Jurassic Park.
Some of the heroes survive, including the idiot who thought this was a good idea to begin with. Some people died, including a few good people we grew to love and care about. There seems to be no way to prevent the dinosaurs from eventually leaving the island other than simply kicking the can down the road a few years. And by the time of Jurassic World, mankind is struggling with living with dinosaurs all over the world.
The Cabin in the Woods.
Only in the movie. In the book John Hammond, Ian Malcolm, and Henry Wu all die and the dinosaurs are destroyed by the Costa Rican military.
Uh, did Crichton get that wrong? There is no military in Costa Rica.
“Oh, look who knows so much, huh? Well, it turns out that your friend Ian here is only mostly dead.”
He turns out to be alive in the second novel.
Rogue One Mission accomplished - everyone on the planet dies
Ambrose Bierce (Mr. Optimist) - "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Is our main character, a confederate sympathizer, plantation and slave owner a hero? believes the rope/noose snapped when he’s hung and he’s fallen into the creek, he escapes, arrives exhausted from the chase at his home - it’s a hallucination. He’s now back on the bridge and the hanging is real.
An oldie but goldie (okay, cult classic more than anything else).
Angel Heart (1987) - a PI reluctantly follows up on a missing person who retained possession of his client’s property The investigation ends up sparking a series of brutal murders, and ends in the death of the protagonist - and then it gets worse.
I will comment that horror and noir movies are the most common it seems for failures.
Darn. I was going to mention “They Live”.
Probably. I don’t have the book in front of me but I distinctly remember the military landing on Isla Nublar and blasting away some dinos at the very end of the book. I suppose it could be some other nation’s military but the book also makes it clear that Hammond leased the island from Costa Rica.
Indeed and I think Chrichton got some shit for that because Malcolm, having succumbed to his T-Rex wounds, was clearly dead at the end of JP. The fact that he magically turned up alive in The Lost World was incredibly lazy writing.
We will agree on this. Shoot straight, you Bastards, Don’t make a mess of it!
Yeah, this thread hasn’t gotten too deep into classic or neo-noir but they’re chockablock with losing protagonists. Not a lot of happy endings to be found (a few I guess, but not a lot).
…and murderers.
For a book, instead of a movie, there is “Survival Margin” by Charles Eric Maine. Not spoilering since it is over 50 years old and you really don’t want to read it.
In the end the hero is caught by the bad guys, and out before a firing squad. He expects to get rescued.
He isn’t.
I see several mentions of Avengers: Infinity War but none of Captain America: Civil War. The bad guy wins in that movie, he accomplishes everything he set out to do and breaks up the Avengers. And unlike IW it wasn’t just undone in the next movie.
I think Gharlane is retired and living in Ireland. I did warn him that it’s rather cold and rainiy there, but of course if you are a powerful entity from another universe, you can probably create your own microclimate.
Ooh, all the plot twists in that book were great!
At that, how about, say, Primal Fear? The defense attorney genuinely comes to care about his client, and tries everything he can to save the guy, and somehow manages to win the case — only to then have said client patiently explain to him that, oh, hey: I’m incredibly guilty.
Recommendation accepted.
When it ended, I was open mouth stunned
I just downloaded The Plot. Y’all made it sound intriguing.