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My favorite is from Stephen King's The Mist, where it turns out the story you've read is something you've found in a motel lobby as typed up by the protagonist
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Apr 2, 2016 21:58
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Professor Shark posted:My favorite is from Stephen King's The Mist, where it turns out the story you've read is something you've found in a motel lobby as typed up by the protagonist Wait, what? You mean the short story? I don't remember that. I hated the movie ending though, such a 'gently caress you.' I love the ending of The Shawshank Redemption. Everything about it is satisfying.
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Apr 2, 2016 22:11
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Rolo posted:I hated the movie ending though, such a 'gently caress you.' I loved it. Anything that ends with an "apocalypse scenario" (at least for the principal characters) is enjoyable in my book. I'm a happy person. I promise.
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Apr 2, 2016 22:21
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Yeah, the short story The movie ending was really, really bad. I guess the moral of the story is that you should risk everything for that .0001% chance, or that you Just Need to Believe, or something
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Apr 2, 2016 22:22
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No joke, The Sopranos.
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Apr 2, 2016 22:25
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Professor Shark posted:I guess the moral of the story is that you should risk everything for that .0001% chance, or that you Just Need to Believe, or something That would have been the case if about 5 minutes had been cut between the final scene and the preceding one. It would have had far less impact if it had the typical horror movie ending where everybody is fine and unaffected by the events that transpired. Rec 1 and 2 (before they butchered it with sequelitis) had pretty great endings. There's this Thing, it's horrible and unchecked could destroy a populace and the implication it eventually gets out. What's the policy on spoilers? I personally don't care. but I think there can be some really good ending dissection with them, but at the same time, you don't really want to rob somebody who goes "Hey, I'd like to see that" of the experience.
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Apr 2, 2016 22:34
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McVWkGWMHKI One of the greatest endings of all time.
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Apr 2, 2016 22:39
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Radio Paranoia posted:That would have been the case if about 5 minutes had been cut between the final scene and the preceding one. It would have had far less impact if it had the typical horror movie ending where everybody is fine and unaffected by the events that transpired. I thought about it more and the original ending to the story had an extremely bleak finish with only a very faintly dim promise of hope The movie ending had a woman looking smuggly at the guy who just killed his family and friends because he didn't risk his and his son's lives by walking out into almost certain death
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Apr 2, 2016 22:47
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So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into my rear end
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Apr 2, 2016 22:52
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Professor Shark posted:Yeah, the short story I had read the book and liked the fact that it was mildly hopeful but still open at the end, while the movie's ending was a serious gently caress You tragedy porno and it made me butthurt. Apparently King fully endorsed the movie's ending as being newly canonical, or at least thought highly of it, however I never bothered to look that deeply into it.
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Apr 2, 2016 23:02
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NotAnArtist posted:I had read the book and liked the fact that it was mildly hopeful but still open at the end, while the movie's ending was a serious gently caress You tragedy porno and it made me butthurt. Apparently King fully endorsed the movie's ending as being newly canonical, or at least thought highly of it, however I never bothered to look that deeply into it. He said he wished he'd thought of it, and in terms of sheer loving gut-punch I have to agree the movie had the better ending.
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Apr 2, 2016 23:13
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I thought that the ending was really bad and Darabont was bad and so is the self-professed Worst Ending Writer, Stephen King, for saying it was good In the story the characters fade away after you find out that you're reading type-written pages of something that has happened an unknown time ago, just as you quickly emerge into the story yourself, it's really well done imo, and it was accomplished in only a couple sentences Professor Shark has a new favorite as of 23:20 on Apr 2, 2016 |
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Apr 2, 2016 23:17
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Spoilers: Some Like It Hot: https://youtu.be/CYUfPTeE0DM?t=13s They Live (  also in Spanish):https://youtu.be/pjbFxAs8Ocw?t=29s
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Apr 2, 2016 23:26
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It may be cheesy, but the ending to Les Miserables, the book, anyway,
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Apr 3, 2016 15:49
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Babylon 5 really worked well for me. I generally regard the last season as an epilogue, and that really works for the final episodes as everyone is slowly leaving, one-by-one, towards new jobs, tasks and what-not, as well as everything falling into place for Londo. And then you get the final episode that is just huge farewell to a pretty good series.
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Apr 3, 2016 19:16
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I'm partially to Thief 3's ending, since it neatly wrapped everything up and maintained the "cycle" theme of the entire series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUwct6y-I1I
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Apr 3, 2016 20:01
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I love/dislike the ending of Bukowski's "Hollywood" because it's like "So I wrote a book about it, this was that book." It is just so lame.
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Apr 3, 2016 20:37
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A personal favorite is from the comic series Loki: Agent of Asgard. Now I'd like to add some context, so the most relevant part is going to be the last bit with all the black bars. First and fore most, minor spoilers ahead. First off, some dumb comic book back story. Loki had died, preformed a trick to get himself reborn as an innocent child. Said child turned out to be fairly autonomous from the old Loki, wanting not to repeat the villainous and hated past that the old him was a part of. But the spirit of the old Loki schemed to take over the life of his child self to have a new 'Page 1' to start from. And so through machinations of the god of lies, Kid Loki is forced to save everything from utter doom by preforming an act that will destroy himself, leaving only his body behind. And the Old Loki takes over the vacant body. And once restored to a new life in a new body, . The Older-Loki-In-Kid's-Body was haunted by the ghost of his child self, and kinda paradoxically, kinda taught him to be good. Also, got a older and sexier body (and suspiciously look a lot like Tom Hiddleson). So to shorten up that lengthy story, Loki killed a child so he could leave his sins behind him and take over the kid, only to then find a conscience. Welcome to comics everybody. If by any chance you do want to read any of that, Keiron Gillen's Journey Into Mystery 622-645, and his Young Avengers 1-12. In any case, The series proper starts. Loki, body of a teen-heartthrob, mind of a evil mastermind, still has a history of a life before his. More importantly, one with an Asgardian criminal record. But, he makes a deal with the All-Mothers of Asgard to perform some of their dirty work and bring back Asgardian People/Items to have his record erased. And unbeknownst to him, someone who looks suspiciously like an older version of the original Loki, the one introduced to comics back in the 60's, is scheming against him. And so between this beginning and the end a number of things happen. He recovers some people/Items, cause an Asgardian prison break, met a woman, Verity Williams, a woman who is able to see through lies (take note, she's important), etc. Notably, in a fit of suddenly being unable to lie, he was led to confessing his crime of killing his beloved younger self to take over the younger's life. Which in terms of trust and belovedness, put him back at square one. As well, he finds out that the villainous Loki who schemed against him was in fact himself from the future. On unable to change the fate that he faced. That no matter the good or the camaraderie he shared, to everyone he would be the God of Lies. They wouldn't let him change. And so he became the villain they expected him to be. And he destroyed everything. As for why he came back? So he came back to stop his younger self wasting time. To break from the summary, this is what I love about this series. That it is completely cognizant of the fact that this is a superhero comic, a genre currently defined by it's constant cyclical nature of death and rebirth. One where good guys will go bad only to redeem themselves. Where villains many times become good only to become evil again. And that's the expectation not only for Loki, but for a lot of characters in Marvel. At this same time, Thor's name and hammer were being passed off to a female counter part, as he had become 'unworthy' in the comc's storyline. In Captain America, Steve Rogers had magically grown old and the mantle of Cap had gone to Falcon. In Spider-Man, Peter had 'died' in a similar manner to Kid Loki, with Doc Ock taking over his body as the 'Superior Spider-Man'. And in the years since, no matter what degrees of success these storylines found, in the end the toys were put back in the toy chest. And here we have a comic that is just of aware that one of Marvel's greatest villains was probably always going to be their greatest villain. But that is not the end. It only starts when, the future King Loki had our hero trapped in a death trap of a Metaphor-Made-Real. He's faced with his two ghosts, the one of his child's self, and one of his even older villainous self. And the case is made for his two fates, one where he can accept his fate as the villain he was and shall be, or he can face the same as Kid Loki, be the hero he desires to be and sacrifice himself. So the world would be spared from his evil. But in this moment, Verity (told you she was important) asks him something, "What does 'God of Lies' even mean?". And the story goes on to ask, what does it mean to be the king of lies? Asking, what does it mean to be a liar? To face someone and to tell them falsehoods? How does it start? How did it start? Who did it? What made them? Why? And it comes around to ask, what does a lie become when you tell it to someone's face, and they're in on the lie with you? In a sense, it becomes a story. And that's what Loki The Younger had been driven by. A series of tales and stories leading to a promised end, with no guarantee that it'll come to pass. What King Loki had done, told him a story of either a future where everyone dies, or he does. But our hero can tell his own story. And that doesn't necessarily mean any one has to die. Maybe he wins, able to see the next day without having to take over the world. Maybe he comes out the other end without being despised for what he had done, but honored for what he will do today. Without having to be the villainous God of Lies. Maybe, he isn't going to be the God of Lies. Maybe he'd rather be one of Stories. And so he does, reborn as the God of Stories. And he comes back just in time for the end of the univers(comic book event Secret Wars was going on at the time). In the last hour he had, he had Verity tell the story of her life. He listens, and with the power of The God of Stories Loki managed to capture her story. And capturing an entire person's history, with the causations and relations that made them them, he managed to save her too. And then the universe ended, with Verity and other bits (different story) saved for the other side where the universe once stood. And in this void was King Loki. Without an ounce of fight left in him, he concedes tearfully that he admits defeat. Yet, the God of Stories points out that at one point they were, in fact still are the same person. Just one tried to destroy everything that made him who he was, but he had also built up something in their place. He built the supports that led to an actual change to happen. The God of Lies had helped himself become the God of Stories. And with his important role of villain completed, he had redeemed himself by making himself the hero. Both Lokis reconciled, and in the end Our Hero remains. Loki had saved one life, and made another one matter. So our hero decides skipped ahead to when the universe was back in order. Besides, nothing in comics ever stay the same.
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Apr 4, 2016 03:19
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I like soulcrushing, enigmatic cliffhangers. I guess this doesn't count anymore. Twin Peaks final shot:
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Apr 4, 2016 03:39
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The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers. The main character goes back in time, ends up swapping bodies with another guy, and it slowly dawns on him that the poet he'd dedicated his life to studying is actually him. So he lives out what he thinks is the rest of his life believing he knows everything that will happen to him, and when he will die. When ge actually goes to the place he is believed to have died he runs into an evil doppelganger, they fight, and the protagonist wins. He leaves the doppelganger's body there and goes off to live the rest of his life with no clue what will come next. My summary barely touches on the main plot of the book, but the ending is probably the most satisfying ending I've ever read.
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Apr 4, 2016 04:07
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Fatal Frame II messed me up for a solid hour after I finished. The premise is you and your (older) twin sister get lost in a haunted village. The village got ransacked when a ritual (in which the older twin must strangle a younger twin and then literally throw the body into Hell) failed. The village possessed your sister and she runs off, periodically showing up as a scary looming specter that you're both trying to rescue and evade. Then near the end you learn that this village defines the "older" sibling as the one born second, and you end up tracking down your sis and choking her to death while the happy end credit music plays.
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Apr 4, 2016 04:17
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"The Parachute Ending" is a good ending
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Apr 4, 2016 15:56
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"Withnail and I" has the most perfectly-judged ending of any film I've seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPNA_BoCFPs crowoutofcontext posted:I like soulcrushing, enigmatic cliffhangers. Not exactly a cliffhanger, but no-one has ever written crueller finales to black comedies than Evelyn Waugh, and probably his finest was "A Handful of Dust", where he started by taking an already-written short, "The Man Who Liked Dickens", and trying to work out how his hero had even got into this predicament. For those who want to cut to the chase, here's the original story (a slow build, but worth it): http://talesofmytery.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/evelyn-waugh-man-who-liked-dickens.html
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Apr 9, 2016 11:36
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The Shield. He didn't get everything that was coming to him, but he did have a long time to reflect on how badly he hosed up!
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Apr 9, 2016 11:39
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Two things for this tread: First can we post out LEAST favorite endings? Like not just "they didn't make a season 2" but like a proper ending to a series/book/whatever that just didn't click with the tone of the story? Secondly a favorite ending of mine: The Low Chaos ending to 2012 game Dishonored. Story spoilers as to why: After this really grimy and depressing story of betrayal, brutality and then more betrayal; your main character finally gets back together with his daughter and living a life happily ever after. She becomes Empress of the realm, all of the friends you made (like 3 of them) are your buds for life and your daughter brings about an age of prosperity where the deadly and dangerous plague is cleaned off the streets and your empire shines once more. And finally when you die of old age you are laid to rest with your lover/her mother, in the way she would have wanted you to be. Of course now they announced the plot of the sequel game nothing in those tags bar Emily being Corvos daughter matter.
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Apr 9, 2016 12:25
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I played through Firewatch recently, and the ending was a bit of a suckerpunch for me personally. You play as a man who has left his wife - who suffers with Alzheimers - in the care of her family while you take on the role of a firewatcher in a national park. The game starts off calmly, you go scold a pair of obnoxious teenagers for setting off fireworks but things turn sour as a strange man watches you leave a nearby cave then you arrive back at your tower to find it ransacked. Delilah, your "boss" of sorts and constant friend, talks to you over the radio as the pair of your try to find out what's going on as more mysterious things happen and it becomes apparent that the pair of you are being watched by what seems to be a group of government scientists. As your relationship grows with Delilah, you learn more about your predecessors, a man called Ned and his nerdy son Brian, who was friends with Delilah and also not supposed to be staying in the tower. Eventually, things grow to a head as the government site sets alight and joins with a nearby forest fire. You and Delilah follow clues that have been left and in the cave where you first spotted the strange man, you discover a horrible truth. Spoilers ahead, do not read if you want to play Firewatch! The cave is home to a locked off section, and once you gain access, you're locked inside. Eventually, you can make your way to the very bottom of the cave, where you find Brian. Crushed beneath some rocks, Brian's dead body has been there since he and his father suddenly vanished halfway through their tenure as firewatchers. As the fire gets worse, you are to be evacuated at which point the strange man reveals himself as Ned, and turns out to be the one responsible for harassing you and Delilah, and also indirectly causing Brian's death. The ending is actually foreshadowed quite well, little things about what you see if you're thorough about searching and looking at things really help you to figure things out. But playing through it in one long run, feeling the tension of the game and the risk of attack made it so that I was completely blindsided by it and it just got to me.
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Apr 9, 2016 16:31
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Asimov's short story "The Last Question" is one of my favorites and as simple and obvious as the ending is it's always been really powerful for me.
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Apr 11, 2016 05:49
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Then near the end you learn that this village defines the "older" sibling as the one born second, and you end up tracking down your sis and choking her to death while the happy end credit music plays. The Japanese seem to have a penchant for cheery, or at least inappropriate, music over horrifying crescendos of violence or tragedy. It's great!
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Apr 11, 2016 06:06
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Command & Conquer: Red Alert's campaigns have two of my favorite endings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ87NTbhS_M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnwKNynuqYw This game is 20 years old. 
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Apr 11, 2016 06:30
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Going to go against the thread title, (if it's OK), and post my worst ending. The ending to Gilda. Throughout the film Gilda is a strong independent woman being all cool and tough and awesome. Half way through the film Johnny gets her and essentially keeps her caged up and kept under wraps, she rebels and sings that awesome song "put the blame on Mame". It is cool. But at the end she essentially goes "I was just pretending to be cool and tough and independent. I really love you Johnny and need a man to protect and love me", and basically renders the entire movie worthless.
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Apr 11, 2016 06:50
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Suikoden 5. In case anyone doesn't know, the Suikoden series is based around gathering 108 chosen people to battle in massive campaigns and wars and whatnot: if you find all 108 in one of the games, you generally get some bonus (usually a better ending). This ending is somewhat circumstantial, but eh. The plot of Suikoden 5 boils down to trying to settle down a country's troubles and claim 'The Sun Rune'. The main character and his bodyguard/lifelong friend in the course of the game claim two 'guardian runes' that are tied to the Sun Rune. One of the mini games of the series is dueling, which is basically rock paper scissors. Generally, if you lose a duel, it's game over and you die. One of the secondary villains is a former peer of the prince's bodyguard turned assassin, and you fight him just before the last boss in a duel with said bodyguard. I screwed up and lost, but instead of a game over, the prince took over as the duelist (which I won). Heading to face the final boss... If you don't have 108 Stars, your bodyguard ends up dying of her wounds after the final boss fight, whether you won the duel with her or not. This is the 'bad' ending. If, however, you find all 108 Stars, she will also die, but your two guardian runes will resonate with the Sun Rune and (after a scene with various ghosts of important people who died in the game's plot, including the main character's parents) bring her back to life for the good ending. What made this extra effective is I thought because I lost the duel with the bodyguard, I'd blown it and was going to get the bad ending, so the good ending ended up being an accidental fakeout and hence was even more satisfying. Ending shown here. Might not work in a vacuum: you have to picture playing through the whole game, getting to know the characters, and make the mistakes I did. You can definitely see why, from how it is structured, I thought I got the bad ending, as well.
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Apr 11, 2016 07:22
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Ddraig posted:The Shield. This. There was no way that it could have ended any better. It was the perfect ending to a terrific show.
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Apr 11, 2016 07:49
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I was gonna post the ending to sunshine buy I couldn't find it. So have the ending to super instead. [video type=""]zlrMLaJpu_E[/video]
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Apr 11, 2016 07:54
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Carnival of Shrews posted:"Withnail and I" has the most perfectly-judged ending of any film I've seen: Its great. He wrote two endings for "A Handful of Dust", the tragic yet absurd Brazilian ending is replaced with some sort of half-hearted reconciliation in another version. I remember when DVDs started coming out with "alternative ending" options and it didn't bother me unless an otherwise tragic film somehow had the option of a happy outcome, because I thought stubborn sentimentalists should leave with something to chew on instead of taking the emotionally easy-road. Even if it was just a wacky horror movie.
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Apr 11, 2016 08:48
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So this is probably going to be difficult for me to put into words, but... when I was younger, I HATED the ending to The Dark Tower. I thought it was a big loving copout on Stephen King's part. Spoilers ahead, if anyone hasn't read it, or wants to stay spoiler free ahead of the movie/shows coming out. Roland gets to the Tower and realizes he's been there before, countless times, repeating his existence over and over again, as penance for his behavior and killings and willingness to sacrifice his friends to meet his goal. It's honestly fairly foreshadowed, even in the early books. The entity that lives in/is the Tower sends him back to the beginning of the first book, memories erased, only things are slightly different because of his actions during this cycle. I'm older now, I've read more things, had more life experiences, and my life experiences have given me a healthy fear of cycles and reincarnation(I did a lot of drugs too many times). I ended up reading a lot about the Buddhist concept of Samsara, the cycle of reincarnation and suffering that is only escaped through nirvana. My bad trips gave me some serious anxiety about all of this, so when I think about it I find it difficult to approach it rationally... in any case, the ending of this series rings a lot more true to me now than it did when I was in 10th grade.
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Apr 11, 2016 19:14
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I love the climax and ending to Paranorman. Especially the climax, everything comes together perfectly, the music, the action and the dialog. I can't do it justice here and I'm sure anyone whose seen it knows what scene I'm talking about so here's the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mjlAItuw3s *OF COURSE: HEAVY SPOILERS FOR PARANORMAN* BioEnchanted has a new favorite as of 20:17 on Apr 11, 2016 |
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Apr 11, 2016 20:14
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crowoutofcontext posted:I like soulcrushing, enigmatic cliffhangers. I guess this doesn't count anymore. Twin Peaks final shot: I always felt that the ending to Fire Walk With Me was even more soulcrushing. I've had discussions on this forum about it where people say they find it uplifting or positive in some way, but all I see in Laura's face is sadness. Like, yea she's happy she doesn't have to suffer anymore but as a viewer I feel the weight of everything she's been though in that scene, and it kills me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgwtjVJmHtI
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Apr 11, 2016 20:40
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I've always been a sucker for the end of Rocky II-- the final round of the fight. Gets me every time. I am not joking and I have terrible taste in movies.
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Apr 11, 2016 20:44
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"Well, I'm back", he said.
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Apr 11, 2016 22:49
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Baron von der Loon posted:Babylon 5 really worked well for me. I generally regard the last season as an epilogue, and that really works for the final episodes as everyone is slowly leaving, one-by-one, towards new jobs, tasks and what-not, as well as everything falling into place for Londo. And then you get the final episode that is just huge farewell to a pretty good series. I was going to type this exact same thing. The line about how G'kar and Doctor Franklin had gone beyond the rim and were waiting for everyone still gets me a bit misty eyed.
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Apr 11, 2016 22:56
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