# Movies That Overstay Their Welcome (SPOILERS POSSIBLE) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 21, 2007, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800 "2007-01-21T04:47:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2007, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/41 "2007-01-22T21:52:34Z")
_Minority Report_ needed to either be shorter, so that everything that happens after Tom Cruise is put in the tank is cut, or longer, to explicitly show that the “happy ending” was a stasis dream. I know a lot of people (myself included) favor this interpretation anyway, but I’d like something more concrete so it doesn’t feel quite so much like a fanwank. ---
**Author:** ![vinniepaz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b4bc9f/32.png) [@vinniepaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vinniepaz)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2007, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/42 "2007-01-22T23:39:49Z")
I’m gonna have to say LOTR: ROTK. I was ready to walk out of the theater saying that movie was perfect about a half hour before it ended. ---
**Author:** ![kung\_fu\_lola](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f4b2a3/32.png) [@kung\_fu\_lola](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kung_fu_lola)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2007, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/43 "2007-01-22T23:44:56Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] For entirely opposite reasons (read: there’s a hopeless romantic underneath this gruff heartless exterior), I always, like Willow, stop the DVD of _Moulin Rouge!_ at Chapter 32 so it has a happy ending. 😃 [/QUOTE] [nitpick]Willow didn’t actually admit to that, it was something Kennedy made up. [/nitpick] I do it, too. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2007, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/44 "2007-01-22T23:45:50Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] _Marie Antoinette_ should have ended at the balcony scene. [/QUOTE] I concur. Someone suggested (on this Board) that it should have faded out with that shot, followed by the sound of a guillotine blade falling. Roll credits. [QUOTE=Robot Arm] _Chasing Amy_ should have ended after the scene in the pickup truck in the rain. What comes after that isn’t nearly as good or interesting as what came before. [/QUOTE] No, but the rest of the film **is** necessary, if only to explain the title. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/45 "2007-01-23T06:29:58Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] I concur. Someone suggested (on this Board) that it should have faded out with that shot, followed by the sound of a guillotine blade falling. Roll credits. [/QUOTE] That was me. There was a lot to not like about that movie, but the rest of the film from the balcony scene on, was merely adding insult to injury, IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/46 "2007-01-23T11:17:07Z")
> [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > It’s a 17 year old movie. Nobody is spoilering Forrest Gump or Mystic River, and they’re both far more recent. Plus, you have plenty of time–nearly the first paragraph before any significant detail is admitted–to decide that you don’t want the movie spoiled and stop reading. Get a grip. No, I have “nearly the first paragraph” to anticipate your expose on the question raised by the thread title. Something like “It took far too long to develop the main character” or “I felt that the last half hour of the movie was predictable and boring, because everything was so heavily foreshadowed.” Or something like “This movie should have ended at the helicopter scene”. There are lots of ways you can imagine this OP without a spoiler; would it have cost you much time to warn that there was an open spoiler in the OP? It’s one thing if someone happens to reveal a spoiler later on, but you could’ve said that the OP had an open spoiler since, you know, you wrote the thing and presumably knew what was in it when you posted it. I’ve read every post between yours (the one I just quoted) and this one and haven’t had anything else spoiled yet. > [@Promethea](#): > > Full Metal Jacket. Should have ended at the completion of the Boot Camp scenes - the Vietnam scenes are not nearly so interesting. Having said that, for all I know it might have the most amazing ending ever - I’ll never know because I’ve always given up on it long before I get there. Same here. I know how it ends, but only because I cheated. > [@vinniepaz](#): > > I’m gonna have to say LOTR: ROTK. I was ready to walk out of the theater saying that movie was perfect about a half hour before it ended. I opened the thread to nominate Peter Jackson films in general. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/47 "2007-01-23T11:22:04Z")
It’s been long enough since I’ve seen it that I’d be hard-pressed to describe **why** , but [Jacob’s Ladder](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099871/) should have ended at the scene when Robbins’ character takes the kid’s hand and starts walking upstairs with him. There were scenes in previews at the times that didn’t show up in the final film (among them, one character telling him, “I can break the ladder!”) that leads me to believe an entirely different ending must have been filmed and tested poorly, leading to a reshoot or major re-editing from other discarded story branches. I suspect if I’d seen the film without any exposure to previews that I might not feel that way, however. ---
**Author:** ![Scoundrel\_Swanswater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@Scoundrel\_Swanswater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scoundrel_Swanswater)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/48 "2007-01-23T12:23:03Z")
[QUOTE=Ferret Herder] It’s been long enough since I’ve seen it that I’d be hard-pressed to describe **why** , but [Jacob’s Ladder](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099871/) should have ended at the scene when Robbins’ character takes the kid’s hand and starts walking upstairs with him. [/QUOTE] Isn’t that where the movie ends? Maybe I have seen a different version, but that is where the movie ended the last 5 times I saw it. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/49 "2007-01-23T12:37:15Z")
[QUOTE=Scoundrel Swanswater] Isn’t that where the movie ends? Maybe I have seen a different version, but that is where the movie ended the last 5 times I saw it. [/QUOTE] :eek: OK, maybe I really **did** see a strange cut of the film! ---
**Author:** ![essell](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/34f0e0/32.png) [@essell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/essell)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/50 "2007-01-23T12:41:29Z")
“The Game” would have been better ending with michael douglas jumping off the roof The stuff after was kinda dull after all the adrenaline I’d burned up getting there. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/51 "2007-01-23T14:11:26Z")
Saving Private ryan should have finished before Tom Hanks whispered "live a good life etc."to Ryan ,it seemed unnatural,contrived and frankly rather soppy. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/52 "2007-01-23T14:30:51Z")
[QUOTE=mr. jp] A joke? I don’t get it. [/QUOTE] Up to that point, it was traditional to end crime movies with a wrap-up scene, in which the detective explains how he deduced the identity of the killer. Similarly, a lot of horror/spooky movies did the same thing, in which the supernatural manifestations were shown in an expository scene at the end to be the nefarious plot of a madman out to inherit the fortune for himself, or whatever. So Hitchcock makes an absolutely groundbreaking movie of terror and crime, like nothing anyone’s ever seen before. Scarier than all get-out, wonderfully photographed, spectacularly atmospheric. And then, at the end, as his own little joke, he puts in a completely traditional “explanation” scene; so staid, so straightforward, so completely lacking in Hitch’s usual finesse, as to be a parody of those scenes. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2007, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/53 "2007-01-23T19:21:02Z")
_2001: a Spacy Odyssey_ should have ended before the silly acid trip and space fetus. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2007, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/54 "2007-01-24T06:45:53Z")
[QUOTE=Dr. Rieux] _2001: a Spacy Odyssey_ should have ended before the silly acid trip and space fetus. [/QUOTE] Boo! BOOOOOO! No further explanation is necessary 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Scoundrel\_Swanswater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@Scoundrel\_Swanswater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scoundrel_Swanswater)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2007, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/55 "2007-01-24T14:24:38Z")
[QUOTE=Ferret Herder] :eek: OK, maybe I really **did** see a strange cut of the film! [/QUOTE] Could you spoiler for me what happens after in your version? This is one of my favourite movies. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2007, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/56 "2007-01-24T15:26:44Z")
I’d say _A League of Our Own_ would’ve been much better off without the sappy reunion scene at the end. I understand why it was included, to pay homage to the real flesh and blood women who actually played in the league, but is a movie viewer I could’ve done without it very easily. ---
**Author:** ![Push\_You\_Down](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/push_you_down/32/9095_2.png) [@Push\_You\_Down](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Push_You_Down)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2007, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/57 "2007-01-24T17:49:53Z")
[QUOTE=Sublight] I thought the most common reply would be _AI_. End it with David underwater. [/QUOTE] The movie has atleast 4 different end points. That’s definitely the best one. I also would have liked if they had ended it right when David gets found by the future Mechas. The line “From him we will learn about humanity” is the most disturbing line imaginable. David knows nothing but the worst aspects of humanity. ---
**Author:** ![KJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b2d939/32.png) [@KJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KJ)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2007, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800/58 "2007-01-26T05:50:45Z")
Another movie that should’ve ended a lot earlier: The Matthew Broderick/Nathan Lane version of **The Producers**. I enjoyed that movie, but by the time it gets to the two hour mark I just want to scream “Stop singing and dancing, already! We get it!” They could’ve cut it off way sooner. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-overstay-their-welcome-spoilers-possible/388800.md?page=2)