Obviously, lots of folks were disappointed in LOST, which presented a huge amount of cool mysteries and than just waved them away. X-files also presented a vast conspiracy only to forget about most of it and use fan fiction in the end to tie it all together.
What works of art have pretty much wrapped things up nicely?
My two are:
Babylon 5 - I felt very satisfied with the ending, even if it was pressed into season 4. JMS said we would only be able to ask, “Now what?” at the end and he pretty much got it. I’m sure there are some problems, but it was very cleanly resolved.
Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson really intrigued me through the first Mistborn book. There was obviously a lot going on we didn’t know about and a lot of deep background info. we weren’t entirely and reliably informed on. In the end, I really felt the final book did a great job wrapping everything up.
The Last of Sheila is one of my favorite mysteries. There are actually several mysteries and puzzles presented in the course of the film. They’re all interrelated, and they’re all solved by the end of the film. A real tour-de-force.
Sleuth, a play and film that’s related in odd ways to TLoS, also presents several puzzles in the course of the thing (especially the play and first film). Both are about a wealthy eccentric who obsesses with games and puzzles, including mind games. But both “play fair” with the audience.
Arthur Conan Doyle always tried to tie up his loose ends in his Sherlock Holmes novels. His Hound of the Baskervilles, for instance, is filled with little questions and side-mysteries connected to the case, and Doyle does try to account for them all.
One that I’ve mentioned before on this board: the American version of Life On Mars. A modern cop finds himself seemingly transported to the '70s. But is it time travel? A coma dream? etc. Although it’s really mainly the one mystery, as opposed to lots of mysteries, there were a number of smaller questions that were related to the nature of the protagonist’s experience. I liked the resolution given in the final episode.
The British version finished with much more of an open ending (however there’s a sequel that I have as yet been unable to get my hands on which may or may not wrap up the mysteries).
Both versions are well done, but the American version at least somewhat fits the OP.
The Serenity movie pretty well wrapped up most of the issues from the Firefly series, with only two exceptions: (1) Shepherd Book’s past, and (2) Inara’s health. Neither is critical to achieve closure on the main stories.
How so, exactly? At the end of the movie we know absolutely nothing about what actually happened. All we really know is Kevin Spacey’s character is not who he says he was.
I am never going to watch another series like that unless the Producers show proof that the series “reveals” are sealed in a mayonnaise jar on Funk & Wagnalls porch.
As I’ve noted, the local libraries have for some reason got LOTS of Clive Cussler’s obscenely huge output in audiobook form, and I’ve been listening to them on my commutes to and from work for a couple of years now. Cussler sets up at least a couple of mysteries and loose ends at the start of his stories, leaving McGuffins to drive the plot, as well as minor mysteries throughout. He always manages to resolve them all in a great ludicrous ending.
I don’t know if that’s a good solution either. How I Met Your Mother wasn’t really a mystery show, but the writers did have a solution on how they would wrap everything up that they’d planned from the beginning. Maybe it would have worked if the show had just been a few seasons, but after everything that went on, the ending just didn’t work for most people.
It’s good to have a plan for overall answers for the end, but it’s also necessary to be able to improvise if things have come up in the middle part of the story.
My thoughts exactly. We know the Big Reveal, but because of that we have no idea how much of the “story” actually took place or was made up.
If you look at the “hard evidence”, all you really have are a bunch of bodies (including those who could corroborate the story) and no coke. EVERYTHING else may or may not have taken place as “described”.
I almost listed this as an example of a movie that does NOT work, like LOST.
By the way, I hardly think cancellation for shows should count as bad wrap up, since they didn’t get their chance. I would prefer to judge shows that actually finished.
Yeah, but it disqualifies them for “pretty much wrapped things up nicely,” which is what the OP asked for.
Any good mystery novel or movie should wrap things up nicely at the end, but it gets harder when you try to think of one that “presents lots of mysteries” instead of just the central who- or howdunit.
My point is that we are looking for ones that did end things well, wrapping things up. No point in complaining about canceled shows, since we don’t know how they would have ended.
