re: Truly almost great movies that just missed the ending

Man, I'm going to have to disagree with the assessments of two sci-fi films I love.

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As much as I love Mark Strong, the entire Pinbacker subplot was completely unnecessary. Still a top Sci-Fi movie in my book though.

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I get that the tonal shift is jarring. Can't deny that. But the Pinbacker part was more than just a random time-filler. First, it did give the movie a bit of oomph (yes, the technical term) because leaving that out means it's a movie about a bunch of people shooting a bomb into the sun and flying away again. Kind of a whimper of a climax. More importantly, though, the Pinbacker episode introduced themes and ideas that added a dimension to the movie: man playing God (in many ways, this was really a movie about mankind finally being able to control its own fate on a cosmic scale); the role of predestination and determinism; the debilitating psychological effect of putting so much responsibility into the hands of so few people (with Pinbacker, as captain, being where the buck stopped); the dangers of doing the same, the issue of mankind's real place in the greater scheme of things; and the question of whether mankind even deserves to survive or be remembered in the long run. Pinbacker himself almost single-handedly introduced all these themes, especially in contrast with...whatshisface, the psychiatrist. These are not inconsiderable additions to the narrative, imho.

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I’ll throw out Europa Report, although it didn’t ruin the movie. I didn’t like that they threw in the alien right in the end.

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It's gratuitous, perhaps, but I don't see anything problematic about allowing the audience to learn that aliens are real. It's not like it altered any aspect of the movie or the ending in any meaningful fashion. We just now know that it wasn't some chemical or physical process. Everyone still dies. They just die with the tiniest bit of validation to make their deaths ever-so-slightly more meaningful. Not that it's much of a comfort to those dying. And the alien itself was a credible creation for a world of extreme deep water pressures and very little in the way of external light sources. Some could argue that would mean they'd develop their other senses and never manage bioluminescence, and that's quite plausible, but doing so mirrors development of aquatic lifeforms at extreme depths here on Earth, so that's also plausible.

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No country for old men. Killing brolin off camera was ridiculously stupid

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Brolin is not the main character, the sheriff is. He arrives just moments too late. The movie is viewed through the sheriff's perspective, not Brolin's.

Showing Brolin in a shootout with the Mexicans would have been rather pointless other than to add another shootout scene for the hell of it.

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Law Abiding Citizen. Gerald Butler's character should've "won".

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Hated that fkn ending! And the fact that the one piece of evidence that led to his demise came from a person we never saw in the movie was a huge letdown and very cheap.

Jamie Fox's character "What do I do? How is he still killing everyone? Who's helping him?" Oh, no biggie, I just got an email from this dude I don't know that just blew it all wide open.

Would've been way more cooler had Clyde succeeded in bombing everyone and then Fox goes to the prison on his last option to abide by his terms and Clydes not in his cell and he finds the escape hatch left open with a note left behind or something like that. But, like they said in Swordfish, the good guy must win.

So you think the ending was awesome. Got it.

Baby Driver immediately came to mind. Awesome movie until Kevin Spacey turns good. From that moment on it takes quite a dive.

Hateful 8. Really dumb to have Mannix get shot.

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Along the same vain Superman should have ended tragically with Lois Lane's death as well. They made Superman way too powerful being able to literally erase consequences of tough decisions.

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While I agree that that turning back time was a cop out, you can't have Lois Lane die in the what was basically the first real Superman movie. That'd be pretty dark.

The ending of Superman 2 with him giving her the kiss that erases her memory is arguably worse.

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The story needed to end with Cooper MEETING Brand. Not at the point of going after her...

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ehh. the implication was a good enough effect for me. him sneaking off in the cover of night to go find her with that score was a perfect ending. maybe him landing and them seeing each other would have been a nice touch, but i don't think it would have added anything for me.

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Truly almost great movies that just missed the ending

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I may get flamed for this. . .

but after 3 shite films that my wife made me suffer through, The final Twilight movie was BAD arse, until they fricked it all up at the very end.

I threw my soda on the ground and left, cursing at the top of my lungs. It angered me that it made me enjoy the movie for about 30 minutes only to shite all over that.

Don't wan't to spoil it for any of you other marrieds.