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| source// Pixar |
If you’ve seen more than 7 movies in your lifetime, chances are that at least one of them ended in a way that left you feeling relatively satisfied (unless you’ve only ever seen movies directed by Michael Bay – my sincerest condolences if that’s you).
And why not? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with a happy ending, is there? You paid good money to see these movies, after all, and if they can grant you with a momentary buzz of joy before you go stumbling back into the shambling mess that is your everyday life, then, hey, that’s not necessarily a bad thing…
Sometimes, though, the writers of said movies don’t play fair with audiences. In a lot of cases, you might notice how they’ve cleverly skimmed over crucial points of information (or avoided them all together) to trick you into thinking that everything has been wrapped up with a nice neat bow.
Take the 10 movies we’ve assembled here, for example, all of which purposely steer clear of some of the disturbing implications made by their “normal” endings. Hollywood is trying to keep you oblivious, though, often whilst avoiding the bigger picture entirely (and in hoping that you don’t take the time to actually think about what it is you’ve seen). Probably.
10. The Main Character Stole Somebody’s Entire Life/Murdered Him Out Of Existence (Source Code)
In Source Code, Jake Gyllenhaal plays Colter Stevens, a soldier who is assigned the task of working out what caused a horrific bombing on a train that left a lot of people dead. To do so, he uses a form of badass future technology which allows him to take over the body of one of the passengers (in this case, a teacher named Sean Fentress) during the last eight minutes of his life in a program that renders the scenario as it was before the attack.
It’s later revealed that this technology can be used to actually change the future, which is good, because Colter has fallen in love with Fentress’ girlfriend (who is also on the train) and really wants to save her. It’s important to remember that, within the confines of this “simulation,” she think Colter is Sean. He looks exactly like Sean, so why wouldn’t she? By the end of the movie, Colter manages to prevent the attack, and realises he will remain in this altered version of the future with his new gal…
But Wait…
What happened to Sean? You know… the guy whose body Colter hi-jacked for the purposes of this bomb prevention exercise? I mean, Colter has literally jacked into somebody else’s soul and taken away their entire life. Not to mention the fact that Colter stole Sean’s girlfriend, too – a girl who thinks that she’s still in a relationship with Sean Fentress, by the way.
I mean, this is creepy, right? I can’t be the only one who thinks that this lovely lady has got the right to know that her boyfriend is dead. And he is dead. His entire life has been plucked out from under his feet without his consent or knowing. Murdered is probably the right word here. Is this supposed to be a good thing? Are we, as an audience, supposed to cheer this scenario on?
I won’t. I simply won’t.
9. The Couple Are Doomed To Repeat A Hellish Cycle Every Day For The Rest Of Their Lives (50 First Dates)
50 First Dates stars Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore as a rom-com couple, Henry and Lucy, who stumble upon an interesting problem that hinders them from having a normal relationship: Lucy suffers from severe memory problems after being involved in a horrific accident, which makes falling in love a particularly difficult task.
These memory problems are so bad, in fact, that she completely forgets the awesome date that Henry takes her on at the start of the movie. When he sees him the next day, she can’t remember who he is, so he spends the runtime going on awesome dates over and over again. Lucy thinks it’s Sunday, October 31st of the previous year every day, you see.
At the end of the movie, there’s no way to fix this problem, so Henry hatches a plan: she can wake up everyday and watch a video which explains that she’s married to him, and that they have kids. She gets over this, and resumes her day. Aw.
But wait…
This is going to happen for another forty years? Though the ending might convince you that this plan is workable, it totally isn’t. Especially on those days when she wakes realising that she’s pregnant. Or that she’s not young anymore. Does Henry really want to commit to a life like this?
Imagine in thirty years time, for example, that Lucy will wake up to discover her children (children she never remembers having) are old – and she doesn’t know a single thing about them. Imagine the burden of having to fill in the gaps of time every single day for the rest of your life – and the more time that goes on, the more you have to explain in the aftermath of Lucy having viewed the tape.
Make more tapes, you say? Bridge the gap? But what a way to live: your life as a constant project. I know these characters are supposed to be truly in love, but c’mon – this is a terrifying existence for everybody involved. Especially the kids. And especially for Henry, who has to try and win over a human being every day for the rest of his life. What if he’s busy or not around when Lucy’s watched the tape? Or dead, for that matter? What if she freaks out and goes insane on one particular day?
I mean, love is love, but look closely and there’s a dangerous (and seemingly endless) amount of wrong to be associated with this bizarrely-rendered situation.
8. The Narrator In Fight Club Is Finally Free Of All Burdens… And Is Going To Jail For The Rest Of His Life (Fight Club)
Fight Club is a movie designed to hurt your brain, but it also clings to a great twist that most of us didn’t see coming the first time we watched it. The narrator, Jack (Ed Norton), spends much of the movie interacting with a badass named Tyler Durden, who is played by Brad Pitt. Durden is everything that Jack wants to be, although it eventually turns out that Jack was Durden all along – he has two split personalities, see, one of which has been making him do awful things under the guise of a group calling themselves “Project Mayhem.”
One of these “awful” things is rigging huge explosives to a bunch of buildings downtown. In the movie’s iconic final scene, Jack finally rids himself of Durden by shooting himself in the face (hence, the defiant gesture alone is enough to “kill” this other personality). Jack himself survives this, though, and we realise then that he has overcome his anxieties, is able to embrace the woman he loves, Marla, and can finally take control of his life. Then all the rigged buildings explode outside as the pair watch from atop a skyscraper…
But Wait…
Finally rid of Tyler, things can only look up for Jack, right? Well, ‘less we not forget that Jack still looks like Tyler Durden (the Brad Pitt look was just a projection of from his own mind). And Tyler Durden, as the leader of “Project Mayhem,” is one of the most wanted men in the city. Factor in that Jack/Durden is the one responsible for destroying an entire district with detonated explosives, and… well, this guy is about to be the most wanted terrorist in America.
Which means that poor Jack is probably going straight to jail the moment he steps back out into the street. Sure, he could try to make an escape, but how long is that going to last? Don’t you think at least one of his Project Mayhem goons is going to dob him in? The saddest part, of course, is that Jack’s romance with Marla – having finally realised itself in the closing moments of the movie – is going to be one extremely brief affair.
7. The Kid Is Going To Lose His New Best Friend/Father Figure In A Matter Of Years (Up)
Up is a Pixar movie about an grumpy old man named Carl, who decides to go on the dream vacation that he and his wife had always planned to go on before she died. Which, somewhat insanely, he decides to achieve by attaching hundreds of balloons to his house and flying to South America (it’s fine, it’s a kids’ movie).
What Carl doesn’t realise is that a small boy named Russell has stowed away on board, and the two are pitted into a wacky adventure, over the course of which Carl’s relative apathy for the child is transformed into affection. By the movie’s end, Russell, whose dad is revealed to have abandoned him, is gifted with a brand new father figure, and this is the bit where you start crying.
But Wait…
Well, Carl isn’t going to be around for much longer, is he? I mean, he’s old. Really old. And going on the notion that the movie tells us he was a little kid in the 1930s, we can probably assume that he was around 80-years-old during the events of Up (some unconfirmed sources put his birth year at 1931).
Take into consideration the stress that such an adventure might have put on the body of a man of this age, and you’ve got a heart attack waiting to happen. Sure, Carl might have a good few years left in him, but is Russell really going to be able to cope with the loss of this guy? These two will likely remain inseparable for the next few years, until one day the poor kid goes around to find Carl stiff in his armchair. That’s unnecessarily descriptive, perhaps, but you get what I mean…
6. The Characters Are Set To Repeat A Doomed Romance On An Endless Loop (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is set in a world much like our own, with one notable exception: people are given the opportunity to erase past lovers from their mind, as to avoid the grief and torment associated with the break-up process. The main characters in the movie, Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet), undergo this process
The start the movie unaware that they are actually former lovers, and that they previously underwent the process to erase one another from their memories: when they meet again by circumstance, they are oblivious to the fact that they were in a two year relationship, and like how different they both are. They slowly begin to fall in love again, and later – when they discover to
But Wait…
The point of the movie is, in fact, one that a lot of people miss, though it’s perhaps even more heartbreaking because Eternal Sunshine appears to end on a relatively happy note: the couple knowing what has happened to them previously appears to “improve” their chances of having a successful relationship, but this isn’t true at all.
The fact that we know Joel and Clementine don’t work together already means that, despite the fact that this time the know about having undertook a memorable erasing process, they are still doomed to fall out of love in the exact same way. We know this because, lacking the feelings from their first two years together, their relationship will progress in the exact same fashion. Somebody should really make sure these two stop seeing one other if they break up again.
5. Max’s Happy Ending Is Completely Undercut By The Deceivingly Positive Song That Plays Him Out (Rushmore)
Wes Anderson’s Rushmore centers around a precocious, overachieving underachiever named Max Fischer, who falls in love with his teacher and ends up battling Bill Murray for her affections. Max spends much of the movie alienating his few friends, telling lies, and coming up with ill-judged plans to try and seduce a middle-aged woman who doesn’t fancy him.
By the time the movie’s over, though, Max is on the path to changing his ways, puts on the most amazing play you’ve ever seen (it’s Vietnam War themed), and ends up dancing with the nice nerdy girl who has been pestering him for the whole movie. It’s a real character arc, no?
But Wait…
As the final scene plays, the song in the background is “Ooh La La” by The Faces. And though this song sounds happy and positive in that “it’s the end of the movie and everything turned out okay” kind of way, the lyrics tell otherwise: the song is about how women continually brake the hearts of the men who pine after them, and that the narrator should have listened to his grandfather, who tried to warn of him such things.
Which sneakily implies that Max’s future might not turn out quite as great as this positively-aligned ending implies.
4. Marty McFly Replaces His Entire Family With Upgraded Counterparts That He’s Never Even Met (Back to the Future)
Back to the Future tells the brilliant story of a teenager who accidentally goes back in time and accidentally stops his parents from meeting. To ensure his own existence in 1985, he must ensure that they, uh, “consummate” at some point in the future by rekindling their relationship.
Along the way, Marty makes a few accidental changes (one of which results in a complete personality shift for his parents) that change the present when he gets back home. Mainly, his parents aren’t the losers we saw in the beginning, but are now rich, confident and still in love.
But Wait…
In order to secure this “new,” better future, Marty effectively erased the whole of his life and everybody that he knows. He did, in fact, never exist, nor did his family. Sure, there are different versions of these people in the alternate future he’s just created, but these aren’t people that he technically knows – their personalities are going to be totally different, as if they’re strangers.
The old family are dead and gone, unable to exist without the original, unchanged 1955 to back them up. Although this future is certainly more appealing for Marty, there’s something strange about erasing your entire family and replacing them with “better” versions – especially if you have to get to know them from scratch.
3. The Eponymous Character Hasn’t Got A Whole Lot Of Time Left To Live (Jack)
Jack is a movie about a character of that name played by Robin Williams in a movie directed by Francis Ford Coppola. I’m mentioning that because it’s so weird that he was behind the camera for this one.
Anyway, Jack’s problem is a rare one: although he’s actually in elementary school, he appears to physically resemble that of a middle-aged man (and not an attractive one, at that). The entire movie is devoted to Jack’s search for acceptance, because most of the kids at his school are mean jerks and – for some reason – find his presence o be something that super annoys them. Eventually he wins them all over, though, and ol’ Jack is officially made “one of the gang.”
But Wait…
The disease that Jack has in this movie best-resembles something called “progeria,” which, for those who are sadly born with it, usually means they won’t live further than their mid-teens. Which means that poor Jack isn’t likely to ever make it through college, despite the fact that all the kids now think he’s a swell guy. R.I.P., little buddy.
2. Truman’s Life In The Real World Is Going To Be Something Close To A Living Nightmare (The Truman Show)
The brilliant premise behind The Truman Show is that one man’s life is an ongoing reality TV show that he’s completely unaware of – all the people he interacts with on a day to day basis are actors, and his town is actually a huge set built into a giant dome.
Truman, our main character, eventually discovers this, and the ending of the movie sees him escaping from the set as the fake world around him comes crashing down. The movie ends with Truman stepping out into the real world, where new, better horizons await him…
But Wait…
Despite the fact that Truman’s entire life was, in a sense, fake, what awaits him on the outside is going to be something close to hellish. Granted, he’s probably going to be the most famous person on the planet (or at least in the States), and every news broadcaster and television station in the world is going to wait to talk to him. Forever.
Given how many people watched “The Truman Show” in the confines of the movie, it’s not unsafe to assume that pretty much everybody knows who he is – who could you not? Truman’s existence is going to be akin to that of a hundred Brad Pitts, or a million Rob Schneiders. So much so, in fact, that living in that concealed dome where everybody was super nice to him all the time and he had no real worries will probably seem like something of a fond memory.
As it stands, the man is in store for a terribly intrusive life of press conferences and autographs. Especially when you consider that his escape probably made him even more of a hero to the world at large.
1. The Iron Giant Could Have Easily Been “Reset” – And Was Just One Of Many, Many Giants (The Iron Giant)
The Iron Giant tells the classic story of boy meets giant metallic alien monster, and also happens to be one of the most underrated animated movies of the ’90s (and ever, really). When said huge giant crash lands on Earth, it smashes its head and accidentally turns “good” (it’s an animated movie, c’mon), knocking out its programming to “destroy the planet and everybody on it.” That’s when the giant befriends Hogarth, a nerdy kid with a passion for science-fiction.
The movie ends with the giant having to sacrifice himself to save the world, despite the fact that everybody on Earth wanted to murder him dead. Hogarth awakes one night a few weeks later to discover that his new friend is reassembling himself and will soon be back together. We cut to the giant’s head, now in Iceland, which smiles as the movie ends…
But Wait…
The giant’s original programming could have easily been knocked back into place again, given that this time the guy got exploded into fifty pieces – it that’s not a “reset,” then I don’t know what is. I mean, being exploded by a missile… that’s no minor bump on the head, is it?
And if we glance back at some of the earlier scenes in the movie where the giant shows just how destructive his powers are, we know that his turning “evil” gig would mean death to the planet in its entirety – especially if this type of sentient monster can reassemble itself after being blown up by a nuke.
This danger is made especially more apparent when you consult the deleted scenes on the DVD, which heavily imply that there are more giants waiting for this one’s return journey home. So it can, you know, tell them how easy the planet is to destroy and stuff. Gulp. Let’s hope that smile we witnessed at the end of the movie wasn’t an evil one after all, huh?
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