*If this wasn't apparent from the nature of this article, I will be spoiling MANY films. Including Avengers: Age of Ultron, X2: X-Men United, The Dark Knight, The Thing (82'), and a few more*
"You Die A Hero, Or Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain"
-The Dark Knight
When approaching the preview screening of
Avengers: Age of Ultron a while ago, I was eagerly anticipating what looked to be a darker tale in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While I would say that
Age of Ultron was a good film (
FULL REVIEW). I also felt like there was something missing from it. That was an ending that packed a punch. We've seen the heroes best the villains countless times, but what if they can't? Heroes can't save the world all the time right?
Before the lead up to Age of Ultron's release I got bothered by this interview by Ew.com regarding Empire Strikes Back and Joss Whedon's views on that ending, to which he said:
“Empire committed the cardinal sin of not actually ending,” Whedon noted during his 10-page deep-dive interview with Entertainment Weekly in this week’s issue. “Which at the time I was appalled by and I still think it was a terrible idea.”
To which your EW interviewer blurted: “You think Empire had a bad ending?”
“Well, it’s not an ending,” Whedon explained about the 1980 film, which had a cliffhanger leading into the next entry of the series, Return of the Jedi. “It’s a Come Back Next Week, or in three years. And that upsets me. I go to movies expecting to have a whole experience. If I want a movie that doesn’t end I’ll go to a French movie. That’s a betrayal of trust to me. A movie has to be complete within itself, it can’t just build off the first one or play variations.”
That bothers me, I don't think that
Empire left things off really in a forced cliffhanger. It was the lowest point for the heroes, and they had to band together to bounce back. I don't think every film can pull this off; those who can certainly do it with purpose, as is the case with
Empire in my opinion.
I have to admit to a bias of sorts. My favourite films of all time include the likes of
The Thing (82'),
Zodiac, and
Seven. All three of these films end on a less than happy note. The 'villain' wins in a loose sense. Whether that be a shapeshifting alien, or serial killers, it's interesting that for me I tend to gravitate to these endings.
Some of the best endings in my opinion come not from victory, but defeat. It adds weight to the characters drive, and gives them a reason to keep on fighting (or give up, depends on the character really). However, regardless of the end goal, it's an interesting tactic taken by writers and directors.
The Dark Knight was obviously a landmark comic book movie in many regards, and its ending is one area where it bucked the trend of having the hero get the happy ending. The final scene, of having Batman take responsibility for the crimes commited by Harvey Dent and accept the blame, knowing that doing so will preserve peace in Gotham. It's in many ways shocking and sad considering what else Batman has gone through throughout the film. However, at the very least there was that light at the end of the tunnel!
X2: X-Men United also had a great ending in the sense that there wasn't much hope at the end of things. I mean, yes the X-Men survived and things were seemingly ok with the U.S. Government. Wolverine finding out very little about his past, coupled with Jeans death. It's easy to forget or write off this ending simply because
The Last Stand did so little to deliver on hat happened, but if you look at it on it's own it's still a very shocking and sad ending.
Even to show a point where an ending was changed just to keep the franchise ongoing! Many of you might have seen
Rambo: First Blood. The original ending was to have John Rambo end his own life. The canonical ending is that John surrenders to the authoirities and is taken into custody. In terms of the story, it makes more sense to have the original ending considering the themes of the film. However it's hard to carry on a franchise with a dead protagonist!
Joss said he doesn't like the ending to
Empire Strikes Back and I get that. At the same time, it's odd. In the final act of the film, where Tony and Steve are presented with this impossible choice, Nick Fury magically appears with a Helicarrier ready to assist. This bothered me, as the set up certainly had me think that the team have to make the impossible choice, with inevitable casualties along the way. Instead the team is given the best way out with no casualties (minus Quicksilver). Not only did it seem far fetched, but it seemingly betrayed the idea of what the film was building up to, and that was a point where the team truly divides itself over a major issue. Not only would an ending where people die, and Steve and Tony are truly at eachothers throats give precedent for
Civil War, but it also would've shown that the heroes don't always win, and that was a recurring theme throughout the film.
I think it's easy to have the heroes victorious at the end of any film. While I'm not saying every movie should follow one template or another. I think that films these days try to play things a bit too safe; and tend to take the easy way out in terms of storytelling. Especially with the current climate of shared universes. To me it feels disingenuous at times. Maybe that's too much of a world weary view of the world; that sometimes instead of a happy and cheerful ending, things are just a bit more grim and nihlistic.