# Stupidest Movie Endings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 17, 2012, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996 "2012-09-17T19:34:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/1 "2012-09-17T19:34:26Z")
Well okay, I don’t think any movie can really top _Monster a Go Go_ where the mutated astronaut gets chased down a sewer and disappears. A telegram then says the astronaut was rescued in the ocean completely normal. The end. But I just watched _Travels with My Aunt_. Contrived story of a straight laced guy traveling all over Europe with his aunt trying to raise money for his aunt’s lover’s kidnapping ransom. At the end, after endless bickering over who’s lifestyle is better, the straight laced nephew flips a coin in the air to decide whether they should live his aunt’s way or his way. The frame freezes on the coin, so you never find out. Dumb. Or how about the more famous _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_? Everybody gets arrested. I think they just ran out of movie. Any others? You can use spoiler tags if you want to. I just thought these examples were too old, too obscure, too famous for anyone to care. ---
**Author:** ![It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/it_s_not_rocket_surgery/32/312_2.png) [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/2 "2012-09-17T19:40:07Z")
[_Two Lane Blacktop_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-Lane_Blacktop) has an odd ending for an odd film. In the middle of a drag race, it appears as if the film gets stuck in the projector and the film stock catches fire. ---
**Author:** ![campp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@campp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/campp)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/3 "2012-09-17T19:40:13Z")
The \*\*Fifth Element \*\*was a nice looking film, but crapped out horribly at the end. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/4 "2012-09-17T19:44:38Z")
The end of the theatrical release of _[The Abyss](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096754/)_ was pretty damn stupid. Which was a shame, because the rest of the film was good. The Special Edition ending was a lot better. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Doom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Dr\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Doom)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/5 "2012-09-17T19:51:54Z")
[Knowing](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448011/), with Nicholas Cage was going along quite well, until late in the film, when Mrs\_Doom reacted to a scene by blurting out “Oh great, it’s a fucking alien spaceship!” Also, [Hollow Man](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0164052/), with Elisabeth Shue and Kevin Bacon was pretty enjoyable, right up until Shue’s character picks up a huge machinegun and says, a la Rambo, “We’re gonna take him down.” ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/6 "2012-09-17T19:54:11Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Or how about the more famous _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_? Everybody gets arrested. I think they just ran out of movie. Close - they just ran out of money. There were going to be reasonably elaborate closing credits, presumably by Terry Gilliam, but the lack of money resulted in the “black screen and organ music for two minutes” ending. ---
**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:** [September 17, 2012, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/7 "2012-09-17T19:56:04Z")
I’m still annoyed by the end of **Blazing Saddles** , myself. But the biggest mess-of-an-ending, how-the-hell-do-we-finish-this-film has to be the 1960s version of **Casino Royale**. It’s noisier and mmessier than Blazing Saddles. George Raft flipping a coin? The Frankenstein monster? Woody Allen with atomic burps? ---
**Author:** ![Pine\_Fresh\_Scent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/43a26b/32.png) [@Pine\_Fresh\_Scent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pine_Fresh_Scent)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/8 "2012-09-17T19:57:06Z")
Some people had issues with the [ending\*](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO-gsK6DBEI)of Paul Thomas Anderson’s _There Will Be Blood_. I think the ending’s fine; however, the ending for Anderson’s _Magnolia_ only confirmed that “yep, I have just wasted three hours waiting for this thing to pay off.” Ugh. \*spoof ending in this link. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/9 "2012-09-17T20:47:38Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I’m still annoyed by the end of **Blazing Saddles** , myself. > > But the biggest mess-of-an-ending, how-the-hell-do-we-finish-this-film has to be the 1960s version of **Casino Royale**. It’s noisier and mmessier than Blazing Saddles. George Raft flipping a coin? The Frankenstein monster? Woody Allen with atomic burps? Yeah, I would put _Blazing Saddles_ high on the list. Regarding _Casino Royale_… seems like a lot of 60s comedies had moronic endings. Like _Around the World in 80 Days_ (Robert Morley or whoever looking into the camera and saying “This is the end”). ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/10 "2012-09-17T20:48:11Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Or how about the more famous _Monty Python and the Holy Grail_? Everybody gets arrested. I think they just ran out of movie. I’ll second this. I don’t care how quintessentially British the humor is, or whatever other lame excuse you care to use. It’s like they just got bored with the movie and said “Screw it! Let’s wrap this thing up so we can go home.” ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/11 "2012-09-17T21:34:02Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > I’ll second this. I don’t care how quintessentially British the humor is, or whatever other lame excuse you care to use. It’s like they just got bored with the movie and said “Screw it! Let’s wrap this thing up so we can go home.” So you haven’t actually seen the movie, have you? Because if you had, you would have noticed that the ending was set up by several scenes all throughout (the professor being killed by the knight, the police investigating their murder). There were additional scenes not shot that would have further continued that line, too, so the entire thing was planned from the beginning (something that should be obvious to anyone paying attention). If the ending was dictated by running out of money, how was it they had enough money to shoot all those extra scenes? The ending is one of the funniest in film. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/12 "2012-09-17T21:56:11Z")
The Mainland China ending of _[Infernal Affairs](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infernal_Affairs)_ (the movie remade in the US as _The Departed_) has to be up there. In the original ending the triad mole in the police force gets away clean. This couldn’t be shown under the Mainland Chinese equivalent of the Hayes Code, which prohibited films ending with criminals unpunished, so an extremely unconvincing scene was grafted on to the end where the mole meekly surrenders to hordes of uniformed police when he steps out of the elevator. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/13 "2012-09-17T22:20:40Z")
> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > Close - they just ran out of money. There were going to be reasonably elaborate closing credits, presumably by Terry Gilliam, but the lack of money resulted in the “black screen and organ music for two minutes” ending. Monty Python weren’t really known for their endings, anyway. Of the sketches in the TV series, I can only think of a few that really had any sort of a finish to them. Their humor was in the buildup, and not the punchline. Of course, _Life of Brian_ had one of the best endings, ever. I’ll add [Le Salaire de la Peur](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046268/) (_Wages of Fear_ in the U.S.). Four men with nothing to live for are offered a fortune to deliver unstable explosives over dangerous roads to an oil well fire. Only one completes the trip. Finally safe, he is driving back to collect his reward, happily swerving back and forth on a mountain road, when he goes through the guardrail and is killed. I know someone will say how existential and French it was, “doo not to tempt zee fates, yes?”, but it just came out of nowhere. I prefer the American remake, _Sorcerer_. The ending is equally bleak, but it is the character’s past catching up with him, not just a _deus ex michelin_. ---
**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:** [September 17, 2012, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/14 "2012-09-17T22:36:32Z")
The OP mentions the film adaptation of \*\*Travels With My Aunt \*\*which is based on a novel by Graham Greene. I’ve read a lot of Graham Greene but I somehow missed “Travels With My Aunt” so I don’t know if the film’s ending is the same as the book’s. Perhaps another Doper can fill us in. > [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > I’ll add [Le Salaire de la Peur](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046268/) (_Wages of Fear_ in the U.S.). Four men with nothing to live for are offered a fortune to deliver unstable explosives over dangerous roads to an oil well fire. Only one completes the trip. Finally safe, he is driving back to collect his reward, happily swerving back and forth on a mountain road, when he goes through the guardrail and is killed. I know someone will say how existential and French it was, “doo not to tempt zee fates, yes?”, but it just came out of nowhere. I prefer the American remake, _Sorcerer_. The ending is equally bleak, but it is the character’s past catching up with him, not just a _deus ex michelin_. Don’t forget that we also see the girlfriend of the driver suddenly drop dead while she’s dancing in the cafe. I realize they were going for a downer ending but, viewing it from today’s perspective, so much random tragedy is piled on that it seems like a parody. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/15 "2012-09-17T23:08:19Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > Don’t forget that we also see the girlfriend of the driver suddenly drop dead while she’s dancing in the cafe. I realize they were going for a downer ending but, viewing it from today’s perspective, so much random tragedy is piled on that it seems like a parody. Yeah, I found the scene on youtube to refresh my memory before writing my post. (I couldn’t remember if it was a rock slide or a tire blowout that forced Mario off the road. Neither one, actually; he was just being an idiot.) It’s not absolutely clear she’s dead; may have just fainted for some reason. However, she’s rather too well-dressed and made-up, consider the location and circumstances. The remake made the town so much more bleak and depressing; where you’d wind up if you really had to disappear. ---
**Author:** ![Hottius\_Maximus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hottius\_Maximus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hottius_Maximus)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/16 "2012-09-17T23:39:25Z")
After watching “Burn After Reading” I just asked myself WHAT THE HELL was THAT all about!? Totally senseless! I agree about “Magnolia” and I’ll add that neither the beginning nor the ending made any sense and had NOTHING to do with the rest of the movie. The in-between parts were good though. “No Country For Old Men” yeah that made no sense to me either. And i forget the title here, but the David Lynch film with Robert Blake; I think it was called “Lost Highway” but I’m sure somebody here will correct me if I’m wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Labtrash](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/labtrash/32/528_2.png) [@Labtrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labtrash)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/17 "2012-09-17T23:43:13Z")
The Mist. Fucking Hollywood. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2012, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/18 "2012-09-17T23:48:57Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > So you haven’t actually seen the movie, have you? Because if you had, you would have noticed that the ending was set up by several scenes all throughout (the professor being killed by the knight, the police investigating their murder). There were additional scenes not shot that would have further continued that line, too, so the entire thing was planned from the beginning (something that should be obvious to anyone paying attention). If the ending was dictated by running out of money, how was it they had enough money to shoot all those extra scenes? > > The ending is one of the funniest in film. Couldn’t agree more. . ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2012, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/19 "2012-09-18T00:05:40Z")
> [@Labtrash](#): > > The Mist. > > Fucking Hollywood. Really? I thought that ending was great. For that matter, so did Stephen King who IIRC, said he wished he’d thought of it first. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2012, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996/20 "2012-09-18T00:21:06Z")
The mist had a great ending. Well, not ‘great’ but a very memorable one. The movie [Vanishing on 7th Street](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1452628/) had a good plot and ending to me, but a lot of people didn’t like it because it left things unresolved. To me that was a big part of the appeal. On an unrelated note, [Ink](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1071804/) had one of the best endings I’ve seen. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stupidest-movie-endings/634996.md?page=2)