Films that should have ended earlier

[Polymorphia]

I often think that some films ending's might work better if a few seconds/minutes were trimmed off the end. I have two main ideas I can think of:

In 1989's Dead Calm,

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I felt that the main antagonist shouldn't have come back at the end, and a little bit of research suggests his return and explicit death were tacked on by the studio.

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In 1977's Sorcerer,

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I felt that it should've ended before Scanlon asks for the dance and is (probably) killed, perhaps ending with his 1000-yard stare. His equivalent character does die in The Wages of Fear in a similar manner...

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This is just conjecture, since it's always possible that these suggestions wouldn't work, and I haven't tried either out in some fan-edit... but do you have any films that you wished ended earlier? I imagine films featuring epilogues are first for the chop

[Shit Good Nose]

In 1977's Sorcerer,

Spoiler alert

I felt that it should've ended before Scanlon asks for the dance and is (probably) killed, perhaps ending with his 1000-yard stare. His equivalent character does die in The Wages of Fear in a similar manner...

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Absolutely 100% disagree with that - the ending is absolutely perfect and is a logical conclusion,

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given who the gang stole from, leaving it on a similar note as (and a direct nod to) The French Connection

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.

What I WOULD do away with though, is

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the sound of the gunshot after they've gone into the bar, which Friedkin added for the re-release (although he claims it's just the jeep that goes by backfiring and has said it was always there in the original sound mix, but I think that's bollocks)

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.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I liked The Place Beyond the Pines well enough as it is, but couldn't help but think it would have been more interesting without the third act:

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The film follows protagonist, Luke, as he embarks on a life of crime to provide for his infant son. At the end of the first act, Luke is shot and killed by a cop, Avery, while making his getaway from a bank robbery. The second act follows Avery, as he deals with his remorse over killing Luke. The third act, once again, switches focus onto Luke and Avery's now teenaged sons.

The act of killing is generally treated as trivial in cinema, so it was very interesting to see a protagonist overcome with with guilt over it. The fact that we spend so much time with Luke as the protagonist makes his death a massive shock, which the audience carries over onto Avery, making his remorse feel so much more visceral. The third act does eventually bring things back around, as Luke's son confronts Avery, but it nonetheless dilutes the guilt theme, which is a bit of a shame.

The second act also piles on a rather schlocky subplot about corruption in Avery's police station, so it's not as simple as just chopping off the last act, but I still think it would have been an overall improvement.

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[Polymorphia]

Absolutely 100% disagree with that...[/spoiler].

To be fair, I've only seen the version with

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the gunshot sound, making very explicit what happened, and might have a different opinion if the ending was a bit more ambiguous.

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I think both of my examples are about making the ending of the film more ambiguous, rather than less, which may just be personal taste. I guess execs prefer less ambiguous endings, they also seem to prefer happy endings (for some reason). I also know someone who loved the ending of Sorcerer as it was,

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gunshot and all

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, seeing it as a perfect and bleak ending.

In a different slant on things, the original ending of Clerks had

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Dante killed in a robbery at the end

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, which also fulfils the ending being less ambiguous, and is also an idea I despise. The ending they ended up with is pretty much perfect for the film, in my opinion.

[Shit Good Nose]

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The "original" version didn't have the gunshot/jeep backfiring.

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That's why I've kept my region 1 pan and scan DVD.

[notjosh]

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence should have ended with the

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Pinocchio-2000 underwater asking to be a real boy

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. All the fluff after that just feels like tacked-on Spielberg schmaltz, even though it was apparently always part of Kubrick's vision. Still shit though, the old coot must have been losing it.

It's a really long and badly shot video, but I like this Toy Story 3 re-edit prank some kids pulled on their mum:
https://youtu.be/phFISjORzQs?t=102

[Keebleman]

You just beat me to the punch with AI.  It seems to have reached a perfectly natural conclusion with

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the Sixth Sense kid talking to the blue fairy

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, but no, still another 20 minutes at least to go before an ending

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not as good

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.

And Fight Club.  After an hour-and-a-half or so, things seemed to be drawing nicely to a close. "How refreshing," I thought, "a contemporary big-budget movie that doesn't feel the need to prove its importance by dragging its unwilling bulk across the two-hour line." Then all of a sudden there was a plot development straight out of 'The Twilight Zone' and the ruddy thing went on another 45 minutes! Hadn't been terribly impressed by it anyway.

[Egyptian Feast]

The Cable Guy, when

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the screen goes black as Carrey hits the satellite dish. The bit afterwards where they show various people reacting to the blackout and one guy looks sad because the telly has cut out but then picks up a book and smiles while the sappy music swells is so shit it spoiled the film for me. Then it turned out Carrey wasn't dead. Nope.

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[Dropshadow]

"Scrooged". The horrendous, happy-clappy last few minutes. Very vomit-inducing.

[Shaky]

"Scrooged". The horrendous, happy-clappy last few minutes. Very vomit-inducing.

Yes! I love the film overall and have seen the ending so many times I don't "hate" it, but it is tonally very jarring. Completely improvised by Murray. Apparently the writers originally ended their script with Frank's "death" at the hands of the Ghost of Xmas Future, arguably fitting in with the more cynical vibe of the rest of the movie.

[Noodle Lizard]

Take Shelter.

[phantom_power]

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence should have ended with the

Spoiler alert

Pinocchio-2000 underwater asking to be a real boy

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. All the fluff after that just feels like tacked-on Spielberg schmaltz, even though it was apparently always part of Kubrick's vision. Still shit though, the old coot must have been losing it.

That ending isn't schmaltzy. It is fucking heartbreaking. It is also the logical conclusion to having a sentient being who will live to all intents and purposes forever.

[greenman]

Source Code should have ended

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with the plug pull freeze or at most maybe show a momentary restart as a hint at something more

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.

The weakness of AI for me would be more the stuff inbetween the family opening and the ending, I don't think Spielberg manages to make it nearly as interesting as Kubrick would have.

[The Roofdog]

The ultimate for me in this category is Fritz Lang's Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, which has two stupid rug-pulls at the end that spoil an otherwise great film. Two newspaper blokes set out to demonstrate the problem with circumstantial evidence and embarrass the hard-case District Attorney by planting evidence that will get one of them arrested for a murder they didn't commit. Dana Andrews is duly arrested and all goes to plan until

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the second bloke is killed in a car crash where all evidence of the set-up is destroyed, a bit like The Departed

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. Film should end there. Instead,

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some unknown back-up evidence of his innocence is coincidentally discovered, he gets freed and THEN via some convoluted bollocks it's revealed that he actually done the murder in the first place, and he goes back to prison

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What would have been a really powerful message about the death penalty almost ends up making the opposite point.

[Egyptian Feast]

Another Fritz Lang that would've benefited from losing the ending is Fury.

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I wanted the whole lynch mob to get hanged at the end while Tracy cackles like a madman. I know it could never have ended that way, but I hated those dumb hicks and was rooting for them to dangle.

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[Custard]

Joker should've ended with him making the bloody smile on top of the police car

Source Code at that freeze frame bit. As I've just noticed greenman also mentioned

Others I can't think of right now!

[McChesney Duntz]

Spoiler alert

The bit afterwards where they show various people reacting to the blackout and one guy looks sad because the telly has cut out but then picks up a book and smiles while the sappy music swells is so shit it spoiled the film for me.

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That was a tongue-in-cheek bit, I always thought. Not meant to be taken "seriously."

[Egyptian Feast]

Fair enough, it was so on the nose it must've been taking the piss.

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The cut to black with the noise of him hitting the dish is such a perfect way to end it, I remember at the time thinking 'Wow, what an ending!' for the few seconds the screen remains black, but then it continued and the remainder just left a tainty aftertaste which soured my opinion of the film.

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It was the first Carrey vehicle that disappointed me, which may have possibly unfair to the rest of it, I can't remember much about the movie now other than the karaoke bit and the ending, to be honest. It'd be an interesting movie to revisit, but it'd probably get on my tits at the moment, my nerves are too shot to sanction his fucking buffoonery. Pipe down, sit still and if you even think about putting on a funny voice, I'll slice you. AND NO PAINTING NEITHER. What did Aretha ever do to you to deserve that manky tribute? Fucking glorified Phil Cool.

Soz. In a bad mood and took it out on Carrey. Totally unfair, except the bit about his horrible fucking paintings. He's so terrible the public figures he dislikes fare better than the people he admires. If I was on my deathbed and I found out Jim Carrey greatly respected me, the fear he might depict me in his work would probably strike me dead immediately with a twisted face like somebody out of Ringu or that freaky old dead woman in Black Sabbath.

[oy vey]

Any, some or all of the 5 endings at the end of Return of the King could be removed without issue.

[non capisco]

Being There should end on the beautiful and confounding last proper shot of the story, not on a blooper reel over credits like it's suddenly It'll Be Alright On The Night. One of the most baffling and mood wrecking choices in the entirety of cinema.

[FredNurke]

And one that absolutely enraged Peter Sellers.

[idunnosomename]

jurassic park II before all the San Diego shit

i mean it still wouldn't be a good film, but it would be shorter

[Andy147]

I remember reading a suggestion from one of the Monty Python team that "The Meaning of Life" should have ended with the explosion of Mr Creosote (with the French waiter's monologue through the credits), on the grounds that everything after that had to be an anticlimax.

[evilcommiedictator]

Love, Actually.

After 2 seconds

[Red Lantern]

The original version of The Vanishing (1988) had a great ending, where

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the protagonist finally finds out what has happened to his missing wife, by waking up in a coffin, buried alive

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. The American remake (made by the same director!)

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carried on after that point, with the protagonist dug up by his new girlfriend, and them both killing the bad guy and living happily ever after

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. Hollywood shite.

[Mister Six]

The Notebook would have been massively improved if it was a two minute short about a tragic fairground death.

[C_Larence]

Dark Knight should have ended when the dead Fake Batman slams into that window. That would have been a brave ending. Nolan is a coward.

[famethrowa]

That ending isn't schmaltzy. It is fucking heartbreaking. It is also the logical conclusion to having a sentient being who will live to all intents and purposes forever.

I think the story and idea of the end is good and nicely emotive, but the execution of it is pure cheese. Budget cheese too, looks cheap and fuzzy. And all that talk about how much the robots love him, why don't they marry him then?

[Famous Mortimer]

Although it still wouldn't have been any good, the third Pirates Of The Caribbean movie had about four endings and could have been an hour shorter with no problems.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

The Never-Ending Story should have ended a little later.