Movie Endings (Signs & Collateral Damage Spoilers)

[Goldsmithfan 3]

Hey everybody. I'm sure you've all seen a movie and thought you knew what was going to happen next (in a good way) only to have your prediction smashed to pieces by a more cliché or just plain dumb ending. Well, I just remembered a couple I had and figured I'd post 'em here to see what you all think.

Signs:

Okay, during the scene toward the end after they've boarded up the house and you just hear the dog stop barking and the music picks up (in a nice 'creepy' kind of way) I thought of the perfect ending to the movie. What I really expected to happen was for the screen to go black all of a sudden (either from a fade to black or from the power to the house being cut) and for the movie to be over. I think that would have been a great (and fairly unique for a mainstream movie) ending to a great film. Instead it ended with a more 'average' ending in which the good guys win in a semi-impossible situation. Oh well . . .

Collateral Damage:

This one kind of follows in the same way. When Arnold's in the tunnel and he's punctured the gas lines I thought it would go like this: After he says it's over, and Selina fires her gun, I thought that it would be logical (and really, really good for the movie's story) if the explosion took out not only the bad guys but Arnold's character as well. I mean honestly; he's witnessed the deaths of his wife and kid and he's a bloodthirsty person because of that. After they're dead, he's got nothing to really live for. Maybe I'm being too much of a know-it-all, but I just thought that would be a good ending (and certainly better than the 'surprise' ending we got instead).

What do you think? Have you had any similar occurrences of thinking of a 'better' ending to a film?

[Mr. Breathmask 480]

Minority Report should have ended with Anderton going to prison and Colin Farrell getting shot. The movie should have stopped at that point.

[Morlock 9]

Never saw Collateral Damage, but I thought the Signs ending was perfect. If it ended any sooner, it would be a movie about aliens. This way, the movie was about faith. Minority Report I agree about. While it would need a bit of recutting and maybe some pick-ups- Cruise shooting Leo Crowe, going to jail, Burgess kills Witwer, Burgess getting away with it.

There are thousands of better ways for The Matrix Revolutions to have ended, but one in particular I thought would be much better- here's what I posted in the thread when the movie came out:

I would have to have the scene on the bench in the park go like this:

A close up of The orcale, sitting down, drinking champaigne. Then you back up- and see the architect sitting right next to her, smoking his cigar. You do a 180 and go behind them- and see that they're watching what just took place.

The Architect: "Well Judy, good game. How about another?"

The Oracle: "Sure. Let's just watch the rerun"

Then you see all the highlights of the trilogy -the lines, the names- in like a minute. Lines fade in and out like so: "....follow the white rabbit.... red pill... blue pill... Cypher... Mouse... Tank... Smith... Mr. Anderson... Neo... Trinity.... Morpheus... Merovingian.... Keymaker ...the one... etc.,etc....."

This builds in speed, untill it comes to screeching halt as the end credits start.