# Dismalest movie ending (SPOILERS!) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [September 10, 2024, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047 "2024-09-10T06:00:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2024, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/161 "2024-10-17T03:10:46Z")
The ending was meant as a tribute of hope to McCarthy’s newborn son. The most common criticism I’m seen of both the movie and the book is that the ending is unrealistically positive. The ending is objectively the most positive part of the story. Dismalest movie overall? Absolutely in the running. Dismalest ending? You’re being obtuse. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/162 "2024-10-18T04:00:21Z")
Moderating: > [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > You’re being obtuse. This is Cafe society. Comment on the content, not the commentator. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2024, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/163 "2024-10-18T16:04:09Z")
Nevermind, I can’t do spoilers apparently. ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2024, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/164 "2024-10-19T01:47:24Z")
Meryl Streep and Jonah Hill were so good, they made me mad ---
**Author:** ![iamatractorboy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iamatractorboy/32/21261_2.png) [@iamatractorboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamatractorboy)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2024, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/165 "2024-10-19T07:27:47Z")
I’m surprised no one has mentioned **Planet of the Apes** yet. Surely one of the most famous downer endings of all time. Sadly I knew about it before seeing it for the first time. Being a big Bond fan I will also nominate **On Her Majesty’s Secret Service**. The downer really does come out of nowhere. I can’t remember ever not knowing the ending, although that must have been the case when I was young, but I watched it with my partner fairly recently as part of a full run through the Bond series and she had no idea that Bond even got married, let alone saw his wife murdered on their wedding day ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2024, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/166 "2024-10-19T08:30:25Z")
> [@iamatractorboy](#): > > I’m surprised no one has mentioned **Planet of the Apes** yet. Surely one of the most famous downer endings of all time. Sadly I knew about it before seeing it for the first time. I never understood the “twist” of the original PotA. I mean, he was on a planet with humans, horses, and apes, and everyone spoke English. Of course he was on Earth in the future. Where else could he have been? ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2024, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/167 "2024-10-19T09:39:01Z")
Well, that’s a letdown. Here I was, all set to break through Enceladus’ ice and have a chat with some scuba-diving Enceladians, ride a sea horse, and maybe even hang out with an aqua-ape or two. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2024, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/168 "2024-10-19T14:20:58Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I never understood the “twist” of the original PotA. I mean, he was on a planet with humans, horses, and apes, and everyone spoke English. Of course he was on Earth in the future. Where else could he have been? I forgive the whole “since the audience only understands English, that’s what everyone speaks” convention. Sometimes working out an explanation just slows down the narrative. So, we just ignore it. The novel that started it all definitely had a more coherent logic. It’s definitely a different planet, and the twist occurs when they return to Earth, with yet _another_ twist that bookends the novel. Because I am a saint among men, I will spoiler the details from a 60+ year-old book. The novel is framed by a space-traveling couple who discover a message of warning, floating in space I think. The rest of the novel is the narrative in the warning. The travelers who left the warning describe how they made it to a lush planet orbiting Betelgeuse where they find—yikes!—that this world is populated by intelligent, civilized apes who enslave the resident dummy humans. Humans had ages ago ruled the planet, but through intellectual laziness and simian advancement, the roles are reversed. Lots of adventure ensues, until they escape on a ship back to Earth, where an ape greets them after they touch down. Earth has suffered the same switcheroo! Time dilation has given Earth plenty of time to ape-ify. The novel ends with the couple who found the warning dismissing it as nonsense. They are chimpanzees! And the idea of intelligent humans is absurd to them. Oh! And the apes on the faraway planet spoke simian, not English, and our travelers had to learn the language. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2024, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/169 "2024-10-19T16:16:35Z")
And of course the remake movie done in 2001 incoherently mangled the novel’s twist ending. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2024, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/170 "2024-10-19T16:21:48Z")
> [@iamatractorboy](#): > > Being a big Bond fan I will also nominate **On Her Majesty’s Secret Service**. The downer really does come out of nowhere. I can’t remember ever not knowing the ending, although that must have been the case when I was young, but I watched it with my partner fairly recently as part of a full run through the Bond series and she had no idea that Bond even got married, let alone saw his wife murdered on their wedding day I watched that a number of years ago, and found myself crying my eyes out at the end. It probablt didn’t help that this was shortly after my wife died. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2024, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/171 "2024-10-19T19:31:54Z")
> [@iamatractorboy](#): > > Being a big Bond fan I will also nominate **On Her Majesty’s Secret Service**. The downer really does come out of nowhere. Oh come on now, it is Hollywood. No one is allowed to be happily married. One of the two must die, and we know it aint Bond. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 19, 2024, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/172 "2024-10-19T23:42:39Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > I forgive the whole “since the audience only understands English, that’s what everyone speaks” convention. Sometimes working out an explanation just slows down the narrative. So, we just ignore it. The movie ending makes more sense once you realize that Rod Serling wrote the original script. Serling frequently had scientifically ludicrous things happen the episodes of _The Twilight Zone_ that he wrote or adapted – asteroids with earth-like gravity (and atmospheres), space travelers not realizing where they are. Aliens speaking perfect English with no one bringing this fact up. I don’t think Serling wrote the ending as filmed, with the Statue of Liberty and all, but I do think “the twist” was that they were back on Earth. Of course, it doesn’t make a lick of sense – spaceships don’t get turned around during long voyages. If the Apes peak Engish, that’s a big clue. The constellations ought to look a lot like w’re used to (even with the passage of a lot of time). Plats would be Earth plants (especially the food crops!), etc.etc.etc. ad nauseum. Actually, a much more interesting parallel, as I’ve mentioned before, is L. Sprague de Camp and P. Schuyler Miller’s novel _Genus Homo_ – a group of humans are put to sleep in a vehicle and awake in the far future (but definitely on earth), where they find that intelligent apes have taken over. As in the original movies (but not Pierre Boulle’s book), the chimps are the brains, gorillas are the muscle, and other types fill other roles. At first, unable to understand English (take THAT! , PotA), they assume the humans are animals and put them in a zoo. There are a lot of satiric jabs at then-current society. Worth a read, if you can find a copy > **[Genus Homo (novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genus_Homo_(novel))** > > Genus Homo is a science fiction novel by American writers L. Sprague de Camp and P. Schuyler Miller. It was first published in the science fiction magazine Super Science Stories for March, 1941, and subsequently published in book form in hardcover by Fantasy Press in 1950 and in paperback by Berkley Books in 1961. An E-book edition was published by Gollancz's SF Gateway imprint on September 29, 2011 as part of a general release of de Camp's works in electronic form. It has also been transla The b... ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2024, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/173 "2024-10-20T01:31:39Z")
Thanks for the tip. I’ll give it a read. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2024, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/174 "2024-10-20T02:15:15Z")
The main problem with all the Apes films is that there just isnt enough Apes to do that. There is only like 300K Gorillas left, for example. Also the three species do not really get along. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2024, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/175 "2024-10-20T07:39:48Z")
> [@iamatractorboy](#): > > I’m surprised no one has mentioned **Planet of the Apes** yet. Surely one of the most famous downer endings of all time. Sadly I knew about it before seeing it for the first time. It was dismal only if you were a human. From an ape’s perspective, things were pretty good. However, the ending of its sequel, **Beneath the Planet of the Apes** , was truly dismal for everyone and everything. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2024, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/176 "2024-10-20T17:57:17Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Actually, a much more interesting parallel, as I’ve mentioned before, is L. Sprague de Camp and P. Schuyler Miller’s novel _Genus Homo_ Which puts me in mind of _The Stone God Awakens_ by Philip José Farmer. After the protagonist was accidently time-frozen by a physics experiment, the stasis finally wears off tens of millions of years in the future, where multiple sentient species descended from current animals live in a radically altered ecosystem. The somewhat downer ending is that the protagonist, > **Summary** > > having hoped to liberate what he took for humanity’s descendants discovers that they are in fact a parallel evolution from monkeys, and that he is and will be the last of the now-extinct Old Race humans. ---
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2024, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/177 "2024-10-21T00:36:11Z")
In **Uncut Gems** , Adam Sandler gives a great performance as a sleazy business man frantically trying to get out of the hole he’s dug himself into and, incredibly, manages to navigate out of his personal and business problems _but_ he can’t manage to just stop running his mouth to the wrong people at the wrong time. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/178 "2024-10-22T08:15:53Z")
There aren’t enough apes _now_, because of humans destroying their habitats. Without technologically advanced humans in the picture, there would be vastly more ape habitats, and apes. Then, upon getting technologically advanced themselves, the apes’ numbers would explode, just like ours did. Same goes for the getting along: the present situation in no way mirrors the technologically advanced situation. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/179 "2024-10-22T18:03:47Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > The main problem with all the Apes films is that there just isnt enough Apes to do that. The conceit from the original Apes films (specifically Conquest…) was that cats and dogs were wiped out by an extraterrestrial disease brought back by astronauts. Humans then turned to the great apes as replacement pets, then eventually cheap labor as a new authoritarian police state arose and they were deliberately bred in large numbers. Which is utter nonsense in several respects, but technically does answer the numbers problem. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2024, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047/180 "2024-10-22T18:15:36Z")
> [@Snarky\_Kong](#): > > Dismalest ending? You’re being obtuse. There’s no food left. Nothing can grow. Any one that sees a happy ending in there that the son lives isn’t paying attention. Like in _Soylent Green_, everyone still alive will be dead in a year, two tops. > [@Alessan](#): > > Of course he was on Earth in the future. Where else could he have been? As noted, shows were full of people landing in earth like worlds and somehow not knowing where they were. Doesn’t make it right. But while it can be forgiven in a TZ episode, it shouldn’t in a Major Motion Picture. I thought Taylor made a comment that the PotAs had overcast skies while they were there, and he couldn’t see the stars. Or am I remembering wrong? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dismalest-movie-ending-spoilers/1007047.md?page=10)