So, if you haven’t seen the new movie or read the original book and want to remain unspoiled, TURN BACK NOW! SERIOUSLY, GET OUT OF THIS POST!
Still here? Okay, then let’s go.
Can we talk about the ending of the new movie? Let me start by saying that the original book is one of my all time favorite books. (Okay, it’s technically a short story, but let’s not get derailed. Stay with me.) I was never a fan of the Schwarzenegger movie from '87. Yes, it’s a cool movie, but it deviates SO FAR from the source material that it’s barely even related. They just took the name of the book and the main characters, the very broad idea, and made a whole new story. When I heard that they were making a new version that was supposed to be more faithful to the book, I was hopeful and excited. I’ve been waiting months for it to come out to see it. I bought tickets online in the theater with the hi-def screen and sound system and was at the first showing last Friday. I can count on one hand how many times I’ve gone to a theater to see a movie on opening day, but this was one. The theater was even giving out small versions of the movie poster as we entered, which I think is a cool, old-school promotion.
At this point, let me say that this version wasn’t 100% faithful to the book, and I wasn’t expecting it to be, but it was WAY closer than the '87 version. In fact, I’d say it was about 90% faithful. For most of the movie I was really loving it! It did bog down a little in the second half, but that’s forgivable to push the story to the end. And that’s my problem - that ending.
Why? JUST WHY?! Why follow all of the book, just to completely change the ending?!? The book doesn’t have a happy ending, Richards flies the plane into the tower where Killian is, killing them both. THAT’S THE ENDING, IT’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPY. It was right there in the movie. They had the whole thing set up! Then suddenly Killian shoot the plane down with a missile, Richards, dies, but Killian is still alive. Then the post script where, WAIT, Richards ejected from the plane at the last second and is still alive! And then we see his wife & kid in the grocery store. They’re not really dead! And Richards is outside, and they have a tearful reunion! How sweet! <gagging> As if that’s not sickly sweet enough, then the people revolt and storm the studio. Who comes out of the crowd with a gun to kill Killian? Why it’s Ben Richards! The good guy has escaped the plane, reunited with his family, and now kills the bad guy! Aaaaaaand scene.
It’s like the studio could just NOT have a movie with a less than happy, everything wrapped up neatly with a bow, good guy wins bad guy loses ending. Not every story has to have a happy ending. I can’t help but wonder if this was studio meddling. I just struggle to believe that someone wrote this whole movie so faithfully to the source, but when writing the ending said, “Nope, let’s just trash the original. I know better than Stephen King.”
I was so irritated that I threw the movie poster in the trash on the way out.
Thoughts from anyone else?
I get that they may not want to fly a plane into a building in a post 9/11 world, but it still didn’t have to have the happy ending. In the book his wife and child really were dead, so he had nothing left to live for, so he took out Killian and the network on his way out. Surely they could’ve found another way to do that without having to resort to the saccharin “the good guy always wins“ ending.
They forced a happy ending on me, and I didn’t like it.
(Odd, because I usually like a happy ending.)
Oh, I get it. Maybe he could have detonated a bomb or something, I’m just simply stating why they might have done it.