Viewed two movies recently, both of which left me disappointed and dissatisfied at the end.
The first movie is actually made up of three movies — the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I watched all three on a marathon movie day while recovering from an awful flu going around. Non-stop action and conflict, tension, suspense and curiosity effectively kept my mind off my coughing. However, my disappointment at the end nearly sent me spiraling back into the abyss of illness. Exaggeration, of course.
I was truly dismayed at the ending. Yes, I understand about the power of the ring and the evil lure of greed it evoked in all who saw it, but still… The Climax of every great story is when the audience and/or reader get to see in moment-by-moment excitement, the protagonist act in a transformed way and doing something they were unable to do anywhere else throughout the story. In other words they needed to go through every other trial and test and scene first in order to be transformed at depth overtime.
Even in the final seconds of the highest point in the entire story — the Climax, Frodo was the same Hobbit he started out being — brave with the urge to do his best. The only transformative change came in him being as seduced by the ring as everyone else. He ends up wanting it even as much as Gollum.
The other movie was Vicki Cristina Barcelona. The characters were amazing, the scenery beautiful, the action exciting — all the elements of a truly wonderful flick until the very end. Every single character remained unchanged by all that transpired — thus no character transformation which in the end equalled extreme disappointment.
Anyone else seen either movie??? Anyone else disappointed??
I was always kind of disappointed of the ending of LotR, but only now I came to realise why. Thanks.
Now I know for sure my character has to lern and change, for the story to feel right.
Sefa
I’m curious to read the trilogy again and Tolken’s ending…
Oh my. I was a little surprised reading this…
*spoilers below*
There was this conversation over why ‘The Dark Knight’ worked. What can we, as writers, learn from it? Amongst many other things, the ‘twist ending’ was used and actually worked. Remember? Batman has to fail; has to let everyone believe he broke his rules in order to triumph over the Joker; take the fall in order to preserve Gotham City’s concept of justice.
This ending was brilliant in that it was grey, risky, and unexpected for the writers to do. By them taking that risk, they also risk alienating some of their audience, but end up with something unexpected and beautiful for those who can appreciate it. With surprising, yet inevitable endings, the entire rest of the movie starts to click together and make sense. We weren’t being fooled—The writers just brought together the characters to work together in an unexpected way.
It’s not like most M Night Shayamalan’s movies in which the shock-ending does blindside you because it depends on deceiving the audience; not giving them all the answers they need. Not unlike a detective novel where, during the big reveal, the detective reveals a bunch of clues the reader was never given so they could also solve the crime along with the detectie.
I say all this because Return of the King has something in common with The Dark Knight—its unexpected, yet inevitable ending. Do you see it? I’ll leave you with that 🙂
Vicky Cristina Barcelona – I found this movie deep and satisfying.
(I really enjoy Woody Allen films, btw, my favorite being Annie Hall.)
Anyway, Vicky had finally broken out of her sheltered life and did something completely unexpected and risky. But living in the moment got her ‘burned by the stove’, and, in the end, she was finally content with marrying for stability.
Even though she came to the same outcome, she came to it happier. Sometimes life is like that.
What I took from it was: As we grow up, we (should) learn by making mistakes, not by observing others. If we try to grow up too fast, we might end up making our mistakes later, causing more damage.
All right, I may be bringing this along from the books, but I think I remember them playing with it in the film. I’ve always thought LOTR was a kind of reverse hero’s journey–instead of questing FOR the sword; Frodo HAS it and has to get rid of it. And when he has done it, it’s been so hard, he CAN’T return to the ordinary world, not himself. (Which is why he goes with the elves at the very, very end.) He’s made that world better/safer–i.e., maybe the world can’t HANDLE the power of the sword. This may be my own interpretation, or maybe I read it somewhere, but I kind of think Frodo may have “been” the young British officer who got sent off to war (WWI?) without any training and then had to LEAD other men (Sam?)into horrible situations. Then, when the war was over, those officers came back to a world so different from the privileged, safe university world they’d known that they couldn’t step back in. Seems like there were lots of stories (fiction) coming out of WWI where the university-educated officer struggled to understand it all, to make it fit with what he’d been taught, while the older, more world-savvy sergeant/soldiers already knew the world was hard (if not THIS hard) and coped.
Whew–that went on! I always did wonder why Tolkien wrote it this way. I wonder if things changed somewhere–was there a more positive quest for him when he started out writing? The Hobbit seems so clearly Hero’s Journey, but the trilogy…
Oh, geez, now i’m going to have to read it again!
Welcome back. I didn’t know you were sick!
I was too blinded by Javier Bardem’s beauty to be bothered by anything in that movie.
However, I was disappointed with Slumdog Millionaire’s ending. It seemed pretty trite, for all that that boy had been through.
Hi Nick Enlowe, I agree about The Dark Knight. And, I do heartily agree about not creating a trick ending just for the shock value, but it has to come organically from the story itself. Still not convinced about LOTR, but…
I, too, thought Vicky Cristina Barcelona was brilliant. Truly wonderful flick. And your assessment of Vicky’s transformation is likely enough, but I’ll have to see it again to truly decide…
beckylevine, the ending of the movie isn’t the same as you suggest. The hobbits return to the old world. Sam gets the girl. I don’t know, still doesn’t really work for me. May need to see that one again, too!
Hi Terri Thayer, I hate to admit it but I couldn’t watch Slumdog to the end. The images of torture and pain and the kids being abused and hurt was just too much. I’m a baby, I know, but I just couldn’t bear the images…
I agree about Vicky Christina Barcelona. I felt a bit cheated when it ended– little character development, no satisfying conclusion. I really wanted to see a transformation in at least one of the women, but it didn’t happen.
I did see both of these movies… I would have to agree in that both movies disappoint in the end. I would almost agree with the reason behind it: Not so much that the characters fail to undergo change throughout their ordeals… both movies have the significant characters going through change. This change, however, is gradual, and left to the viewer to dissect from all of the other events.
In Vicky Barcelona, the heroine transforms from someone blissfully ignorant of her situation to someone desperately aware of her situation. She just failed to change her actions in light of this change, for a myriad of complex emotional (and many non-emotional) reasons. Emotionally, she felt different by the end: heavier, almost melancholic.
In the Lord of the Rings, Frodo transforms from an un-traveled, never having seen the world nor experienced any grandiose excitement hobbit, to one who has had a grand adventure. We shouldn’t mistake his failure to succeed in the struggle against his own darker nature (while being manipulated by the effects of the ring) in the final grapple, with a failure to change. The change he underwent just didn’t have direct correlation with his final conflict.
In both cases, I felt cheated, not by the authors, but by Hollywood. Cheated for having been hypnotized with plots so transparent in so many instances, that I stopped having to think about what had happened during the hour and a half (or so) that I just invested.
On deeper introspection, both movies display change; however this change is subtler than will ever be discovered by the average audience.
In terms of “thematic plot”, Frodo’s seduction by the ring is essential. It completes an image of the corrupting nature of power and addiction. In LOTR all of the characters who believed that their own strength was greater than the power of temptation were undone by their own hubris. Perhaps this is an example of how a thematic plot can detract from character-driven plot. Is Frodo a flat character, or is Tolkien cautioning the disappointed reader/viewer to beware of the hubris of believing human character can overcome anything?