Worst movie endings

[apeman33]

I hereby nominate not one, but two movies called "The Winning Season" both of which were horrible movies. Both of which had endings that made things even worse.
Winning Season 1- A movie about a kid that travels back in time to the 1909 World Series and becomes friends with Honus Wagner. The ending has Ty Cobb blackmailing the kid to drive Wagner out to the countryside before game 7 and leave him there, and the kid feels guilty about it so he puts on Wagner's jersey and takes his position at shortstop for the top of the first. (it's never explained why the Pirates would be in the field for the top half of an inning when the game was in Detroit). Then Wagner comes back and saves the day, the kid goes back to the future, and finds out that the nice older woman he was talking to at the beginning is Wagner's girlfriend. Just really bad all around. (But come on, the visiting team in the field in the top of an inning? That's got to be the worst part.)

Actually, the team that batted first was decided by a coin toss, IIRC, up until the 1920s, so it's possible the Pirates could have been in the field in the top of the first if they won the toss and chose to bat in the bottom half of each inning.

It doesn't change anything else about that movie unless the box score of that game shows Detroit batted last in each inning.

 

[dooley_womack1]

The Swarm, where all the killer bees were led to one place by a real loud mating call and incinerated. Bad movie all around (as was the wont of Irwin Allen disaster movies), but the ending was a special kind of bad.

 

[EStreetJoe]

Oh, any movie ending where they make you sit though the credits "just in case something funny happens."

Two words... fork. You.

"The End" should mean something.

So which movie tops that list for you?
Airplane
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Toy Story 3
Airplane 2
Top Secret
or any of a million other movies that do that ploy?

 

[outofplace]

One of the worst for me is "Volcano." It's one of my guilty pleasure films, but the ending is just god awful.

The ending? Isn't the beginning of that one some firefighter going onto a subway car to save people, and basically walking on and then melting into the lava flow as if he were sinking into the ocean?

I thought that scene was somewhere in the middle.

 

[EStreetJoe]

The Swarm, where all the killer bees were led to one place by a real loud mating call and incinerated. Bad movie all around (as was the wont of Irwin Allen disaster movies), but the ending was a special kind of bad.

Then which killer bee movie had them lead the swarm into the Superdome (or was it the Astrodome) with a loud mating call coming from a car and then with all the bees on the car (and some coming into the car through the vents) they turned down the air conditioning in the building low enough to kill them?

 

[outofplace]

Oh, any movie ending where they make you sit though the credits "just in case something funny happens."

Two words... fork. You.

"The End" should mean something.

So which movie tops that list for you?
Airplane
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Toy Story 3
Airplane 2
Top Secret
or any of a million other movies that do that ploy?

Just because so many do it doesn't mean it is a good thing. It is done very well in most of those, too.

The scenes mid-way through or after the credits do drive me nuts. Just put them at the end of the movie and stop wasting my forking time trying to get me to read the name of the third gaffer. I'm talking or looking at my iPhone until an actual scene starts anyway.

I remember being surprised that the scenes during the credits actually change the entire ending of the Dawn of the Dead remake. A friend of mine is a big horror-movie fan and she loved that movie, but she left as soon as the credits rolled. Didn't know until I told her a month later about the additional scenes, which show the fate of the "survivors."

 

[Mark McGwire]

No country for old men. The movie builds up to an ending that never comes and it just sort of ends. I loved the movie until the very end where I was left saying WTF? Where's the rest of it?

LOVED the ending to "No Country." One of my favorite movies of the past 10 years, no question.

It's not really about "Where's the rest of it?" I don't think. It's over. That's it. That is the rest of it. You don't necessarily have to get it. The open-ended nature of it is part of it. Not everything's going to be wrapped up in a bow, and that's fine. That's life.

Chigurh has basically ceased to be human by that point. He's effectively a supernatural figure. What's happening is only somewhat real. The forces of good in the movie lost. Jones' character is admitting he was defeated, and he's giving up. Chigurh is harmed but lives to see another day, another kill or more. But how much of this is really happening? "And then I woke up." It's left up to the viewer to decide.

Is it a neat, clean-cut ending? Not at all. Is it perhaps a little too overwrought and pretentious? I've heard that. But I don't really have a problem with it. And the fact that you or me or whoever doesn't entirely get it doesn't make it "bad" in my view.

But, to each his own.

Agreed. I'd already read the book, so I was prepared for it, but I thought it was a phenomenal exit.

Cormac McCarthy and the Coen brothers wanted you to feel despair, even soul-sapped by the end. It's honorable and necessary to fight evil, but you have to know it's an unbeatable opponent by the very nature of the game.

I thought the actual resolution to the film is earlier, as Tommy Lee Jones is speaking to the man in the wheelchair with the week-old coffee. That's where the payoff is.

Bell: I always thought when I got older God would sort of come into my life in some way. He didn't. I don't blame him. If I was him I'd have the same opinion about me that he does.


Ellis: You don't know what he thinks.


Bell: Yes I do.

The not-really-the-ending to NCFOM is set up perfectly in the gas station scene with Cigurh and the proprietor. It's your lucky coin... But it got here the same way I did.

And why does everyone forget that Cigurh getting hit by the car isn't the ending?

The ending is TLJ at the table talking to his wife about his dream. And it's perfect. Wonderfully acted with the dialogue taken straight from the book.

The best film of the last decade, and no business on this thread.

 

[king cranium maximus IV]

The ending to the original War of the Worlds, when germ theory was still a growing concept, and space exploration wasn't yet possible, was novel and brilliant.

But you can't make it not stupid now. I mean, the aliens don't even wear pants.

I disagree entirely with the No Country haters. Point of the movie is that evil is unstoppable and crops up in unexpected ways. Brolin gets offed not by the force he fled from for the whole movie, but by a bunch of other thugs. And there's nothing we can do about these things but soldier on.

 

[schiezainc]

Re: War of the Worlds.

I apologize. I thought this was thread for "Worst movie endings". I didn't realize we could give a movie a pass if the book it was based on managed to have that same ending and not have it suck.

We're judging MOVIE endings here people. I don't give a flying f**k what the book did. It's not relevant to the discussion here.

That movie could have used that exact same ending and, oh, i don't know, maybe set it up at some point but, instead, all you get is action scene/action scene/horrible plot development scene/action scene/action scene/illness kills everything end.

The movie's ending blew ass and anyone who says differently is either clinging too hard to the concept of "But, but, but, the book was wicked kewl" or they are out of their minds.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to write an awful book with an awful ending on the off chance it gets picked up, turned into an awful movie and I can tell all "da haters" that the movie was super duper awesome sauce because it used my shirtty book ending.

 

[Rhody31]

Re: War of the Worlds.

I apologize. I thought this was thread for "Worst movie endings". I didn't realize we could give a movie a pass if the book it was based on managed to have that same ending and not have it suck.

We're judging MOVIE endings here people. I don't give a flying f**k what the book did. It's not relevant to the discussion here.

That movie could have used that exact same ending and, oh, i don't know, maybe set it up at some point but, instead, all you get is action scene/action scene/horrible plot development scene/action scene/action scene/illness kills everything end.

The movie's ending blew ass and anyone who says differently is either clinging too hard to the concept of "But, but, but, the book was wicked kewl" or they are out of their minds.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to write an awful book with an awful ending on the off chance it gets picked up, turned into an awful movie and I can tell all "da haters" that the movie was super duper awesome sauce because it used my shirtty book ending.

Just so everyone knows, Schieza doesn't acknowledge anything that happened prior to 2003, except wrestling.
The ending to WotW was fine. The aliens knew about earth and, assumingly, had done research to prepare themselves for what they would expect. Then they showed up, started kicking ass and something they didn't plan for happened - they got sick from our atmosphere. I don't understand what the problem is.
Now if there had been a sequel, they come back and destroy us. That would have been sad.

 

[Care Bear]

"I am an alien molecular biologist."
-Schieza

Dude, Hulk Hogan wasn't available to shoot the ending when Spielberg called.

And not to pile on giving you shirt, but didn't you post earlier that you loved the ending to freaking Armageddon?

 

[Spartan Squad]

The ending to the original War of the Worlds, when germ theory was still a growing concept, and space exploration wasn't yet possible, was novel and brilliant.

But you can't make it not stupid now. I mean, the aliens don't even wear pants.

I disagree entirely with the No Country haters. Point of the movie is that evil is unstoppable and crops up in unexpected ways. Brolin gets offed not by the force he fled from for the whole movie, but by a bunch of other thugs. And there's nothing we can do about these things but soldier on.

I can understand the greater point of no country for old men that evil is unstoppable, but the build up in the movie points to this great final battle that never comes. Brolin getting killed not by Chigurh is fine, but the way Brolin died was as if he was a secondary character. The sheriff rolls up to find a hectic gun battle and oh, by the way, Brolin is dead was a bit of a cop out. I feel like the point of evil can't be stopped was lost by the way they ended the movie and how they killed off the characters.

As for War of the Worlds, I wish they never remade it. I saw a version from the 50s I think that was far more scary than the Tom Cruise version. It was done more like the radio broadcast and was just better. I don't have a problem with the germs killing the aliens, but the movie just doesn't fit with today's market because of how many alien movies that are out there and germ warfare is a lame way to win in comparison to the epic endings of the more modern movies.