# Movies that when they ended you went "Whaaaaat?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 12, 2014, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612 "2014-01-12T21:46:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/21 "2014-01-13T03:02:47Z")
Raising Caine. ---
**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 13, 2014, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/22 "2014-01-13T03:05:37Z")
> [@j666](#): > > Orson Welles’? I didn’t think so. Yeah, Orson Welles’. When Joseph Cotton walks past Harry Lime’s inexplicably loyal girlfriend and doesn’t get a rise out of her. That one. ---
**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:** [January 13, 2014, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/23 "2014-01-13T03:08:33Z")
> [@urban1a](#): > > I figured someone else was going to mention ‘The Birds’, but I have a take on it too. At the time, no movie ended without notifying the audience with ‘The End’, followed by the end credits, and no movie ended without a resolution in some way. > > Hitchock really roped us in here. I assumed that it was an intermission and that the movie would continue in 15 minutes. > > Bob The original ending of **The Birds** had the main characters escaping down the highway to the supposed safety of San Francisco. In the last shot of the movie, the car approaches the Golden Gate Bridge … which is covered by thousands of crows. This scene was story-boarded but abandoned due to special effects costs and because it was considered too damn bleak. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/24 "2014-01-13T03:09:55Z")
Not a movie, but the last episode of _The Sopranos._ ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/25 "2014-01-13T03:19:50Z")
So all you guys totally understood the ending of _ **2001: A Space Odyssey** _, or just none of you have seen it? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![tenacious\_j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/439d5e/32.png) [@tenacious\_j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tenacious_j)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/26 "2014-01-13T03:35:56Z")
I read the books, hubby didn’t, so he was all “WTF” 😕 at the end of Catching Fire a few weeks ago. Sure, there was a 2-minute wrap up so it might not exactly qualify, but it did go from high-action to “come back next year for the sequel” really damn quick.:dubious: ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/27 "2014-01-13T03:43:36Z")
_The English Patient_. I didn’t like any of the movie, but when it was over it just seemed completely pointless, aimless, and incomplete. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/28 "2014-01-13T04:36:24Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > You mean the remake with Mark Wahlberg (I’m still pissed that he didn’t even take his shirt off when Charlton Heston was willing to get naked in the original)? I think the ending was a sequel hook that never paned out, but year it was really weird. I read somewhere years ago that the ending was Burton’s “fuck you” to the studio. I have no idea how true that is. ---
**Author:** ![Donegal\_Dragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Donegal\_Dragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donegal_Dragon)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/29 "2014-01-13T05:21:10Z")
I love the ending of The Day of the Triffids. The world is covered with monster plants, 90% of the people on earth are blind and the only people that know how to kill the Triffids are on a small island off the US coast.But everything is alright because seawater is the most abundant thing on earth! ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/30 "2014-01-13T05:40:33Z")
The Ninth Gate! Fun movie, but the ending was a ‘wait, …what!?’ tacked onto an old fashioned wtf. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Nader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Darth\_Nader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Nader)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/31 "2014-01-13T05:57:19Z")
Nope, totally got it, 10 years old and watching it projected inside a planetarium with my dad. Tried drugs later (duh), but no expericence was even close. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Nader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Darth\_Nader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Nader)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/32 "2014-01-13T06:02:43Z")
That was supposed to be a reply to zipperjj about 2001. Don’t do drugs, kids. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/33 "2014-01-13T06:16:42Z")
_Push_. It was supposed to be the first movie in a series and it ended on a cliff-hanger with a couple of unresolved plotlines. It was not advertised as such and I, along undoubtedly with a number of other audience members, were surprised by the unexpected open ending. Even more annoyingly, the movie didn’t do very well and the sequels were never made. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/34 "2014-01-13T06:50:24Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > _Barton Fink_, by the Coen brothers. > > Really, just about anything by the Coen brothers. You know what I dislike about _Barton Fink_? There’s no acceleration. It starts slightly weird but steadily getting weirder, and maintains that course for the whole movie until eventually it’s really weird. But there’s no real change. ---
**Author:** ![Lucky\_13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucky_13/32/13209_2.png) [@Lucky\_13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky_13)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/35 "2014-01-13T09:12:48Z")
_Jungle Fever_. After Flipper leaves his house, after make-up sex with his wife, a teenage hooker propositions him and calls him “Daddy.” He hugs her and yells “Nooooo!” That was a real WTF moment for me. ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/36 "2014-01-13T10:24:31Z")
How about the ending of [Dirty Mary Crazy Larry](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnCF4kJAzIw)? (yes, that link will spoil the end of the movie for you) ---
**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:** [January 13, 2014, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/37 "2014-01-13T12:36:57Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > I understand what Goddard & Whedon were going for, but I still don’t like the ending to **The Cabin in the Woods**. > > You mean the remake with Mark Wahlberg (I’m still pissed that he didn’t even take his shirt off when Charlton Heston was willing to get naked in the original)? I think the ending was a sequel hook that never paned out, but year it was really weird. I don’t think so. If you read Pierre Boule’s original novel, it ends with the astronauts getting back to Earth (as in the Burton film, the “PLanet of the Apes” wasn’t Earth, which it was in the first film) a police car stops – and apes in uniforms get out. The ending of the Burton version was just a more dramatically striking version of this. It doesn’t make a heck of a lot of sense (the closest I can get is that they came back after a REALLY long time, the apes had taken over, but inexplicably kept human forms and functions in service), but then, neither did the ending of the 1968 film (and the sequels just kept digging the hole deeper). As I understand it, Boule’s novel was really supposed to be satire, not taken at all seriously (like Douglas Adams’ stuff), and should really have its title translate as the much less pretentious “Monkey Planet”. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/38 "2014-01-13T12:52:12Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > I don’t think “Empire Strikes Back” was one, but I do remember that sinking feeling when the music started swelling and thinking “Awwww nooo.” _Empire_ definitely qualifies - not only weren’t we used to mid-trilogy cliffhangers at the point it came out but it was all rather abrupt. I think a lot of people, myself included, had a “Wait, what? That’s it?” reaction. I sort of hit this with _Donnie Darko_ in that I spent a lot of the movie thinking “This is going to be cool when it all gets explained” and then suddently BAM we get to the climax of events and the aftermath and nothing is really explained at all. And not in a clever “ooo, this is ambiguous” way but more in a _Lost_/“we’re going to put weird shit in that we can’t explain either and pretend it’s deep and meaningful” way. ---
**Author:** ![RobDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f07891/32.png) [@RobDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobDog)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/39 "2014-01-13T12:57:57Z")
No Country for Old M ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2014, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612/40 "2014-01-13T13:13:55Z")
[Special Report: Journey to Mars (1996)](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116719/combined). The movie just ends. You hear the astronauts talking about “What’s that over there?” and the transmission just goes to static. End of movie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-when-they-ended-you-went-whaaaaat/678612.md?page=3)