Stupidest Movie Endings?

[Jake]

@Labtrash

The Mist.

Fucking Hollywood.

Agreed. The worst ending ever.

[CalMeacham]

@Detroit

I remember thinking “what a dumb ending”. Another terrible Disney ending was the Jungle Book. After he was rescued he suddenly sees a human girl and, with goofy grin on face, goes off with her to civilization. (They were both made in the 60s so I guess the same writers worked on both.

Some were the same. The guy most responsible for SitS (Bill Peet)wrote kids books of his own. I didn’t think he was associated with Jungle Book, but, according to iMDB he was – but was uncredited. And, yes, he did the story.
Another poster on this Board complained vociferously about the Disney Jungle Book and its complete variance from Kipling’s story. Disney reportedly didn’t like the story and had it changed to something livelier and with more conflct (and, one assumes, jokes and performances). I agree that the story isn’t satisfying (especially if you’ve read Kipling). But I did love it when I saw it as a kid.

[CalMeacham]

From iMDB trivia on Jungle Book:

Walt Disney told his animation crew to “throw away” Rudyard Kipling’s book, “The Jungle Book” because the original concept storyboards were too dark and dramatic. During pre-production, Disney assigned animator Larry Clemmons to head story development on the project. He gave Clemmons a copy of “The Jungle Book,” and told him, “The first thing I want you to do is not read it.”

The Jungle Book (1967) - Trivia - IMDb

[CalMeacham]

Although farther down they say this:

When Walt Disney rejected original screenwriter Bill Peet’s submitted screenplay, Peet quit the project.

No wonder he was uncredited.
Maybe his treatment was closer to the book. But you evidently can’t hold him responsible for The Jungle Book’s ending.

Every story idea was supervised by Walt Disney including the ending in which a girl entices Mowgli to go to the man village. Animator Ollie Johnston hated that ending because he felt it was lazy and tacked on but the more he worked on the sequence the more he began to feel it was the right one. Later Johnston said that he was glad that Walt didn’t listen to him

[Hottius_Maximus]

@Uncle_Jocko

Yeah, but JK Simmons’ scene at the end almost made it all worthwhile.

JK Simmons is awesome.

I Agree. JK Simmons is an awesome character actor; the best kind, in my opinion.

[Hottius_Maximus]

@Dave_Hartwick

I’ve mentioned this film before here as the most deus ex machina ending I know: The Bad Seed, one from the 50s. It’s not a bad movie-- at least in my memory, I haven’t seen it in a long time. The ending is so terrible that it actually makes it more interesting.

I would have to agree with you on that. I don’t know if you have ever seen the play or not, but the ending of the play is MUCH BETTER than the ending of the movie.

[Hottius_Maximus]

@AClockworkMelon

You aren’t very familiar with the Coen brothers, are you? I thought it was amazing.

Actually I have seen most of their films. Some I enjoyed (Fargo, Blood Simple, even Barton Fink, as slow as it was). I thought Big Lebowski SUCKED BIG TIME! And I actually was enjoying Burn After Reading until the ending.

[Lochdale]

@Miller

Not seem many films, have you?

You’re totally right. The ending was a real cop out.

:rolleyes::rolleyes:

[Miller]

@CalMeacham

Although farther down they say this:

When Walt Disney rejected original screenwriter Bill Peet’s submitted screenplay, Peet quit the project.

No wonder he was uncredited.
Maybe his treatment was closer to the book. But you evidently can’t hold him responsible for The Jungle Book’s ending.

An animation professor I had a few months back mentioned Bill Peet in a few of his lectures. According to him, there was a huge amount of friction between Peet and Disney over the way he’d end his films. Disney would regularly strip out most of the second act, feeling that the kids would get bored by the slower pace. This made Peet plenty pissed, since he felt that it ruined the pacing of the films, making them just sort of end abruptly, instead of rising to a natural conclusion. Jungle Book was the straw that broke the camels back.

[Gyrate]

@Floater

Did someone mention Monty Python and the Holy Grail yet? I have seen it a number of times but only once have I been lucky enough to enjoy the full ending - this was in a little artsy cinema run by a film enthusiast. All other times the copies have been cut after just a couple of seconds of organ music. BTW someone mentioned a black screen, but my recollection is a sign with the word “Intermission”.

There was an “Intermission” screen with cheesy organ music but in the middle, not at the end. If your screenings ended there, they were only showing one reel.

Note also that all the film credits were at the beginning of the film, complete with Swedish subtitles, so there was no need to have any at the end.

[Nava]

@Sauron

RE: Monty Python and the Holy Grail:

The whole MOVIE is a series of spliced-together scenes. Seriously, do you think Lancelot’s attack on the wedding, or Tim the Sorcerer and the battle with the rabbit, or King Arthur’s encounter with the Knights Who Say Ni, or Sir Robin’s minstrels, or King Arthur’s battle with the Black Knight, or Sir Galahad’s adventure after wicked, naughty, evil Zoot turned on the Grail light, were in any way necessary to advance the overall plot of searching for the Holy Grail?

It’s Python humor. It’s what they did. I understand it’s a matter of taste, but to try to argue they didn’t intend for the movie to end the way it did, even after being told the script was shot as written, is sorta silly.

Isn’t that the usual structure for chivalry novels, including the Arturic cycle(s)? A bunch of short stories, some with the same protagonists and some with different ones, told in an order which may or may not be entirely chronological and more-or-less pulled together by a main story. It’s not even “Python humor”, it’s the genre they were spoofing!

[Floater]

@Gyrate

There was an “Intermission” screen with cheesy organ music but in the middle, not at the end. If your screenings ended there, they were only showing one reel.

I’m talking about cutting the film right after the police raid, not showing the whole ending.

@Gyrate

Note also that all the film credits were at the beginning of the film, complete with Swedish subtitles, so there was no need to have any at the end.

I wouldn’t call it Swedish unless they have something to do with the Swedish (Norwegian?) chef.

[Bakhesh]

I can’t believe I forgot about it until now, but ‘The Happening’. The entire film is stupid, which might be why the ending doesn’t stand out as being any different. I’m not even going to spoiler box it, because if I stop you from watching it, you’ll thank me…
After all the plants on earth just decided to start randomly killing people for no real reason, they just decide to stop randomly killing people for no real reason. This conveniently happens just in time for Mark Wahlberg to hug his girlfriend in a field.

However, it is then revealed that the plants still want to randomly kill people for no reason, they have just decided to randomly kill French people instead.

[oft_wears_hats]

Has anyone mentioned Back to the Future Part III yet?

The whole series, Doc Brown is all about preserving the space time continuum, and at the end he shows up in broad daylight in a flying, steam powered, time travel train. He even gives Marty a framed, captioned picture of the both of them at the clock tower dedication in 1885, which he said “we’ll never be able to show anyone” earlier in the movie. And he’s had children with Clara, and visited the future in his stupid train! Way to keep a low profile, Doc!

I think it would have been much better to have Marty look up Doc Brown in the history books, see that he lived a long and happy life with Clara, and maybe meet one of his descendants in 1985. Bittersweet, sure, but loads better than the schmalty, incongruous, Disneyfied mess that we got.

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Bakhesh

After all the plants on earth just decided to start randomly killing people for no real reason, they just decide to stop randomly killing people for no real reason. This conveniently happens just in time for Mark Wahlberg to hug his girlfriend in a field.

However, it is then revealed that the plants still want to randomly kill people for no reason, they have just decided to randomly kill French people instead.

IIRC, this was covered in the movie, near the end: we get the usual scene of an egghead pondering exactly what just happened, with exposition about how this release of chemicals was the can-wipe-us-all-out plant world firing a warning shot at mankind, and – well, the other side figures it’s absurd to postulate intelligent flora doing threat-display truce-negotiation, because, hey, couldn’t this have just been a one-time chance occurrence instead of a planned Hiroshima bombing with some kind of if-and-only-if Nagasaki follow-up waiting in the wings?

[Quercus_alba]

No one’s mentioned A Boy and His Dog yet? :dubious:

[Diceman]

@Quercus_alba

No one’s mentioned A Boy and His Dog yet? :dubious:

I’ve actually seen this movie. (I’m not proud of that fact. I’m just sayin’.) The whole movie is demented and really stupid. It isn’t fair to single out the ending.

[Tamerlane]

@Diceman

The whole movie is demented and really stupid.

I’ve always liked it :). Jason Robards was a hoot and Tiger ( from The Bray Bunch ) did a fine job.

But then I think Zardoz has its good points, so you might want to disregard my taste in film :D.

[Grumman]

@oft_wears_hats

The whole series, Doc Brown is all about preserving the space time continuum, and at the end he shows up in broad daylight in a flying, steam powered, time travel train. He even gives Marty a framed, captioned picture of the both of them at the clock tower dedication in 1885, which he said “we’ll never be able to show anyone” earlier in the movie. And he’s had children with Clara, and visited the future in his stupid train! Way to keep a low profile, Doc!

He’s been away for more than a few years (long enough to have two sons). Is it really that hard to believe that he decided they only need to worry about preserving the past timeline and not the future timeline?

[KneadToKnow]

@Tamerlane

The Bray Bunch

Here’s the story
of a donkey lady…