issue with human diseases.

True but based on a book.
 

nelsonmuntz

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I thought the ending of the Firm was idiotic. That movie had issues start to finish, but even if you think it was a good movie and buy the premise, the ending was stupid.

Comedies frequently have plot problems, because the funny premise that got the movie going doesn't always translate into a classical movie construction. Office Christmas Party could have been a classic if it stuck to the premise of trying to sell Courtney Vance. Instead, it takes a right turn with the Russian Madam and gets dark and weird rather than funny. Ted does the same thing. That movie was on track to be one of the best comedies of all time but the last 20 minutes are way too dark and just not funny.
 
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I thought it was based on that radio show joke that turned pretty bad.

H.G Wells wrote the original story in 1897. Orson Welles adapted it as a radio play in 1938, and that production is said to have caused a near panic.
 
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Signs has an idiotic ending too. Advanced race attacks a planet covered in water when water kills them. Actually, most of M. Night Shalayman's movies have stupid plot twists.

There is a pretty good fan theory that they are demons and not aliens. And it is holy water that kills them.
 

storrsroars

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War of the Worlds - A race advanced enough to execute a genocide against earth would have thought through that they may have an immunity issue with human diseases.

Mars Attacks! handled that so much better using Slim Whitman singing.
 

nelsonmuntz

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There is a pretty good fan theory that they are demons and not aliens. And it is holy water that kills them.

It doesn't make it any better. If they are Gods, shouldn't they know that holy water will kill them?
 

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