I used to sell that guy graphics, over to Cracked. Aside from that, he’s one of the few people I’ve ever seen publicly opine that maybe the reason Sherlock Holmes has such a grip on our culture is that his semi-Asperger’s personality appeals with its freedom from having to ever consider the feelings of others. (Not in exactly those words.)
Is there a word missing here? I can’t quite parse this.
I do like the Sherlock Holmes observation, and I think there’s definitely some truth in it. I’ve been watching The Murderbot Diaries on Apple, and a big part of the fun is watching Murderbot (who is very heavily coded as autistic) just not giving a fuck about other people’s feelings, even as he’s enacting extreme amounts of violence to keep them alive.
There is also Penn & Teller Get Killed.
Guess how it ends?
Penn & Teller get killed.
The Star Child ending makes “2010” a cop-out from beginning to end - in “2001” Bowman is transformed to a new kind of being, at least as different from mankind as the monolith-touched apes are from untouched apes - and 9 years later, that has had no consequences.
I don’t think consequences were ever implied. He interacted, he changed, he left to go to an elsewhere that didn’t involve us.
The film ends with the Star Child looking at Earth, which implies some sort of intent. The alien’s apparent motive in seeding the monoliths was to uplift species, not individuals. Moonwatcher didn’t just fuck off into the hills after he figured out tool use, he stuck around and taught his tribe. I think the ending it pretty clearly meant to signify that mankind as a whole is entering a new stage of evolution, and not that Dave Bowman is going to go off an be inscrutable somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.
At the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, didn’t the “Star Child” remove all of the nuclear weapons from Earth?
That was Superman IV.
No, you’re right, but that was in the book. The Star Child detonates all the orbital nuke installations.
They Might Be Giants: If you don’t actually have an ending for your story, go allegorical.
David Wong (author of John Dies at the End) was a reasonably prolific contributor over at Cracked, prior to it being downgraded to an endless pile of listicles (still too many in they heyday though).
https://www.cracked.com/members/David+Wong
I wonder what sort of graphics @Sherrerd was involved in though. Maybe he was one of the key providers for said Listicles? Amusing top graphics? Providing images of Eldritch Things that drove the members mad? Wait.
Maybe I don’t want to know. 
I liked the first book. Also liked the second, though not quite as much, Never got hold of the third, and just learnt today about the other three.
Bloody hell, I meant to say “certain peril”, not “the certain peril.” Screwed up my own witty reference.
As spectacular as the movie was visually, I think the original story/book was much better.
I agree.
I think Hell In The Pacific (1968) is a film that was a masterpiece until the final 15-20 seconds. The original ending was low key and may have lacked “finality” but was really the only way the story could logically end. It can be seen as an extra on the DVD.
As I understand it the studio suits decided the ending was too high brow and unresolved, switched the director’s finale with an obviously pasted in moment of footage from some other source, punctuating a masterpiece with a turd.
Like the staged version of the play, the films Pygmalion and My Fair Lady tacked on the sentimental ending where Eliza Doolittle returns to Henry Higgins after walking out on him to attend her father’s wedding. In the original text, it’s quite clear that she has no intention of remaining with Higgins. George Bernard Shaw, the author of the play, hated the contrived ending and said she would logically have gone on to marry Freddy Eynsford Hill.
Fatal Attraction - in the original ending, Glenn Close’s character killed herself and framed Michael Douglas, but it didn’t test well with audiences so it was remade with a new ending.
I for one liked that they didn’t Some Kind of Wonderful it up.
“Original” isn’t exactly the right word. The book and film were developed simultaneously with Kubrick and Clarke working together on both. The book came out after the movie. There are differences since the book is based mainly on early drafts of the movie.
He also wrote a very extended account of their life together, that was published in editions of the play.
Shaw himself wrote a screenplay for the play, which certainly doesn’t end with Eliza going back to Professor Higgins.