Bad Endings vs Good Endings (Writing Advice)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 พ.ค. 2024
- Learn what separates a bad ending from a good one. Examples from Star Wars, Avengers, The Walking Dead, Spider-Man, Rocky, and more!
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0:00 Intro and Spoiler Warnings
0:50 What is an Ending?
1:57 How to Write Good Endings
3:53 Bad Ending 1 Too Good To Be True
4:28 War of the Worlds Example
5:57 Rocky Example
7:00 Bad Ending 2 It Was All A Dream
7:26 Wisdom Example
9:26 Joker Example
10:39 Bad Ending 3 Off-Tone Ending
10:55 Star Wars The Last Jedi Example
13:04 Spider-Man example
14:18 Bad Ending 4 Manipulative Cliffhanger
14:44 The Walking Dead Season 6 Example
16:10 Avengers Infinity War Example
17:07 Outro
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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
Return of the King had what I'd call "non-ending endings" where you think the story ends, but it doesn't.
The Tragedy Out of Nowhere or Sudden Downer Ending I mentioned in a comment elsewhere.
“Until Karen and her great boobs are tragically gunned down.” This is why you are the sensei-Perfection that made me laugh out loud.
Hahaha thanks!
But her boobs are alright, right?
i was about to say the same thing!
I was watching this on the subway and then burst out loud into laughter as well
She just wanted to complain to the manager….
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.
Right up there with the 'proper' Bladerunner ending (ie when the elevator doors close)
The Thing has an amazing ending. Great call.
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.
Oh yeah, The Thing has a fantastic ending! Still discussed to this day.
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.
Absolutely
Nice, but that wasn't the question. The question was what was the WORST ending you've seen.
@@reubenmanzo2054 yet in the video he gives examples of good endings in contrast to each bad ending so
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
Before/after snapshots are a great way of thinking of the beginning/ending
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
@@jalin8039there were so many unresolved issues too
@@jalin8039 Same, although I agree with the main point of stories working like essays.
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.
Thank you!
And the fact he takes both good and bad examples from the same movie - because few movies do everything perfectly, if any
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
Same
It got overused over the last few decades, to the point that some people actively avoid it. The pendulum will swing back
It's mainly because of Marvel Studios.
Everything has to be a universe now.
A film can have a downer ending and not be in any way a sequel set-up. Seven comes to mind.
@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
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.
Oh my gosh, I freaking hate that, too! Why would they end it like that?
Reminds me of Godfather, Part III.
I'd be so pissed if I watched that
@retrotuna who's idea was to think that was a great idea to end a movie like that?
@@KeysofIDproductions And Choujin Sentai Jetman.
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.
Excuse me, but if a top wobbles, it falls. I know, you can still hear the top at the end of the credits... BUT IF A TOP WOBBLES, IT FALLS 😡
@@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.
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.
Thanks!
"no jokes"
Karen's great boobs disagree : p
this is an unusually beautifully written comment
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.
oh boy I forgot how bad that was. I got the movie for like 5 cents too XD
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).
@@taragnoryou would think that the apes could read and speak English would make Taylor realize he is on Earth! 😂
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"
Thank you so much. This video took a lot longer to make than expected, so comments like this are very much appreciated
I don't even write and I love this content. Gives me a great appreciation when a movie writes a good story
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.
Also the plot for your book “ENTRY WOUNDS” is intriguing! Might have to check that one out!
Was gonna say this. It's almost like an "it was all a dream ending" but done exceptionally well.
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..
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.
I cannot impart how much I agree with this.
Yep, I’ll be discussing RoS’s ending when I do round 2
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty I can’t wait to see it
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.
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.
Are you talking about "Where do you think we are?" That's a beautiful scene!
@@SurfClimbRobif so, then you also need to credit the show for giving subtle clues to tell you that something is amiss and not as it appears.
Such a fantastic and heartbreaking episode!
That episode... Wow. Years later it still hits me. Shear genius in concept and execution.
Are you talking about the episode where the doctors brother died of cancer? Cause I still think about that episode to this day
Best "was it all a dream?" ending: Total Recall (90s version)
Best cliffhanger ending: Star Trek Next Generation "Best of Both Worlds Part 1"
Just wanna register that, for me, best cliffhanger ending ever was the ending of Back to the Future II.
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.
I HATE “was it all a dream”! That is THE worst kind of ending ever, in my book.
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 fact that he loses in 1 also makes the sequels more suspenseful. Every time he fights, you can’t call it a guarantee (same with the Creed movies)
But he didn't lose in terms of his goal - to go the distance and prove he wasn't a bum. He was absolutely a winner.
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.
Endings are always tough because you tend to have many possibilities for outcomes. Easy to overthink things, too.
Pretty good advice!
@@QuanticDreamer From Brandon or my comment?
@@HellAintHalfFull Both!
@@QuanticDreamer Glad you think so. Write on!
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.
The third pirates, while not that great overall, has a really good ending too.
@@alexp6712 That movie and its ending were awesome.
*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.
@edwingonzalez4558 underrated movie tbh
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.
A good “it was all a dream ending” (even tho it really isn’t) is shutter island, one of my favorite movies ever.
It works because it's not actually the final scene. We learn what comes after that, and why it happened to begin with.
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.
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.
At least Bradley Cooper’s story wasn’t a happily ever after. He cheats, gets neither girl and gets a divorce.
Agreed. Real shit movie.
YES. Especially the whole "I'm the exception" part. I haaaaaated it. Although I love Justin Long and Ginnifer Goodwin, I still couldn't excuse it.
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.)
If you want the source material for that one, it's a manga called _All You Need is Kill._
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 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.
And T2 - "there's one more chip" and "I know now why you cry" talk about impact
That is why Spiderman 2002 will forever be the Spiderman movie buried in my heart even after 20 years. The impact just outshine the other
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.
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.
Reminds me of my 3rd grade story I had to write for Halloween. It’s lazy and so cliche
They took that from the end of Newhart.. referencing The Bob Newhart show
@@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.
It worked because it wasn't the actual ending of Breaking Bad. That would've been very underwhelming.
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?
The whole Arthur being an unreliable narrator and us not knowing exactly what happened plays so damn perfectly into the character of the Joker
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.
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.
please keep doing this good bad series.
"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.
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.
"Keep them brief"
Return of the King has entered the chat
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)
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.
Thanks! And yeah, Spielberg’s stories usually have warmth to them, but this was much too much
Spielberg should have known better; it's not like he was some sweet summer child in 2005.
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.
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.
Empire Strikes back is a stronger middle trilogy movie ending when considering example #3. Same for Back to the Future, Part II.
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
And Across the Spiderverse did it really well. Jesus loves you, God bless!✝✌
@@WriterBrandonMcNulty I always thought it could have used more work. It felt flat to me. It needed a little dialogue on the medical frigate.
One of the best endings in my opinion is guardians of the Galaxy 3, the song choice everybody dancing the catharsis, everything is just perfect
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.
Dang, I thought you were talking about the original. The remake SUCKS!!
@@billyfarmerii1669 I thought there was just the one? With Arnold Schwarzenegger?
@@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
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!?
I think the original Total Recall did the "It was all a dream" ending in a good way as well
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.
I distinctly remember as a teen staying up late to see the ending, just to go to bed pissed off at how lame it was. 😅
"Look, Mommy! The NEW people!!!" ... ugh...
NOT one of King's more stellar moments, even if it had to be adapted to the screen... ;o)
The movie ends with them laughing and holding hands meanwhile Dinah's corpse is still on the plane.
It had such a fantastic atmosphere the whole way through.....and then the monsters turned up and undermined everything that had come before
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.
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)
Can't forget Frank Underwood! Was a great villain protag that turned into a boring one.
Eren is an interesting case. Up until now he's pretty great, but after the final episode drops I bet people are gonna sour on him
I like this idea!! Just need to think of some bad ones
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.
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
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.
Hobbit Desolation of Smaug, am I right? 🤦♀️
@@JR-sx3glIt's been a while since I've seen that, so I'm afraid I forget how it went.
@@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.
@@JR-sx3gl The whole movie feels separate from the series. XD
@@JR-sx3gl shit, i clicked to expand the replies to throw this in there and it's the first reply. hell yes you're right.
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.
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.
This was 100% done in Layer Cake. What was an average movie took a turn for the worse and became terrible right at the end.
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.
Game of Thrones will be giving people "what no to do's" in every aspect of story-telling forever and ever
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.
@@justacat869 to an extent, I never understood why writers think it's a good idea to have "it was all a dream" plot twist. Because it's realistic?
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.
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
the best ending for me is "6th sense". I don't want to spoil it for people who haven't seen it, but the way it reinterprets all we have seen and turns it on its head is fantastic.
"You are poor." Was a legitimately great line. Then it all went to hell.
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 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.
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
I'll add it to my list. Thanks!
The one from monster johan liebert is top tier or hans landa
I want to see this too
@@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.
Hans Gruber from Die Hard is a villain that needs to be on this list, as well as the Joker from TDK, and Anton Chigurh from NCFOM.
The was one exception to "It was all a dream" being a bad ending. The Newhart Finale was perfection.
Have to agree. Perhaps because it was comedic and appealed to our nostalgia.
Also, the entire series of St Elsewhere…
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.
Really enjoy the forensic breakdown of scenes both good and bad. We can learn from all of them. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for watching!
This actually makes me want to see the movie Wisdom. That bit of dialogue makes it look really fun
I think I see now, why "12 Monkeys" (despite being anything but a happy ending) always felt so satisfying to me.
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!
That movie is so incredibly underrated.
Worst ending would be a show for me. Game of Thrones. Last season. The whole season was the worst. Bran Stark saying I knew I would be King the whole time after not wanting to be earlier was by far the worst thing I ever seen.
It just needed to be an evil ending. Pointing out how the three eyed raven, posing as Bran, manipulated his way to become king. We got smiles, no one questions anything, everyone going on new adventures.
The game of thrones tv show just has a horrible final act period. The ending is bad but the whole thing went off the rails by that point too.
My favourite ending is from Rashomon. The woodsman taking in the child after he and the monk have their faith in humanity shaken to the core is such a cathartic moment
Lucky Number Slevin is a movie that I feel is quite underrated, and I love how its ending ties the whole story up
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.
Yep, ties up everything way too neatly.
@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
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.
That's why it's a good ending. The Mist is a horror movie, and that ending is real horror.
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.
Yep. Great movie. That was peak MCU IMO
I will say, the, “It was all a dream,” ending worked well for Click.
Another good example for an ambiguous ending is Inception because it raises the question if Cobb is still dreaming. He reunites with his kids, but his top is still spinning before the movie ends, which if he's still in the dream world, it just keeps spinning. Also the music is just.... so good 🥺
And a bad example of this (even though it's an ending i actually enjoy) was the ending of The Gray with Liam Neeson.
That's exactly how I expected Inception to end. But (in the cut I saw at the cinema), it spun way, way too long, leaving no room for doubt. One of the most blatantly missed opportunities in cinema history.
But at the end of the last shot of the film the top begins to wobble, something it NEVER did in the actual dreams in the film.
In TLJ, they had all just lost friends/family, and their "leader" risked all of their lives on a "million-to-one" shot. And the First Order is just on the other side of the mountain and can easily come destroy the rest of them. Luke couldnt be bothered to ACTUALLY show up and help. Not one person weirded out how Finn dragged Shrek a couple miles over salt in a few seconds.
You called her shrek? Now thats a deep refrence
I gave up on Walking Dead after they did this with Negan. Stinks of "we don't want to kill off this popular villain just yet".
TLJ should be taught in Universities about how not to write a script.
@@asbjrnandersen4222I believe that was from TWD comics... it would work if they kept carl around instead of rick
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.
"It was just a dream" must the worst of the worst type of endings.
Wisdom’s ending is probably the worst I’ve seen.
At least it fits with the awfulness of the movie.
@@PatMcAnn I am truly shocked that I made it all the way through that turd
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.
Or endings that tease a sequal that will never come due to how badly the first was received?
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.
One of my favorite “it was a dream” ending is the final of T. Gillian’s “Brazil” where the escape from the torture room is just a pre-mortem delusion.
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.
There aint much the writers can do about that lol
Some of those movies could have been prequels or "what ifs"
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.
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.
Horrifically tragic endings are my favorite. 1984, Behind Her Eyes, The Mist (film version).
Favorite ending is Run Lola Run. Short, to the point, feels completely deserved.
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.
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.
@@ThanhTran-gb4pw 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.
14:40
lol, that was *Across the Spider-Verse*
The original Total Recall was a great example of how to do the Just a Dream ending right, because either possibility (it was a dream, or it wasn't) is equally plausible. It leaves the audience wanting to dissect the film for clues to support their opinion on the matter. I love films which have ambiguous endings, as long as they are done right
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! 🤣
I’ll add Good/Bad Opening Scenes to my request list, thanks. In the meantime, did you see my Bad Prologues vs Good Prologues video?
@@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.
There was this bad movie from 2007 called the riddle. It tried to connect an unfinished work by charles dickens to a modern day mystery. The ending was the protagonist giving the finished manuscript to an insane homeless person who turns out to be charles dickens. And then charles dickens walks into the ocean and drowns himself. It was something all right.
An example of “it was all a dream” that I think was pretty well set up was from Next (with Nicholas Cage).
The ending to War of the Worlds definitely bugged me for these exact reasons. It would have been such an easy fix too!
Hi, w
hich version are you talking about? the original, or one of the movies?
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. 😊
Thrilled you found this helpful. Best of luck with your story!
Thanks for your help. I will keep that in mind, when I'll finally write the ending of my story in about a year :D
Of course I have my ending already planed out, but there are always some little things to improve. And these videos, especially the examples of bad stuff, help a lot. I always check my own story for this, when I watch your videos. :D
Glad to hear these videos are helping. Best of luck with your story. And don’t stress out too much about your ending-sometimes it comes naturally while you’re revising/editing the middle of your story
The blue jays outside your window are breaking my immersion
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.
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
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!
Thanks so much! Glad you’re getting a lot out of these videos. And I hope you love Entry Wounds. Please leave a brief review when you’re done
Remembered "Boxing Helena" as an example of all being a dream in the end.
*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.
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.
Lost is actually a good ending. It had already answered all mysteries, while giving all of the characters a send-off.
Lost was awful because they didn't know what was in the underground. So there was never a good reveal. Copy paste Abrams did it again
"Arrival" comes to mind, a good example of a perfect, bittersweet ending
I love that movie
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.
Another great video
A fun extra layer that makes the Walking Dead moment suck, is how faithfully they're following the events to the comic books. That is to say, the comic fans already know what happens, and have to sit there patiently waiting for the show to just get to it and then move on. Meanwhile, the TV fans have to avoid spoilers until the next episode happens.
I feel like Better Call Saul handled a moment like this better. (MASSIVE FINAL SEASON SPOILER.) When Lalo killed Howard, it was so shocking and stakes raising, and the cliffhanger left me on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next.
Yeah and then the S7 premiere dragged out the scene for another 20 minutes or so. Gotta make people sit through commercials