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One of the best cliffhanger endings is John Carpenter's The Thing from 1982. The music, the two men happy to be surivors but still wondering if one or the other had been taken over by the alien. It was one of those cliffhanger endings that just didn't need a sequel.
That is a cool ending! Especially where one of them says maybe it's best they don't survive because they don't know if one of them or both were infected by the thing.
Exactly. You still see people conjecturing over it decades later, which is a mark of a good ending that perfectly fits the tone and theme of the film itself.
My favorite ending is from The Shawshank Redemption. After all the satisfying twists and resolutions during the film’s climax, the happy ending is dead simple but hits like a ton of bricks. Those guys _earned_ that ending.
Fun fact: that scene where they reunite on the beach was not in the film originally. The studio told the director that the movie was so harsh that the audience needed something happy at the end. The director disagreed. The studio said, "just shoot the scene. If you don't like it, you don't have to use it."
"Leia says they have everything they need, and that's quite a 180, especially considering that just before Luke arrived, she was saying the Resistance was doomed and the spark had gone out." Behold, the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
Terrible ending, from the anticlimactic battle once the green ghosts appeared to the many, many resolutions...yes, there were a lot of characters and plots to resolve, but it was just bad and ultimately unsatisfying. (Unlike The Two Towers, which was solid from top to bottom)
SPOILERS: The books have even more denouements. Peter Jackson actually spared you. Saruman somehow makes it to the Shire way faster than them, seemingly on foot, and corrupts and twists the whole town to his bidding like a mob boss. That plot with "Sharkey" ran for like 3 chapters, and even featured some musings on the etymology of "Sharkey" likely not having anything to do with fish that have lots of teeth.
Finally, a channel with Good, quick, and straightforward advice from someone who understands what it's like starting out. No jokes, no diciphering, just advice like a claymore: front facing toward enemy. Going to be listening to every one of these.
Another type of bad ending is the "Tragedy out of Nowhere" when something bad happens at the very end that wasn't foreshadowed. I watched an indie martial arts flick that did this. The hero defeats a street gang, they get sent to jail, and then in the very last scene days later when he is calling his friend, an unseen gunman shoots and kills him. It felt like a cheap shock tactic.
One of my favourite it was all a dream endings was the ending to Inception. It’s not necessarily it was all a dream, but it leaves it ambiguous over whether Dom is still in the dream by showing the spinning top but then not showing the result, leaving the audience speculating over whether he actually escaped the dream. At the same time it’s a good resolution because it showed that Dom finally decided that what he really cares about is being with his kids and he no longer cares if it’s a dream.
The ending to Inception works at a fundamental level because the whole story is about dreams and the risk of becoming trapped inside them. And it's a reversal of the climax, when Cobb rescues Saito from just such a trap.
This is the exact ending I was thinking of that just works for the reasons both of you stated and also it fits all the things this video said! Inception is a movie I feel is underrated!
My thought for “It was a dream” is . . . . . . the very last “Twilight” movie. I do not know if that part should be considered a good ending or a bad one (the actual ending, I felt, was saccarine awful) Regarding the dream, though, They establish the context, early on, by describing the two characters whose powers that resulted in the “dream” (prediction power and mind reading) and I felt it was a a meaningful change up. However, all the deaths (both good and bad) simply got erased.
@@charlesgbertrand i thought of this one too! i feel like the movie did it better than the book by giving us our cake and letting us eat it. here's my take. Stephanie Meyer gave us a good intense fight scene in the third book and the set up for the same in the last book but the tension builds and builds and then everyone goes home. really? ok, i guess. everyone's alive. yay. not terrible, but it left me amped up and then empty because all that tension peaked and then went no where. The movies on the other hand gave us a great battle scene in Eclipse and we all went in to the last movie like, "how are they going to end it? fight? no fight?" etc etc. well boom, they fight. awesome! we got another battle scene! and then wait, what? they just killed, but they aren't supposed to die, how the hell, etc. it was just a premonition. "oh thank the lord, everyone go home." by doing it that way we got to see exactly how the battle would've ended up, got that gut wrenching feeling of some of our favorites dying and the satisfaction of all the bad guys dying even if it was vision. guess what? you're gonna die, jack, no matter how you spin this. you lose, lick your wounds and go home. sorry, a little long winded but i think it was the only way to give the audience what the wanted and do the source material justice. maybe even make it better.
I feel like an ending to a story should be like a conclusion to an essay, it restates the main idea and point and it pays off all the development and hardship the characters go through and it stays consistent. Like in the ending of Harry Potter where Harry is an adult with his own kids
Good stories are essays in essence: you need proof to back your argument as to why something or someone in an established story changes, typically you have a beginning a middle and an end, and the audience should be moved/convinced once the conclusion is wrapped
i personally felt that the harry potter ending was quite unsatisfying. in my opinion they should have stopped before the time jump. it just felt very unnecessary
i'm a sucker for "They all lived happily ever after." i don't think we see that enough anymore, everything's gotta set up a sequel. no room for stand alone stories anymore
@Corn_Pone_Flicks no not everything needs a happy ending as you pointed out, but movies nowadays don't seem designed to be stand alone, like Seven. i miss stand alone movies
One thing I really appreciate about your videos is that you don't fall into the trap of only taking the scenes/movies everyone loves to hate on. It is great and refreshing to see bad examples taken from otherwise good movies as well as good examples taken from otherwise bad movies. Keep making great videos.
Worst ending: a romcom called "He's Just Not That Into You," which is based on a relationship advice book by the same name. The message: don't make excuses for guys who aren't responding, breadcrumbing, etc. Basically, "if he wanted to, he would," book-length. So in the movie, there are several plotlines about single women learning to see through lame excuses, plus a woman whose partner doesn't want marriage like she does. They all get stronger and more realistic. BUT THEN, for the ending, for no damn reason, all the guys pull a 180 and become exactly what the women have been wishing they would be- the player becomes obsessed with the woman who's been following him around, the partner miraculously decides he wants to be a husband (even though he was already committed and solid, but had solid reasons for not wanting to be legally married.) It's a totally contradictory, stupid, pandering ending that isn't brave enough to see the premise through.
Worst ending: the 2001 "Planet of the Apes." It was trying for a twist every bit as mind-blowing as the original. The trouble is that it made no sense. Few people wanted a sequel to explain it, because we already made up our minds that no explanation would suffice.
A good twist ending needs to be something the audience could potentially see coming. There needs to be subtle clues placed along the way. That's what made the original ending so mind-blowing. The remake ending was just dumb.
LOL, the funny thing is that the twist ending of the 2001 remake is far closer to the ending of the original French novel than the ending of any other movie in the Apes franchise, for good or ill.
The actual ending of Tim Burtons's Planet Of The Apes was a reshoot due to spoilers of the original ending spread through the internet. Still love that movie though (and I don't like Burton movies, so that says a lot).
The most legendary twist ending imo is M. NIGHT’s “THE SIXTH SENSE”, the twist reveal gave me the chills, which matched the tone of the story perfectly. Everything just came together full circle so well, it was so good it made my family and I return to the theater for the first time to rewatch a movie. Then on the other end of bad twist endings, by the same director ironically, M NIGHT’s “THE VILLAGE”. Where they reveal the identity of the monster, right before the final confrontation. With so much intense buildup the finale should of been terrifying, instead they deflated the climax…really strange execution.
Honestly, The Village is probably his most under-rated film.. ..not sure why everyone hates that one so much, its really the only film of his i would prefer to rewatch out of any of them.. the reason they reveal what the monsters are, supposedly not a threat, then the audience is still left wondering then wtf is stalking her in a monster costume.. it leaves the question up in the air a bit longer if the monsters arent real, then why is a monster actually chasing her.. besides, the important reveal is nothing to do with the monsters at all..
While so many authors feel they have to put out bland videos for their brand, I appreciate your quality videos filled with thoughtfulness. I am not even a fiction writer, but I appreciate your analysis and how to think through stories. Anyway, thank you for contributing insightful videos of your profession and not merely generic "content"
I really liked the ending of the first Pirates movie. We were pretty certain that we would have a sequel given all the hints about Will's father and what Jack's next adventure might be. But the movie tied up everything nicely.
*spoilers* Dead Man’s Chest was also pretty good if you follow the “tragedy matching tone” ending. Overall, nothing but bad things happened and we are left to wonder what will be the fate of the Pearl’s crew. Everyone is noticeably sad and the only person who is happy is Beckett, who was just handed the key to destroying all pirates. The surprise return of Barbossa even gave us a cliff hanger that draws the audience into watching the next movie, but it wasn’t too cheesy because the conflict in this movie was resolved.
Heh, I thought you meant the movie that is actually just called “Pirates” . . . . . . which circularly ends on almost the exact same scene as the start, wherein the two characters are stuck alone on a raft, carrying a wealth of treasure, in the middle of the sea.
I really liked the ending of "Edge of Tomorrow". Spoiler: A "good" ending for everyone except the main character because no one knows that he is the hero and how much he suffers. But a glimmer of hope at the very end that he may get his love.
I love that film (I've watched it an embarrassing number of times), but I felt cheated by that ending. It's the they-died-for-the-war-but--nah-not-for-real consequences-free trope. You make a really good point about the main character carrying the truth around alone, but it felt weak to me. (Hasn't stopped me loving the movie though, obvs.)
I agree, and to one of Brandon's recurring points: Be willing to have the MC be silent. I should know the director of that movie... cuz he cut Tom Cruise's smile perfectly. The whole movie is a romance in one light, and it takes Cruise FOREVER to finally win over Blunt. The ending suggests he has just as big of an uphill battle ahead of him as dying repeatedly fighting aliens... and he's happy to face it. Love this ending.
I just watched that a few days ago for the first time. It was great, but I was really, REALLY itching for Cage to finally say to Rita "Your middle name...is Rose."
One difference at the end is that he is an officer when he enters the building to meet Rita and the other soldiers stand aside for him out of respect for his rank.
The "it was all a dream" ending that hit me the hardest was that one episode of scrubs. The last 30 seconds crash into you like a train full of bricks and recontectualises the entire episode and it's happy tone into a much sadder one before fading to credits with no music.
I always struggle with this one. I tend to write 3 endings. A good ending, a bad ending, and an alternate ending. Then I just see which one fits the story better.
The ending of the rise of Skywalker pissed me off to no end. The whole movie is about accepting yourself, accepting your legacy and rising above it, being better than your predecessors; than your family name. It mimics the exact same journey Luke followed, rising above the cursed Skywalker name and accepting it, bowing to undo all the damage his father caused, proving he's not destined for evil. Rei accepting her family name at the end of the movie rather than claiming an unearned one would have made for an ending 10 times better, and all it'd have taken is changing a single word in the script.
That ending was so weird. They managed to get one really good line from Carrie Fisher, "Never be afraid of who you are," a line which really felt like a theme, only to then contradict that theme with the final line. I personally felt her earlier line "I'm just Rey," would've been just fine getting a reprise for that scene.
Absolutely correct. I really just wish that whole trilogy hadn't been made because of the final movie. The second movie wasn't very good, but that last one was a stinker, and the whole Rey Skywalker thing was my single biggest beef.
Personally, I really like the alternate "it was all a dream" ending for breaking bad where it turns out it was just an episode of Malcom in the Middle. Freaking brilliant.
@@rmessenger23 yeah not the first time a TV show has parodied Newhart, and Newhart wasn't the first to do it anyway. I personally don't have any context for any other of the numerous times this has happened, but I did think it was executed in a surprisingly satisfying way with Breaking Bad/Malcolm in the Middle.
Wow! How did I miss that? A Malcolm in the Middle dream. Y'know, it all makes so much more sense now. Of course it was. What was Better Call Saul a dream of? Mr. Show?
In Rocky, the end is a great example of subverting expectations as well. You expect Rocky to win since it's set up to be a rags to riches story where after all his training you expect him to win and become champ. Instead he loses, which causes the audience to ask what happens next and from that we get both rocky II and III.
The best example of tying up loose ends: The last scene of The Terminator. I was 15 and for the first time in my life I was consciously blown away by great writing. The action and the effects, as incredible as they were, took a back seat to the writing.
I agree, the first Terminator had such a great ending. Resolved the current problem, but then driving down the highway with the ‘there’s a storm coming’ scene also reminded the audience of what’s to come.
What works about the original Total Recall is that MAYBE it is all a dream.. you don't get to know either way. Also, that completely works with the entire premise of the movie... it was set up from the beginning and so maintains the circularity.
In order to tighten up this video's pacing, I cut 7+ minutes of content, including a 5th example. I have enough material for a "Bad Endings vs Good Endings ROUND 2" so let me know if there's anything you'd like to see in a sequel video. Thanks for watching and for all your support!
What do you think about "temporary endings" (for example the endings of the first two books of a trilogy), should they have a significant change or should they follow the same principles as these endings?
Some more examples: - the *rushed* ending(surprised it wasn't included) - the *no danger ending* after a high stakes precedent was set by the main conflict - the twist/surprise ending - the woke ending(I'm sure you can figure this with a lot of portrayals of strong female characters being mouthpieces instead of characters)
A couple of bad ending examples that come to mind: -the undeserved sad ending -the ending where a character has to face consequences but the movie goes overboard with it-like yeah, they have to face punishment but they didn't deserve THAT! -endings that leave a lot of questions unanswered or rarely answer them
Oh my gosh dude. You killed it with Robby from War of the Worlds. So so so true! I dont Spielberg would let it end like that if he made it today. I think we all grow out of the nativity together collectively but dang, it took me seeing this to notice that about Robby’s non-arc. Great great video dude.
And the whole area they arrived at was untouched where the rest of the world shown was devastated. I mumbled something about the aliens being real estate agents leaving the good properties intact.
One example I can think of for a long, drawn-out ending that still serves a purpose is The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (the book) After the Ring is destroyed and the army of Mordor is defeated (the climax) there is still a good 150 pages left before the book ends. Although it is very long (and sometimes very boring) it serves a purpose. Since there are SO many characters in The Lord of the Rings, there are a lot of loose ends to tie up, and the book does very well at it.
The Scouring of the Shire chapters cleverly subvert the "happily ever after" aspect of the post-war denoument (even though there was quite a bit of mourning and the whole occasion is rather bittersweet). After everything the hobbits have been through, to be denied their own happy ending is quite a reflection of the true cost of war.
brandon, your channel is an absolute gem 🙏🏼🙏🏼 I think another horrible type of ending is when something ridiculously horrible happens to a character[s] at the end of the story, right when they were just about to succeed!! I think this is done to have an emotionally impactful, deep and memorable ending, when that same effect could be achieved with a happier, more realistic and EARNED one
I actually was going to include a Forced Twist ending as example #5!! I’m hoping to do Bad/Good Endings #2 sometime in the future, so I’ll get to it then
Except if it's foreshadowed and makes sense, kinda like the red wedding. SPOILERS FOR GAME OF THRONES!!! What do you think about the red wedding? It's an "ending" for the characters of Rob and Cat. It's so tragic but it makes sense.
@xaviermm5506 I've never watched game of thrones, so I have no opinions lol. but I guess if the ending foreshadowed, it can make more sense, but it really depends
Subverted in Sorcerer. After that horrible slog through the jungle, it's heavily implied that the only survivor gets tracked down and bumped off at the end. But it works, because we see him become a marked man at the beginning and the whole thing is so brutal and relentless about killing off everyone else.
Rocky was inspired by a real fight between Chuck Wepner and Muhammad Ali. Chuck almost went the distance and even knocked Ali down (trip, but it counted) then he was TKO’d round 15. Pretty interesting fight and story for anyone interested.
In terms of "Bad Ending," back in the '80s there was a popular show called 30something. And they spent an entire season covering the breast cancer of one of the main characters, Nancy, played by Patricia Wettig. And going into the season finale, the network hyped the episode by saying a main character would die. And so everybody tunes in, thinking that Nancy will succumb to breast cancer. But she gets treated, the surgery is successful, and her prognosis is good. And then off camera, Gary dies in a bike accident. WTF? The writers are just playing games with the audience. I felt the same way at the end of Lost, season 2. Guy who had been a moral, good character for the better part of two seasons just commits some murders. As far as I was concerned, that was the end of my interest in Lost. Not a coincidence that JJ Abrams was involved both there and in the Star Wars sequel trilogy. He seems to have fun including plot twists that have not been earned.
Are you talking about Michael? It's extremely obvious why he committed those murders and what led to him doing such a thing, earlier in the season he was shown to want to do absolutely anything to get Walt back and is always shown to act very impulsively and based on emotions, it's very reasonable that his character would make the decision to kill Ana Lucia in the moment out of desperation(remember he didn't go there to kill her, she just got in his way and he acted impulsively to get his son back) I just don't know where you got the impression that it was somehow unearned considering that moment had been built up for at least half the season prior.
One of my favorite "It was all a dream" movies is Jacob's Ladder with Tim Robbins: PERFECTLY-executed use of that trope. The text at the end of the movie arguably ruins some of the interpretations of the plot, but it is still an excellent, highly-underrated film
The worst ending that I can recall is The Langoliers TV miniseries from 1995 by Stephen King. Spoilers for those who haven't seen it: The entire story revolves around a small group of random people trapped in an airport in Maine that has been frozen in time, and they have to unravel the mystery of why, get back to the flowing time of the present, and escape the titular Langoliers, which are a mysterious looming threat. In the end, many of the group die, and only four of them survive. Despite the tragedy and horror that they barely escape, the four survivors are upbeat, happy, and seemingly untraumatized as they lock arms and leap through the airport, ending on a freezeframe. The tone is a bizarre 180 shift, the lock-arms jump is pure cheese, and the freeze frame is grossly inappropriate for a story involving the horror of people trying to escape frozen moments in time. Even more than all of that, the ending is so abrupt that the audience is left stunned in disbelief, with the whole post-climax taking no more than two minutes, with no resolution of any storylines other than the main plot. The Lovecraftian flying monsters that were the Langoliers were really cool, even if the mid-90's CGI was more than a bit dodgy, and the reveal that they exist to devour all of reality after every moment has passed as the garbage collection system of the universe is profound and horrifying in its implications. But the story doesn't give that concept its due time to sink in, and the characters silly actions in the ending undermine the horror, making the sudden end laughably bad.
Classic Stephen King, he writes amazing stories with great details, complex characters, disturbingly evil villains, but he rarely pulls off a satisfying ending. The Mist has one of the most memorable gut punch movie endings, but it was Frank Durabont that came up with it, the book ended frustratingly ambiguous.
Love this channel and the effort you put into your videos. I'm picking an easy one: Game of Thrones had a terrible ending, being rushed and not paying off many of its prior setups.
I've read hundreds of books, but the worst ending for me, it was from a game, not a movie or a book. It is an old one from the 90s called "Realms of the Haunting". I love the game, the idea and tone is so cool, the lore is very interesting and special and it touches many spiritual themes. There are a lot of dialogues and it's quite difficult so you have to give it all in order to complete it. -(Spoilers)- After months playing it every day I reached the ending and the reveal was... that everything was false. The entire game events were made up by the main character who never was a hero who saved the world and his father's soul in a beautiful way but a crazy weirdo in an asylum. I was so invested in the story and at the end the entire experience was just about a crazy criminal telling lies to his doctor. During that scene I was angry but laughing at the same time, it was so unsatisfactory. It felt like all this "travel" was for nothing.
That's similar to the "it was all a dream" trope, which annoys many people, myself included. You get so invested in the story only to realise that it was all made up in the protagonist's head.
Lazy writers use it often as a Deus Ex Machina when things get too bad and the protagonist is in an inescapable situation. The dream plot twist can be done well, but the writers have to give subtle hints and foreshadowing throughout the story that the events are happening in a dream.
@Bloomy interesting. I've seen a movie where that "it was a dream" plot twist, and, looking back, it absolutely MADE NO SENSE. And the characters had won. So, there was no reason to the majority of the plot all made into a dream.
Yeah that one is also annoying because it pretty much means the journey the characters have been through was not real. It also removes all the stakes that were built throughout the story.
Your Walking Dead example is exactly when I checked out of that show. I came back to see what happened, but the quality degraded so badly I just didn't care anymore and left shortly afterwards.
The best way I’ve heard good verses bad cliffhangers described is through a door analogy. End of your story, a character opens their door and looks looks at who’s there. We don’t see a reaction, or the person there, but are left wanting to know who it is. A good cliffhanger shows you the person at the door, and maybe the initial reaction of the character who opened the door.
I've been complaining about the bad cliffhanger ending for years. It was nice to see it well articulated by someone else. Even worse is the bad cliffhanger that is resolved within the first 5 minutes of the next installment of the story. So not only was it manipulative, but it had no actual stakes to begin with. It's just swept under the rug because the writers got their undeserved emotional hook.
@@JDub-TV At the end of the second part (DoS) Smaug leaves the mountain and flies towards the nearby town. End. In the opening of the third part Smaug burns the town and gets killed by a dragon killing arrow, which takes around ten minutes of run time. The rest of the film feels very separate to the beginning. No reason to divide a nice scene like that and lose the momentum.
An awesome "it was all a dream" ending was the one from American Psyco. The story is told from the perspective of Bateman, and therefore, the audience is left as confused as the main character.
And that one's great because we don't really know if any of it happened or not. Maybe it was in his head or maybe he really did it all and the corporate guys are all so interchangeable that nobody realized his victims were gone. Could go either way.
If Source Code had ended with the joke told on the train it would have been the perfect statement of finding meaning in life despite the inevitability of death. But it continues for another ten minutes in which new plot developments about alternate timelines are abruptly introduced to try to patch what's gone before.
God source code had a terrible ending. He just took over this random dude's life because he liked a girl.... Like what are the guy's friends and family going to think when he rocks up with a completely different personality and doesn't know who they are!?
Proposal: Good evil protagonists vs Bad evil protagonists. (As in the protagonist is a villain, but good vs bad writing. i.e: The Joker, Walter White, Light Yagami, Tony Soprano)
If it's just poorly written evil protagonists (not villain protagonists), I can think of two. Samuel L. Jackson's character in "The Man" (2005) and John C. Reilly's character in "Cyrus" (2010). I think Cyrus is the worst movie I've ever seen tbh, and I have no idea how it has a 74 on metacritic. I find that suspicious. The Man is also pretty bad. And neither are bad in a funny way.
Evil protagonists are hard to pull off. You've gotta make the audience like and empathize with someone that's doing something evil and/or criminal. So, most of the time, they are well-written. I'm having a hard time thinking of badly written evil protagonists myself.
Christopher Nolan's Inception has my favorite ending of all time. It's both a cliffhanger sorts of and "was it all a dream"? The way it's set up makes the viewer completely immerse themselves in the spinning top, is it going to fall or not, hoping that it falls so Leonardo gets back to his children. But it keeps it suspended all the way to the end, but gives a tiny glimmer of hope during the very Last fractions of second, when the top starts to tremble, signalling that it might be soon falling, right before the movie ends and the viewer snaps out of it, as if they themselves had been in a dream all along. It's heart-breakingly beautiful.
I love the ending image of ESB. Everyone staring out with wordless concern for Han and the future of the rebellion. It’s not a flashy ending but it does the job well
Does The Shining also fit this? There's certainly ambiguity. Has Jack always been at the Overlook Hotel? Has the Overlook's reality now been cosmically retconned to include Jack? Is Jack doomed to cycled through incarnations, always bringing a family to the hotel and then attempting to murder them? Etc.
my theory is Inception is actually just in the head of the same character. psychotic dead wife, wanting to see his children again, suppressing horrible events of the past by inventing intricate conspiracies for himself.
I think Total Recall is another good example of a movie that was all just a dream. When Douglas is put into the situation and wakes up in the van, it's left ambiguous if he is still in the simulation or if this is an actual reality. There are also several points later on in the film that challenge the idea of if the events are real or not.
@@duckbert3314 yeah the original has Arnold. I thought you were talking about the remake when you said he woke up in a van. But i see now you were talking about the cab lol
For bad endings...virtually every Kids in the Hall sketch ever. I just remember them not knowing how to end a great sketch, so they just ended them all poorly and awkwardly.
That war of the worlds movie seems like it had the potential to have one of the most tragic endings ever, if the rest of the family was already dead when they arrived
Vanilla Sky is how to do "it was just a dream" right... gives clues all along the way, and the main character is transformed by the characters and events of the dream, even though they didn't happen, because they tell him something about himself.
Best ending that I haven't seen anyone mention: The Usual Suspects GOT has the worst ending of any work of fiction in any medium, ever. They destroyed several character arcs, declined to pay off numerous story lines that had been building for years, and completely alienated an entire fanbase. The show went from nearly perfect to something that I actively discourage people from watching.
I'm so glad you asked!! Black Widow!! Prob one of THE worst movie endings I've ever witnessed. Epsecially from a big budget movie studio like Marvel. Shocking!
I hated the ending of Rogue One, mostly because it went so far against the log line of the movie. Star Wars stories at the time didn't **SPOILERS** end with nuclear explosions killing absolutely everybody as soon as the main objective had been achieved. I get why the filmmakers wanted to prove that the franchise is versatile and didn't want messy character arcs in the later timeline, but the SW universe is vast, and why not retire at least some them out of the conflict to maybe hook them back in later? I left the cinema feeling depressed and cheated.
@@kayeelling7151 I felt that for once they had the guts to kill their main characters and keep the theme and the stakes of the movie serious instead of providing them cheap convenient escapes (as every other SW movie does). That was a good ending in my book.
Spoiler Warning for Pirates of the Caribbean 5 I hated that ending, mostly because I loved the tragic ending with Will and Elitzabeth in the third movie. But then the fifth movie comes and reverses it. Will's curse is broken by a stupid McGuffin, that can destroy just every curse. Will didn't do anything to earn this. His son did all the work. And then Elizabeth is showing up and we hear the soundtrack from the third movie again, because the movie wants us to feel emotions like back then. It's unearned, cheap and too good to be true. Barbossa's death was the only thing in this movie that really had consequences, but this storyline with his daughter felt so forced and unfitting written in, that it just doesn't work for me.
Not really a spoiler for Across the Spiderverse and Dune since it was announced, but SPOILER WARNING for Across the Spiderverse and Dune. This is because of #4, manipulative cliffhangers. It felt like the main beats setup during the movie were not resolved. Now it's far from the worse and there is a way of viewing the ending that makes it better, but I still felt lied to over the course of the movie once I got to the ending. I would really like at some point in the future to cover these Part 1 endings and how to do them correctly. So many movies are doing it now. Infinity War, Across the Spiderverse, Dune, Fast X, Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning. So far I think Infinity War does it the best as it felt complete.
I used to think I was just being paranoid about realism in a story when all others I’ve watched growing up kept writing completely “normal” stories where heroes get the perfect ending.
Total Recall and Brazil kind of have the "it was all a dream" ending, but it's done really well. I still refuse to believe Quaid was dreaming though, I can't handle that.
Man, I really think that "It was all a dream" endings can work, although they need to be carefully crafted. One example I can remember was the movie "Click" from Adam Sandler, where he had a dream-like vision of his future and saw where his stupid ass decisions and attitudes would lead him. We, as an audience, get profoundly miserable with the character at the disappointing end of his life, but are pulled back at the very last second by him waking up from the dream in that matress store, and feel revigorated and rewarded because the wake up was the second chance the character was granted to make things different with his life. I understand that not many stories would benefit from that kind of ending, but I just wanted to point out that it can be done and be a good and satisfying ending. And also, great video!
As you laid out your 5 points for a good ending, all I could think was that the Russos hit every one of those for the ending of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
*Major spoilers for Celeste* Actually, in man vs self conflicts, it was all a dream can be a reasonable ending. It doesn't diminish the stakes because all the stakes are inside your head, and everything in a dream is inside your head. The Farewell chapter from Celeste is a good example.
Man, what a content. You are a breath of fresh air speaking about how clear you write down all these scenario movie-pshycologial features. Got so much from your videos. And the length is ideal, I think. Not so long and not so short. Very comfortable to watch
I have been watching your videos for the past hour. The way you address the viewers on what makes a good ending as well as informing us on how an ending could become unnecessary and just straight up terrible, while giving examples of good and bad endings. This particular video actually helped me with how I can end my book, I already have an ending for some of the stories in my book, but thanks to this video, I can have some idea on how I could bring closure to all of the stories in my book, while making sure it has a good affect on the reader. And for that, I thank you. 😊
The ‘it was all a dream’ ending that I thought of right away was the Futurama episode ‘The Sting.’ (Spoilers, of course. It’s a good example so I do recommend watching.) What I like about the ending is, the episode already sets up the idea that most of the episode is a bunch of hallucinations, so the relatively small twist that Leela dreamed Fry’s funeral is way more reasonable. Also, the ending strengthens the emotional impact instead of taking it away. Fry being by Leela’s bedside the whole time not only retroactively gives more meaning to parts of the episode, but it further cements the bond the two have.
For bad endings, the one that sticks out to me was the first Michael Bay Transformers movie. It's not the ending-ending, but it's a key part of it. I'm going to specifically call out the tone here. Spoliers For those of you who (lucky enough?) haven't seen it: the movie's climax is a battle between the evil Decepticons and the heroic Autobots. These are sentient transforming robots who can feel emotion like humans, who have literally spent millions of years at war. So, the Autobot named Jazz and, the Autobot leader, Opitmus Prime have been fighting side-by-side for longer than humanity has existed. And then Jazz dies. Shockingly, gets ripped in half in the middle of the battle by the Decepticon leader, Megatron. So at the end of the battle, what does, Optimus Prime, his comrade-in-arms (of millions of years!) say? Not much. While holding Jazz's broken body, nonchalantly, he notes that it's sad that they've lost a good friend... but that they are happy to have made new human friends. Seriously. That's it. The tone is upbeat - moving towards uplifting, when there should have been a great grief. Something perhaps we could not even understand. But this? This throw-away line that leads to "well at least we've made new friends"? Staggeringly awful shift in tone.
It's completely in character for Optimus Prime to react like that. He is not good or heroic, he's a military general driven by a single-minded purpose to destroy the Decepticons, who happen to be evil. And as he's been fighting an endless war with them for millions of years, he's already come to accept the eventual deaths of himself and everyone close to him. He's also psychopathic when it comes to Decepticons, who are also sentient. He takes no prisoners and just wants to kill them all, no questions asked. And when he does so, he's often much more violent than necessary, goring them to pieces. He also kills humans who work with Decepticons without a second thought. Imagine a real world analogy where he were an American general and just wanted to kill all [Insert current bad country] people, no matter whether where they were on the chain of command, whether they surrendered, or any other consideration. My point is that Optimus is not human and should not be interpreted as such.
@@ThanhTriet600 Sure, movie Optimus is darker and more violent than most other incarnations, but "not good or heroic" is a wild statement. His violence is directed against literal 80s cartoon villains that seek to harm innocents and bring about unfathomable destruction to entire planets. Because the Decepticons in the Bay movies aren't any more complex than their G1 counterparts. There's not much to them other than "wreck shit, be evil, rule the galaxy". A better real world analogy would be a general that wanted to defeat an invading army of super-Nazis and went a bit psycho in the thick of it.
I'm not sure which movie ending I'd consider the worst, but when it comes to a series, the worst by far is the ending of Lost. I was blown away by how bad it was because of how good it was in the beginning.
In the same vein as the wacky 80’s action films, I think Total Recall did really good with the “It’s All Just a Dream” Ending. If I remember right, I’m pretty sure it was left ambiguous.
I love the fact that you included the Walking Dead season 6 ending here as it plays in the "adaptation" of a source for the telling in an alternate source. I agree with you on the "manipulative cliffhanger" in that it can be used to get you to watch the forthcoming installment, but how much of that plays into an adaptation, like the Walking Dead or the Witcher. That challenge of surprising not just the new audience, but the "source audience" if you will. I remember the talk around the time that this aired if being "will it be Glenn or will it be someone else" so while I agree with you on the "manipulative ending" I am not so sure this is the best example to use.
I, for one, was thoroughly annoyed by the ending to Infinity War, because I knew that most, if not all, of the heroes that were snapped out of existence had already signed contracts for more movies. It completely undercut the apparent consequences to the situation.
As someone who doesn't pay attention to behind the scenes stuff I was completely unaware of this and thoroughly loved Infinity War and its ending. Imagine my horror when my buddy tells me as we're leaving the theatre that people already know there's going to be a followup where everyone gets revived.
That War of the Worlds ending is extra rough. The first 2/3 of that movie is excellent A perfect dark reflection of early 2000s anxieties. The third act, and es[ecially the ending, just feels like they had boxes to check off and gave up, completely undermining the pacing and feel of the first part of the movie.
@WriterBrandonMcNulty War of the world's trashes a great movie with an awful Disneyland ending. The kid charges into an inferno of exploding tanks and makes it to Boston A-OK
Bad News Bears, which also came out in 76 like Rocky, has the same kind of ending. They lose the championship game but it was making it to the championship and making it a close game that is their victory. They now have a sense of pride and confidence that they didn't have before.
Just. Absolutely. Brilliant. Your insights into not merely the "How" but the "Why" of good vs bad endings - and other important aspects of story-telling - blows me away time and again. So glad I discovered your channel recently, Brandon, and I'm about to start reading the copy of Entry Wounds I just bought. Thanks!
I like ambiguous endings, but in subtle way, so you continue to think what happened afterwards. Not the "What?!?" open ending, that just make people frustrated. To me the worst kind is the nice wrap up ending to sort everything up in a positive and morally good way. It often feels like a studio decision, where the ending that got best response from a test audience was chosen.
I also agree with the Walking Dead assessment. Yes, it was a little manipulative. But I think the context of it being an adaptation of a comic series where everyone knows who dies in that moment in the comics makes it a masterful instead of cheap. The question is not just “who does Negan kill?” but rather “is it Glenn like in the comics?” The only way to sustain that suspense was with the cliffhanger. Then the fact it wasn’t Glenn, then he kills Glenn too, just made it wild. It was a rollercoaster for everyone who had comic book knowledge, and that’s hard to pull off.
One of my favorite movies “Wonder Boys” theme of deciding to act or not ie. take that chance and just keep cruising the easy way. I can watch this on a loop. Great cast.
I would love to see you put together a similar video with opening scenes. I know you have touched on opening scenes/chapters/lines, but this good/bad setup really illustrates it well. And thank you for the warning about Wisdom - what you showed in the video was enough to p!ss me off - I can't imagine sitting through an hour and half and then getting robbed like that! 🤣
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty I did, and it was both helpful and timely as I am editing/rewriting the second book in a trilogy (the dreaded middle book of the series). I am faced with the dilemma of recapping and building what happened between part one and two and a prologue may do the trick. Although I am now coming at it at a different angle that may work as well. It never hurts to write a couple options though. Your videos have been tremendously helpful.
Can you do good villains vs bad villains, some examples of good villains would be Eren Jaeger, Darth Vader, Voldemort and bad villains could be Milo from Morbius
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty If it's ok with you, would you do a video about Good vs Bad jerk protagonists? How sometimes a tragic backstory doesn't automatically make them sympathetic for us to understand why they're a-holes. That they don't always need tragedy to be jerks, ect.
I don't have something in mind right now, but the type of ending that is delivered poorly most of the time is the open ending. The writers must be very causious when deciding to write an open ending because even if its purpose is to leave the audience/ reader speculating it must still be tuned in with the rest of the story and resolve at least the majority of plotlines. Otherwise, it feels like the writer couldn't come up with an ending and just wrote something just to conclude the story.
I was glad somebody mention the horrible ending for Fatal Attraction. It's definitely one of the all-time worst, and the example of the studio changing a decent ending to match a focus group's reaction at a test hearing (spoiler alert). In the original ending, Glenn Close's character kills herself with the knife that Michael Douglas's character threatened her with, telling her to leave his family alone. However, you took the knife from his own house, and it has his fingerprints on it. So he's arrested at the end and goes to prison. But because the test audience wanted a happier ending and didn't like that one, you get Glenn Close acting out of character and going to the family's house to kill the daughter. She's killed multiple times, but still manages to revive like a bad 80s horror film villain until Michael Douglas's character finally shoots or something. Then as the police take the body away, Michael Douglas's character and his wife are all made up and patched up and happy and holding each other. This is despite the fact that he had an affair, that he put his family in danger because she kept going to the house with threats, and that she broke into the family's house and almost caused all of them their lives. Even if the studio decide to make a happy ending, they didn't need the multiple resurrections that did not fit the tone of the film at all nor the too-good-to-be-true ending.
I'm not a Last Jedi lover, but let's remember what Leia's gone through in her life. Lost her mother, her adopted parents and home planet, been through a Rebellion that struggled to keep going many times, saw the fall of the New Republic, death of her husband, loss of her son to the dark side, her father was Vader . . . she literally had been through it all. Blown into space and barely survived. Yet, through all these, she was always a beacon of hope. She still is at the conclusion of this movie. That is consistent for her, to show strong leadership in the darkest times. Nothing inconsistent there.
The Mist's ending was conveniently infuriatingly sad. If it had just ended at the deaths it would have been sad, but the ANGER I feel when it's revealed that they were seconds away from salvation.... It's just too conveniently awful. I hate that ending so much.
I personally loved the ending but I watched the movie with my kids recently and my middle son HATED IT!! I was surprised by how mad he got about it because he's usually pretty chill. Any ending that provokes such strong yet opposite responses has to have something going for it.
One of the best endings for me personally was Lonesome Dove with Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall. Final scene TLJ returns to Lonesome Dove and has a brief chat with his old cook who didnt make the trip then an unwanted interview with a newspaper reporter about the his life and some of the events of the movie. The reporter asked a question and TLJ goes into a flashback of all his friends and everything they went through including their deaths. 30+ years later it still makes me tear up...
As a writer, when I start writing a story, I've already got an idea of how it ends. I pick an ending state for a character and then write the story of the conditions that lead to the character being where they are. That seems to work a lot better for me than methods where I create the journey and then adapt the end and helps steer my vision when developing the plot and characters.
