I only prefer the 'up in the air' type of ending if they actually make a sequel.
The best ones stand alone, and actually end.
I only prefer the 'up in the air' type of ending if they actually make a sequel.
The best ones stand alone, and actually end.
I hate the "This is episode one of the franchise so we will leave you hanging" endings, though it seems to have worked for James Bond! One thing I like about European movies is that a sad movie will not have a happy ending tacked on. It makes them more lifelike.
I like endings that have you discussing the movie with others. Movies with endings like The Sixth Sense, The Matrix, The Prestige etc come to mind. I hate the "slasher" movies where the bad guy is sliced and diced and dropped 20 floors onto concrete-then the body just disappears.
I like the kind of ending that throws a real spanner in the works and has you watching the whole deal again.
Fight Club, The Usual Suspects, Momento, The Sixth Sense, etc.
I like to be surprised by the ending and with something you had not considered during the film. The two above immediately came to mind because they were both cruising towards a conclusion you thought you understood. Then the director changes it up and the film ends. For me at least ones those are memorable and enjoyable.
One other, The Rover w/ Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson. This is a rough post-apocalyptic and dystopian film; not without flaw. There are no good guys in the film although Pattinson comes close and shocked the heck out of me, he can actually act. But the ending and main character motivations do not play to your expectations.
There's a thread devoted to "2001: a Space Odyssey" in http://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/2001-a-space-odyssey.750631/
The idea is there may be a "induced evolution" mechanism going on, that is, natural evolution may be disrupted at particular moments by the intervention of some more evolved entity(ies) that induces a "jump", a discontinuous stage of evolution on other less evolved biological entities, such as the human species. The appearance of the monolith (a sort of monitor from these entities) is signaling those discontinuous jumps. The "final" stage of evolution pertains to non-material forms of life, beings that are pure thought and pure energy and are not localized in space or time (today one may call these "quantum" entities). From this point of view, evolution is not totally free and there is some superior entity ("good" aliens, spirits, God, etc) that is willing to help humankind to travel the long road towards "perfection". So, the ending of the film shows the first human being (David Bowman) that is able to cross the border and become one of these more advanced and non-material entities. A reworking of the Hell to Paradise path paradigm. At least, IMHO!
Interesting concept in our world of "free will", eh? Maybe not that free after all...just free in spurts of time. In the same way of thinking maybe that asteroid that hit earth wasn't a chance situation. Another thread for a different time.