# Happy ending, but we know better **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 24, 2015, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733 "2015-01-24T05:03:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/21 "2015-01-25T05:10:01Z")
\*Into the Woods, \*Act 1 . . . \*Into the Woods, \*Act 2. And then there are those pesky Nazis in _The Sound of Music._ ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/22 "2015-01-25T05:24:29Z")
Springtime for Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/23 "2015-01-25T06:02:32Z")
This is a micro rather than a macro answer, but I feel like the next few hours after the end of Terminator 2 are not going to be pleasant for Sarah and John Connor. That steel factory has to be seriously surrounded by the cops. How many cops? Umm, all of them I think. ---
**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/24 "2015-01-25T08:23:43Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > […] > Then a shitstorm that raged on for centuries after, some of which could be counted against the hero of the story. Egad. I guess umbrellas were useless against _that._ Eccch! ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/25 "2015-01-25T09:53:59Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > This is a micro rather than a macro answer, but I feel like the next few hours after the end of Terminator 2 are not going to be pleasant for Sarah and John Connor. That steel factory has to be seriously surrounded by the cops. How many cops? Umm, all of them I think. Worst case is that Sarah is re-admitted to another mental hospital. After all, they can’t very well convict her of the crime of escaping when she is, by definition, mentally incompetent. Best case scenario, the fact that she can now probably prove that there really was an apparently invincible, giant man out to kill her and her son means that she is no longer considered a loony. That the same man came back looking identical 20 years later is established in the movie. There’s almost certainly video footage of both him and the shapeshifting metal man from hospital (what sort of mental hospital doesn’t have cameras on the main security doors?) and there are dozens of credible eyewitnesses that the Terminators were indestructible. All physical evidence may be gone but Sarah’s story isn’t going to be near so unbelievable. At the very least, the movie establishes that the cops know that the original Terminator is back and looking for Sarah, know that John’s parents were killed while she was in custody and there are dozens of witnesses to the Arnie Terminator apparently chasing John around the arcade. At the very least, this confirms the part of her story that makes her “paranoid”, and her shrink knows that the Terminator is real. Even if nobody believes in Terminators, Sarah is a kidnap victim with PTSD (she was kidnapped from a police station by men who slaughtered a hundred cops in front of her). That she would come to believe that a man built like Arnie who can slaughter 100 cops, is invincible isn’t evidence of serious psychosis. So she pleads temporary insanity for whatever crimes she committed before being caught the first time, gets sentenced to time served and walks free. Alternatively she claims Arnie kidnapped her, brought her to the factory, tortured her and then ran off when the cops showed up. John is a minor, he is also very clearly a victim, having been literally kidnapped by first the Terminator and then his mother. Even if he is dumb enough to tell the truth, that is how his lawyer will spin it. Sure your honor, John believes the body builder who kidnapped him was a robot obeying his orders, but it was clearly just a clever ploy to use John to lead him to Sarah and gain her trust. John can’t really be held accountable because he had control of an indestructible robot. If the court believes he was a robot, then John’s actions were defensible, if they don’t believe he was a robot, John was a minor in the company of an adult stranger who kidnapped him and no judge would hold him accountable for being manipulated/threatened by that stranger. IOW, no matter how things fall out, nothing at can happen to John. John now believes his mother and can help her escape and at wort he knows to hide. IOW, at worst nobody is any worse off even if the cops find them. At best it really is a happy ending. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/26 "2015-01-25T10:01:44Z")
Blade Runner- (well the directors cut anyway) We know that in all likely outcomes there is no happy ending here, Deckard and Rachel probably don’t even make it out of the city assuming there aren’t twenty armed cops in the lobby waiting for them. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/27 "2015-01-25T10:33:44Z")
At the end of _Logan’s Run,_ the inhabitants of the city are free from the city and the control of the tyrannical computer - and now have no way to feed or shelter themselves. All or almost all of them are going to be dead in a week or two. DC comics has a habit of every so often having a “Crisis” where the previous continuity/universes are erased & reshuffled, and replaced with new ones. Which means that all the struggles and triumphs both superheroic and normal in that setting all have the same ending; no matter what they mean nothing because within a few years everyone in those universes will be dead and replaced by dopplegangers anyway. > [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > Most recent obvious one for me is _Avatar_. I love Cameron’s films but he went overboard with the tree-hugging hippie crap in this one. And here’s what would happen next: > > The future Chinese would be a dominant, technologically advanced world power. So they’d send their own fleet to Pandora. And with no one to stop them they would inflict their non-Western, non-Christian, Asian war brutality on the situation. In other words, they would literally slaughter the Na’vi outright, like the Nazis did in WWII, and then mine the Upsodaisium at will. And then Eywa now that she’s paying attention kills them all. And quite possibly sends back a plague that kills humanity on Earth too. Which would be an unhappy ending I suppose, but not the one you think. The Na’vi are less than a sideshow; they are the equivalent of dust mites on the real dominant life form on the planet. And the idea that the “non-Western, non-Christian, Asians” are more brutal than the West is contradicted by history. Something that should be extra obvious when discussing a movie that was so obviously made with parallels to the European extermination of the American Indians in mind. For that matter, you yourself brought up the Nazis - who were _not_ “non-Western, non-Christian, Asians”. > [@Hail\_Ants](#): > > I didn’t even find \*Avatar \*itself to have a particularly happy ending. By the last part of the film I was sympathetic towards (and practically rooting for) the military guys… A common attitude, which I’ve seen used to argue that Cameron didn’t go overboard, but apparently wasn’t unsubtle _enough._ Perhaps the RDA should have spoken German and goosestepped. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/28 "2015-01-25T10:46:39Z")
A bit more obscure: 1987’s **Wish You Were Here** featured the film debut of Emily Lloyd, a beautiful young British actress who went on to, um, many other fairly well-regarded movies. She played Lynda Mansell, a free-spirited teen rebel in late-40s England. The movie ends with her sexual and intellectual emancipation from the stultifying conformity and anti-intellectualism of the era. It’s connected to an earlier movie, Terry Jones’s **Personal Services** , also 1987, about a London whorehouse madame named Christine Painter, set in the 1960s. Lynda Mansell and Christine Painter are the same person. Both films were based on memoirs by Cynthia Payne, and both were written by David Leland. So you can’t cheer Lynda’s emancipation without realizing she wound up in a whorehouse soon after. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/29 "2015-01-25T11:50:56Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > At the end of _Logan’s Run,_ the inhabitants of the city are free from the city and the control of the tyrannical computer - and now have no way to feed or shelter themselves. All or almost all of them are going to be dead in a week or two. Why do we have any reason to think this? The old man seemed pretty fat and happy, and he mentioned others in his original group, why can’t he teach them how to find food and water? Also that robot preserved a lot of animal life in the ice cave, hell if things get real bad they could eat the frozen people. ---
**Author:** ![DeptfordX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DeptfordX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeptfordX)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/30 "2015-01-25T23:39:45Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > There’s something like 60 years between HOBBIT and LOTR. Most of the characters of the former have died by the time of the latter. Bilbo’s a character in both, true, but the Ringwar doesn’t really touch him directly. I’d say he and most of the surviving Dwarves got their happy ending. Waiting for the real Tolkien experts but isn’t it mentioned there’s a second prong to the Mordor attack which hits the North. I think it’s in the appendices which i don’t have to hand. From memory Beorns folk, the lake people and the dwarves have to repel a massive Orc army. Can’t remember any more than that. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/31 "2015-01-25T23:57:19Z")
> [@DeptfordX](#): > > Waiting for the real Tolkien experts but isn’t it mentioned there’s a second prong to the Mordor attack which hits the North. > > I think it’s in the appendices which i don’t have to hand. > > From memory Beorns folk, the lake people and the dwarves have to repel a massive Orc army. Can’t remember any more than that. Sure, parts of the North got attacked–just not Rivendell, where Bilbo was at the time. He pretty much had an uninterrupted happy ending. ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/32 "2015-01-26T00:06:38Z")
This thread is _ **SO** _ not what I expected from the title ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/33 "2015-01-26T00:30:59Z")
fear not, this can only end well ---
**Author:** ![DeptfordX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DeptfordX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DeptfordX)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/34 "2015-01-26T00:33:52Z")
Googled the LOTR reference. This [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle\_of\_Dale](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dale) is what I was thinking of. Dain Ironfoot (Billy Connollys character from the film) and Bards Grandson get killed. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/35 "2015-01-26T04:15:43Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > Lynda Mansell and Christine Painter are the same person. Both films were based on memoirs by Cynthia Payne, and both were written by David Leland. So you can’t cheer Lynda’s emancipation without realizing she wound up in a whorehouse soon after. Yes, but she ended up _running_ the whorehouse. For some people that’s a win. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/36 "2015-01-26T14:20:56Z")
No way do those kids in _The Graduate_ stay together. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/37 "2015-01-26T14:40:40Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > This is a micro rather than a macro answer, but I feel like the next few hours after the end of Terminator 2 are not going to be pleasant for Sarah and John Connor. That steel factory has to be seriously surrounded by the cops. How many cops? Umm, all of them I think. Arnie blew up all their cop cars and shot all the SWAT guys in the knee. At best, a police response is several hours away. > [@Zsofia](#): > > No way do those kids in _The Graduate_ stay together. The author of the original book wrote a sequel and, according to him, they do. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/38 "2015-01-26T15:02:36Z")
Of Mice and Men: George’s troubles are just beginning as he tries to explain how he wrestled the Luger away from Lenny and, in self defense, shot him in the back of the head. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/39 "2015-01-26T17:00:51Z")
Thanks to Indiana Jones recovering the Ark of the Covenant, we know those pesky Nazis won’t be any trouble anymore. Bambi grew up to have a pretty fine antler rack. And man was still in the forest. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2015, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733/40 "2015-01-26T18:06:53Z")
> [@kunilou](#): > > Thanks to Indiana Jones recovering the Ark of the Covenant, we know those pesky Nazis won’t be any trouble anymore. The hilarious part of this is: The whole plot is driven by the idea that posessing the Ark will make Germany unbeatable. Apparently, nobody ever read the Bible. The Israelites tried exactly this, and it didn’t work. At one point, they took the Ark into battle with them, thinking it would make them unbeatable. _They got their asses kicked,_ and the Ark was captured by the enemy. They only got the Ark back because God sent a plague on the enemy (my translation says it was a plague of hemmroids :eek: ). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/happy-ending-but-we-know-better/710733.md?page=3)