This is a big three day movie weekend, so I thought I’d have some fun with films today.
These days, the producers and publicists of Hollywood work off the basic premise that people are stupid. And if these stupid people don’t know the whole story of a movie ahead of time, well, Golly, Gee…How will they know if they want to come see the movie? For this reason, previews show snippets of scenes in chronological order so that in just one minute, not only is the plot given away, the character development and conclusion are also given away.
I suppose it really doesn’t matter. The truth is, these movies are so predictable, we would know the ending even without seeing the previews.
Basically, Hollywood has four endings for movies today. There’s the action movie ending, the cop or spy thriller ending, the disaster movie ending and the romantic comedy ending.
1) Action Movie Ending:
The villain’s cronies get picked off one at a time by the hero, but the villain himself stays alive until the very end. The hero shoots him. He falls and we think he’s dead. But in just a few minutes… Holy Smoke! Jumping Jiminy! Hold on to your seats! He wasn’t really dead after all! He gets up and attacks the hero again! Wow! We never saw that coming. Can you just feel the adrenaline rush? The big climax comes when the hero and villain fist fight from a high place, (Yes it has to be a high place) a cliff or the top of a building or an open elevator shaft. Finally the villain falls and this time, thank Heaven, he’s really dead!
2) Cop/Spy Thriller Ending:
The chief of police or the head of the bureau ends up being the bad guy. Either him or the hero’s best friend. The explanation is always the same, too: “I put my life into this organization. I poured blood, sweat and tears into this organization! I lost my family over this organization! And what do I have to show for it? Minimal retirement funds and a gold watch as a gift from my retirement party. Well, I decided to show them! I decided to show all of them!”
3) Disaster Movie Ending:
It could be any disaster. Somebody knows a ship is about to sink. Somebody knows a volcano is about to explode. Somebody knows a meteor is about to hit the Earth. Somebody knows a town is about to be flooded. All that matters are two things: The prophet is being ignored. A major authority figure, such as the town mayor or the head of a multi-billion dollar corporation, says, “There’s no need to panic the people!” Later on in the movie this same person is penitent. He apologizes to the hero with crisp, snappy dialogue like: “You were right. I was wrong.”
Oh, one more thing: The hero is thrown together in the movie, either with his ex-wife or his teenage daughter/ son. If it’s the child, he complains early on. “You were never there for me as a father. You never came to my basketball games because you were too busy working.” If it’s the wife, the poor dumb male either hears the same thing, he was too busy working, or Wifey Pie complains about the affair he had. You see, Hollywood only knows two reasons why a marriage would ever break up: Dad was too busy or Dad had an affair. That’s it. The finer, quirky, dysfunctional eccentricities of human beings, which create literally hundreds of communication barriers in relationships, are seldom if ever explored. In any event, since Dad and his Ex or Dad and his troubled teen are now caught in a disaster together, it brings them together like nothing ever did before and heals the family .
4) The Romantic Comedy Ending:
Jeff likes to fool around but Jeff has never had the time or vulnerability for a REAL relationship. This all changes when Jeff meets Stephanie. But at the end of the movie, Jeff just can’t bring himself to tell Stephanie how he truly feels about her so Stephanie decides to leave town. One of Jeff’s friends slaps him across the face to knock some sense into him. “For Pete’s sake, Jeff. Go find that girl and tell her how you feel about her!!!”
Jeff chases her down on her way to the airport. He finds her at a crowded terminal, and confesses his feelings in front of a crowd of people (It must be in front of a crowd of people or the producers will reject the ending). Then, they kiss while the crowd applauds. Brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it?
CONCLUSION: I’m convinced that most screenwriters, caring more about the art than the money, are writing real endings to their scripts. But producers are changing the endings, saying things like, “This ending has been tested. This ending sells.” That’s why I often enjoy a movie until the ending. For three quarters of the movie I was seeing the real story by the real writer. I can always tell where the producer took over.
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