Spot on. I came into the thread to say just this.
The first Transformers cartoon: watch the first two seasons, then the movie, then stop.
Gargoyles: watch the first two seasons, then stop.
I would say “The Andy Griffith Show” when they went to color but I’m trying to convince myself those don’t exist.
Ah, there’s a thread for that!
The Mist
Run out after the guy shoots the folks in the car, then screams in agony. RUN, DAMMIT ! You only have a few seconds to get out !
Red Riding Hood (2011): immediately after the opening credits. What a bomb.
Moulin Rouge - turn the movie off when the red curtain comes down. OFF. Do not watch another single second.
We’ve been watching that movie that way for years, it’s so much better.
The War of the Worlds (Spielberg/Cruise version). Stop when Cruise is walking down the deserted street carying his daughter towards hs ex-parents-in-laws house, before the utterly stupid reveal of hs son’s fate.
The scene would have worked if Fanning was dead - would have been breathtakingly cynical, truth be told.
Please spoil!
[spoiler]Cruise has weekend visitation with his kids (10 yo Dakota Fanning, 16 year old “Robbie”), so his ex-wife drops them off at the beginning of the movie, about 6 to 10 hours before the aliens attack. When they attack, Cruise’s general goal is to get back with the ex-wife, who was going to Boston (Cruise is in New Jersey.)
Tom Cruise and Robbie get separated on a battlefield. Most people watching the film expect the kid to die, ignoring the fact that Tom Cruise ran to a farmhouse about 150 feet away to hide and didn’t die either, but he doesn’t die, a fact revealed at the very end of the movie.
The ending is the weakest part of the movie. Cruise walks up to a house, holding Fanning. A door opens, revealing his ex-wife, her current husband, her parents (the leads from the 1950’s adaption!)… and finally, Robbie, who runs to hug his Dad.
I just think it would have been far more powerful had Dakota Fanning been killed after Robbie left his Dad.[/spoiler]
Also skip any episode set in Africa.
Actually, with respect to “I am Legend” : If you can, find the ‘alternate ending’ — and for most people, it is literally two clicks and a little typing away from here — which is the original ending. Much closer to the book, and actually makes sense given the rest of the movie.
But blame the test audiences. They hated it. Since you missed it, what actually happens in that scene in the released version is He blows them all up and sacrifices himself so the woman and child live. EXPLOSIONS. SCREAMING BURNING VAMPIRE ZOMBIES. Woman and child escape, arrive at walled city in Vermont with the cure. Hooray for mankind.
I recall muttering to my son part way through the movie, “I hope that girl dies soon.” My word, the incessant screaming, Cruise’s character should have killed her.