ICBM
King Koopa
Didn't know we did status updates here now
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Post by ICBM on Dec 29, 2010 17:20:15 GMT -5
I hate it, absolutely hate it. It ruined The Wrestler for me, it apparently ruined the finale of The Sopranos for a lot of people also. It's just a crappy way to end a movie or series. The wrestler did have a very easily implied ending but to actually show that would end the movie by introducing new material(IE the aftermath questions) so it would be open ended anyway. The Sopranos had a definite ending. I will not even begin to explain this but there was a thread here once that had the equivelent of a film school masters thesis on the ending that was all but confirmed by David Chase and the only reason he cannot say so is because HBO has an option of doing a movie so it had to stay publicly ambiguous. There was finality in there believe me
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riseofsetian1981
King Koopa
"I met him fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left."
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Post by riseofsetian1981 on Dec 29, 2010 17:31:37 GMT -5
See, I like its use in the Wrestler, because, depending on of which opinion you belong to , it essentially created two films out of one. Allow me to explain further. {Spoiler}If you are of the opinion that Randy lived, then it's essentially like most "underdog overcomes the odds" film, albeit with better acting.
If, however, you are of the opinion that he died, then the movie is essentially the documentation of a man's march towards death.
Two completely different attitudes conveyed with the exact same film, all dependent on the ending. It is what puts the preceding in context. {Spoiler}He died, there is no debate. Sure it didn't show him convulsing, but all signs led to him passing on. You don't always have to show the gun going off in someones mouth and out the back of their head, sometimes you can just fade to black and hear a bang. {Spoiler}I think for The Wrestler it was intended to leave it open for the viewers to decide. My opinion? I believe he lived and continued to wither away as a down and out wrestler.
However, I can see where people come up with the belief that Randy died as well. I just prefer to sometimes believe in a happy ending and maybe, just maybe he reunited with his daughter at some point too.
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Glitch
King Koopa
Not Going To Die; Childs, we're goin' out to give Blair the test. If he tries to make it back here and we're not with him... burn him.
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Post by Glitch on Dec 29, 2010 17:32:50 GMT -5
Give us some examples. And are you saying your completely against all open endings? The best example of why it's annoying is probably The Ninth Gate. They spend the entire movie building this gate like it holds some kind of incredible truth that might change mankind forever, the entire movie revolves around figuring out what is behind that gate, they finally find it, the hero is about to cross it and... nothing! Nothing at all! Fade to black! The End! Bulls***, you can't just build up something for the entire duration of your movie, make it the main characters' entire motivation, for which they ready to die and kill, and then not show it! It's like if Star Wars episode IV ended just before the assault on the Death Star, and there was no sequel. I guess open endings CAN work, if the rest of the movie makes things ambiguous enough or, as Tank said, if a sequel is guaranteed, but most of the time, they're used for no reason other than the director essentially saying "heh, I got nothing". See, that's my problem with it right there. Most movies that use it otherwise have a plot that leaves absolutely NO ROOM for an open ending, with the characters' motivations clearly established. If you gave the hero an explicit goal, then either they win, or they lose, but you can't just go "whatever" and let the viewer write the ending for you. EDIT: dammit, it's "gate", not "door". I getcha. I wasn't aware that many films using the open ending. Just like every other writing technique, it can be abused. My favorite use of it is the ending for "M"(original german version) when his sentence is given out.
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Lupin the Third
Patti Mayonnaise
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Post by Lupin the Third on Dec 29, 2010 17:42:38 GMT -5
I think it's an ending that is most related to the story "The Lady or the Tiger?" Wikipedia articleI used to like the ending, but now I feel that it too is overdone.
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Post by anticonscience on Dec 29, 2010 17:47:56 GMT -5
I loved Ben Stiller's indie movie earlier this year, "Greenberg" up until its lack of an ending. I honestly don't think I've ever been more pissed off at how a movie ended.
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Post by SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman on Dec 29, 2010 17:51:24 GMT -5
...Every director and their cousin use them nowadays... I bet you cant name twenty from the past decade. Roman Polanski (the Ninth Gate) Kevin Greutert (Saw 3D) Christopher Nolen (Inception) Mary Harron (American Psycho) Ana Clavell & James Glenn Dudelson (Day of the Dead 2: Contagium) Robert Zemeckis (Cast Away) Dan Gildark (Cthulhu) Colin & Greg Strause (Skyline) Christopher Smith (Triangle) Oren Peli (Paranormal Activity) Tod Williams (Paranormal Activity 2) Emmanuel Carrère (La Moustache) Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Carribeans 2) Gus Van Sant (Elephant. And yes, it's pretty obvious what happened to most of the characters, but I'm still counting it because it's supposed to be a freaking historical movie, and stopping it halfway through is even less excusable in that case) Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) Christophe Gans (Silent Hill) David Cronenberg (A History of Violence) Ethan & Joel Coen (No Coutry For Old Men) There. And I don't go to the movies that often. Oh, and that's only movie directors. Let's not forget some TV series also did it, like Angel or The Sopranos.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2010 17:57:54 GMT -5
I just saw Skyline two days ago and that ending was one of the most annoying endings I've ever seen. There was absolutely no reason for them to go that route, IMO.
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sryans
Don Corleone
BROOKLYN, BROOKLYN
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Post by sryans on Dec 29, 2010 19:26:57 GMT -5
Some of your examples are completely ridiculous. Inception sets up the entire atmosphere of ambiguity from scene number 1, the open ending was to be expected and was not thrown in there due to laziness. In fact, Nolan has stated that it does not really matter if the top stops or not as that was not the point. Pirates of the Caribbean 2 had a sequel which wrapped matters up. No Country for Old Men did not have an open ending. Old guy retires, bad guy gets away with it, not at all open. The only ambiguity in Elephant is who is the last victim. Cloverfield's ending was not out of laziness, had not much ambiguity as it is pretty clear {Spoiler}the military bombs the s*** out of the city until Cloverfield is dead. The ending was not out of laziness from the writers and the movie may have a sequel upcoming. Some of those endings probably suck, I have not seen many of those movies, but some of them had good, or even great endings, and you are just picking on them to make your point.
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Jay Peas 42
El Dandy
Totally flips out ALL the time.
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Post by Jay Peas 42 on Dec 29, 2010 19:53:13 GMT -5
It works in some circumstances, but for the most part, you should try to finish your work. Cinema may be art, but it's also showmanship, and showman reward their audiances for sticking around.
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Post by G✇JI☈A on Dec 29, 2010 19:55:44 GMT -5
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Mr T L Wolf
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Post by Mr T L Wolf on Dec 29, 2010 20:10:18 GMT -5
{Spoiler}Regarding The Wrestler, the fade to black because his life is over could work for his living, also. Whether or not Robin Raminski died (I may have that name wrong), he realizes that Randy the Ram is dead and he cannot keep forcing his body to wrestle, so he puts The Ram out of his misery, his own body be damned.
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Post by Kevin's Thorn on Dec 29, 2010 20:16:13 GMT -5
Paranormal Activity had 3 total endings (one theatrical, and two 'director's cut' versions on the DVD for each regional code), none of which were at all ambigious to me. I don't know what film you were watching, but I had no questions about what I had just seen at all.
I haven't watched the second one, but the summary I got from someone leads me to believe it was also not open ended. I think a definition of "open" endings should be clarified-- do you simply mean "bad endings" here??
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Post by SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman on Dec 29, 2010 20:33:13 GMT -5
Some of your examples are completely ridiculous. My point was that it was overused. You claimed I couldn't name at least 20 directors who used it in the past decade, and I did. I don't care how "ridiculous" they are, my point stands: it's way too f'n overused. I never said the opposite. And it doesn't contradict my point that it's being overused. and "it doesn't matter" is an excuse I've heard way too many times to justify lazy writing. No Country for Old Men did not have an open ending. Old guy retires, bad guy gets away with it, not at all open. Okay, okay, I'll admit that one wasn't a really fair pick. It still used that gimmick. And considering the first movie did have some kind of ending, it's not like you came in expecting it to not have any ending at all. It's not like The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter where you pretty much know you won't get the whole story by the end (and even then both of these franchises had more satisfying endings for each of their respective installments). Pirates just sort of stops midway through the action. Again, it's supposed to be a historical movie. The mere idea of ending the movie without showing the end of the events is ludicrous. It's like if Titanic (which wasn't even aiming for accuracy to begin with) ended after the boat crashed into the iceberg. Oh sure, we know the boat sinks and a bunch of people die in the end, but it's still a stupid idea. Again, how does that nullify my point that the gimmick is overused? Besides, would it really have hurt the movie that much to make it more explicit if the characters survived or not? If the attack on the monster was a success? Don't get me wrong, I loved the movie, but considering they spend 20 freaking minutes establishing that the main characters are, in fact, the main characters before the first glimpse of the monster, you'd think the ending would be more... detailed. Not to mention it's supposed to be footage confiscated by the military How so? My point is that too many movies use the open ending thing, and I just gave examples of a bunch of movies that use it, thus proving my point. As far as these endings being great... let's just say art is subjective.
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Post by SsnakeBite, the No1 Frenchman on Dec 29, 2010 20:42:44 GMT -5
Paranormal Activity had 3 total endings (one theatrical, and two 'director's cut' versions on the DVD for each regional code), none of which were at all ambigious to me. I don't know what film you were watching, but I had no questions about what I had just seen at all. I haven't watched the second one, but the summary I got from someone leads me to believe it was also not open ended. I think a definition of "open" endings should be clarified-- do you simply mean "bad endings" here?? Dude, the second movie freaking ends by essentially saying "we don't know what happened to the girl and the baby" and essentially re-enacts the events of the first one but in a different house. So after sitting through two boring, uninspired, clichés-ridden movies that only manage to create some reaction through a whole bunch of jump scares, we STILL don't know what the main character is up to or even really whatever is going on (and please don't insult your intelligence and mine with the old "not knowing what's going is what makes it creepy" excuse. Silent Hill (the games at least) creep you out with the unknown. PA doesn't let you know because it obviously doesn't have a clue what's going on itself). I'm sorry but when a series has yet to establish anything after two movies (oh right, there was apparently a deal with the devil or a witch or whatever a long time ago. Great, that explains everything), there's some seriously lazy writing going on.
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sryans
Don Corleone
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Post by sryans on Dec 29, 2010 20:47:02 GMT -5
I did not ask you to do anything. What you said was:
And none of the endings I pointed out were due to laziness (except perhaps Pirates 2, but that movie sucked anyway). Some were stylistic choices, other were necessitated by the film, but they were not due to laziness.
If you are going to complain about open endings being too prolific then do so, and we will argue about that, but do not just tack on this weird part of your argument where you say they are due to laziness or something, because then we are having two separate arguments.
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Post by mysterydriver on Dec 29, 2010 21:01:20 GMT -5
Wait...was "Triangle" that abominable time-loop related movie?
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Post by YAKMAN is ICHIBAN on Dec 29, 2010 21:02:29 GMT -5
Out of hundreds of movies every year, not that many have open endings. It can hardly be said to be overused. The problem is that it isn't used WELL very often.
Why do you keep calling Elephant a historical film? Inspired by Columbine, certainly, but it wasn't meant to be a factual film.
It's been awhile, but I don't remember PotC2's ending being ambiguous. Wasn't it something like Jack Sparrow is eaten by the Kraken, they go to the voodoo lady's house who says that Sparrow isn't really dead and Barbossa shows up to set the stage for the sequel? That isn't any more of a non-ending than Empire Strikes Back. (Not comparing the quality of the two films. PotC2 and 3 were both pretty awful)
Sounds to me like you just have a personal dislike of ambiguity, rather than it being the result of an actual overuse of it. That's just fine, too.
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Raging_Demons
Don Corleone
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Post by Raging_Demons on Dec 29, 2010 21:06:49 GMT -5
{Spoiler}He died, there is no debate. Sure it didn't show him convulsing, but all signs led to him passing on. You don't always have to show the gun going off in someones mouth and out the back of their head, sometimes you can just fade to black and hear a bang. {Spoiler}I think for The Wrestler it was intended to leave it open for the viewers to decide. My opinion? I believe he lived and continued to wither away as a down and out wrestler.
However, I can see where people come up with the belief that Randy died as well. I just prefer to sometimes believe in a happy ending and maybe, just maybe he reunited with his daughter at some point too. {Spoiler}If you check out the extras for "The Wrestler" DVD. They showed the last scene of the movie where the stunt wrestler is doing "The Ram Jam", not the close-up shot of Mickey Rourke. Darren Aronosfky (The director) joked to the stunt wrestler saying that Randy "The Ram" must have lived. So yeah Randy "The Ram" was going to die anyways.
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Post by Bang Bang Bart on Dec 29, 2010 21:10:50 GMT -5
I just saw Skyline two days ago and that ending was one of the most annoying endings I've ever seen. There was absolutely no reason for them to go that route, IMO. Can we even call that ending an "ending"? It's like the filmmakers knew that Skyline was gonna be a bomb, and decided to insert the credits right in the middle of the film.
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Post by YAKMAN is ICHIBAN on Dec 29, 2010 21:32:29 GMT -5
Isn't criticizing the ending of Skyline like analyzing the writing of a Sci-Fi Channel movie?
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