Have you ever watched a movie, and upon the movie ending, you’ve wondered “I wonder what happens next?”, but not in a “I want to see a sequel” sense?
Two examples that always bug me:
(1) In Terminator 2, Our Heroes have defeated the T-1000, and Arnie and the chip have been melted. Good times, right? But Sarah is still a wanted fugitive who the cops think is insane, she and John were just involved in an enormous firefight and building-blowing-up, and the cops have had plenty of time to surround the steel mill. Aren’t they just going to be arrested immediately?
(2) In The Sound of Music, what’s going to happen to the poor nuns who sabotaged the Nazis’ car?
Saw it twice. It was better than I expected. Although not as good as the T2 sequel books by SM Stirling.
But that’s not the point at all… the question is not “what happens several years down the line”. The question is “how the heck do John and Sarah get out of the steel mill, which (by all logic) ought to be surrounded by thousands of cops, SWAT teams, etc.”
6th Sense. The kid understood his problem. Big deal! Now he knows that he has to actually devote his playing time to assist ghosts in distress, if he wants to be spared from their anger. Not quite satisfactory (for me, at least).
I enjoyed the open-ended ending to Ghost World. I can’t imagine a better way to end it. It was basically that scene at the end of Good Will Hunting where Ben Affleck drives up to Matt Damon’s empty house like he said he would earlier and watching it is like eating a big block of cheese, except in Ghost World somehow it seemed to be done a whole better.
Ive always felt that way about Return of the Jedi. Leaves too much to wonder about at the end.
But i wouldnt watch a sequel either, because in and off itself, the ending is great.
As much as I bear a grudge against it for triggering a major OCD episode years ago, I have to admit that the movie From Dusk Till Dawn features a pretty cool response to all those “What happened next?” movies. You should see it for yourself.
How screwed was Frank Bullitt’s career after Bullitt ended? He was forced to kill the real Ross. Chalmers, a powerful and politically ambitious DA, was pissed at him for losing his star witness, and for getting the doctor to lie to him about the cop still being alive.
How does James Bond break up with the babe from the end of each movie? Does he use the “it’s not you, it’s me” method? Or “Sorry, darling, I need my space, but I’ll include you in my memoirs.”
Who says he breaks up with them? Maybe he just has lots of babes around the world. Then when he has some time off he just says, well I haven’t seen her in awhile. Sounds really good to me. I just want to know how many kids he has.
The Hitcher with Rutger Hauer and C. Thomas Howell deliberately and excellently sets the viewer up to ask this very question. By the end of the movie, Howell’s whole life is in a shambles. He’s guilty of one killing, and is #1 suspect for several more. The police forces of the entire state are going to want his head on a pike. Yet our last look at him is just him kneeling rather forlornly in the desert and lighting a cigarette.
The movie King Kong vs. Godzilla ends with the two title critters falling into the water, and a few seconds later you see King Kong swimming away, leading many people to assume that the big monkey somehow “won.” Now, contrary to urban legend, the original Japanese version of the movie did not have an alternate ending (I’ve seen it. Believe me, there is no damn alternate ending!!!) The only difference is that in the Japanese version, right after you hear King Kong roar as he swims away, you hear Godzilla roar as well, signifying he is still alive.
Anyway, given the fact that Godzilla is perfectly capable of swimming under water (in fact, he does it quite often), I’ve always imagined that right after the screen goes dark Godzilla reaches up and pulls the semi-evolved simian underwater and finishes him off.
Bond is such a love 'em and leave 'em type of guy though, and since I don’t remember a return appearance by any Bond Girl character in any of the films or books (at least in the ones I’ve read). I know Teri Hatcher’s character was an old flame of his in Tomorrow Never Dies, but she was more of a plot device than anything else and not a returning character AFAIK.
