There have been a lot of Endings where we have uttered the words WTF. The movies that we have listed ranges from Horror, to Sci-Fi, to Drama but the endings of all of the listed movies left us thinking and revisiting these movies over and over again. Also Spoiler Alert in order, so just watch these movies before wishing to read away all the secrets.
Top 5 WTF Endings in Movies
1. The Shining
Well, firstly, the book and the film are very different. A lot of Kubrick’s movies have a final image of something seemingly impossible. I think it’s just to supposed to serve as something outwardly ridiculous that gets the viewer talking about the movie after its over. Stanley Kubrick makes movies with an ending you WANT to discuss after its over. He gives you all the points and you are the one to decide if you want to connect it or just leave it as it is.
Anyway, on to the plot points; It’s difficult to pick up on what every scene is about, you don’t know what scene means what; the entire movie is about a descent into madness. Jack is, at his core, an unstable character. A huge point is made about his obvious struggles with alcohol and violence (this is even clearer in the book where you find out the reason he needs the job is because he was fired from his teaching position for beating up a student). It’s very important to realise that Jack is not the antagonist here , strictly speaking. The HOTEL is. The whole story is not about some normal, balanced, happy person going insane per se, out of nowhere, but about an unstable person being broken by circumstances. This is what makes Jack’s character interesting (and why I think Kubrick's ending to the film is inferior to the books); he’s not a stereotypical good guy; he’s complex guy battling with his inner demons. What the hotel does is break him by breaking his support network.
The hotel hurts Danny (the old lady in the bath) because it knows that Danny’s mother will blame Jack. Once Jack is isolated against his family, the hotel can sympathetically play to Jack’s demons (the scenes in the bar with the phantom barman, and the caretaker) to further break him and shift his allegiance until he wants to protect the hotel over his family. The movie is about breaking Jack away from his family and into the hotel’s control; the picture at the end finally symbolising that Jack has been fully assimilated by the hotel. He is now under the hotel’s control! Hotel: 1 Jack: 0
2. 2001: A space Odyssey
The black monolith you saw in the beginning of the film, and the one found buried on the moon, were placed there by a supremely advanced alien race as a way to nudge along the evolution of humanity. The first encounter with a monolith gave our ancient ancestors the knowledge of how to use tools. Next, the one on the moon pointed us farther out into space, toward Jupiter (and may have given us the ability to create artificial intelligence i.e., HAL, which was another massive leap in technology).
Finally, Dave reaches the third monolith and is transformed into the next stage of human evolution, the Star Child seen in the final shot. The psychedelic light show before that represents the vast knowledge being given to him by the monolith, which our minds can’t even comprehend (and also, possibly, him being transported across enormous oceans of time and space). Monkey + Monolith = tool usage/first man. Man vs ape. Man wins. Tool + Monolith = HAL, a smart tool. Man vs HAL. Man wins. Man + Monolith = Fifth dimensional awareness of time and space as a singular object. No more versus. Everything is one thing. Arthur C. Clarke’s novel of the same name was developed simultaneously with the film, though published after its release. It seems to explain the ending of the film more explicitly . Clarke’s novel explicitly identifies the monolith as a tool created by extraterrestrials that have been through many stages of evolution, moving from organic forms, through biomechanics, and finally to a state of pure energy.
The book explains the monolith much more specifically than the movie, depicting the first (on Earth) as a device capable of inducing a higher level of consciousness by directly interacting with the brain of pre-humans approaching it, the second (on the Moon) as an alarm signal designed to alert its creators that humanity had reached a sufficient technological level for space travel, and the third (near Jupiter in the movie but on a satellite of Saturn in the novel) as a gateway or portal to allow travel to other parts of the galaxy. It depicts Bowman traveling through some kind of interstellar switching station which the book refers to as "Grand Central," in which travelers go into a central hub and then are routed to their individual destinations.
The book also depicts a crucial utterance by Bowman when he enters the portal via the monolith; his last statement is "Oh my God—its full of stars!" This statement is not shown in the movie, but becomes crucial in the film based on the sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact. The book reveals that these aliens travel the cosmos assisting lesser species to take evolutionary steps. Bowman explores the hotel room methodically, and deduces that it is a kind of zoo created by aliens—fabricated from information derived from television transmissions from Earth intercepted by the TMA-1 monolith—in which he is being studied by the invisible alien entities. He examines some food items provided for him, and notes that they are edible, yet clearly not made of any familiar substance from Earth. Kubrick's use film leaves all this unstated.
3. Inglorious Basterds
Tarantino wrote the script in 1998, but struggled with the ending and chose instead to direct the two-part film Kill Bill. After directing Death Proof in 2007, Tarantino returned to work on Inglourious Basterds. The title is spelled Inglourious Basterds in order to distinguish the film from a 1978 Italian war movie, The Inglorious Bastards... He was either making light of his problems with spelling or he stuck with the way he misspelled his own title in his original drafts of the film. It’s a movie that turns the Jews into the Nazis and the Nazis into the Jews and takes great fun doing it.
But it doesn’t stop there- the Jews even become suicide bombers, striking a contemporary note. It’s a revenge movie in just about every possible vector. It was an obscene love affair with the warm and powerful hate that revenge can turn into a kind of orgiastic joy- with a price. Unlike Kill Bill, there’s no one Bride. Just about everyone is down to get theirs, and they do.
The psychic price for revenge in IG seems to be life, which most characters give willingly and enthusiastically. But it’s not, that’s a red herring. Revenge turns out to be much more expensive. The Basterds are essentially on a suicide mission driven by rage and righteous anger. Meaning they don’t intellectualize their violence like Landa has. Landa provides that squirrels/rats/whatever bit at the beginning to justify why he does what he does but the Basterds never have that moment. They exist to commit acts of straightforward violence on the Nazis. This is the joke with the undercover scene. These guys are out of their elements trying to disguise themselves and put on fake accents. Straightforward anger-driven violence is what they’re good at.
So yeah there is that satisfaction that would come from just "giving Hitler a bullet enema" and it also follows what they’ve been doing up until that point if they just go "fuck the plan, let’s shoot the bastard."
4. Ex Machina
The actor and director had opposite ideas about how things would have played out. After Ava murders Nathan with the help of Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno, Devs), Caleb awakes to find her standing over him. She asks him to wait for her while she prepares herself for the outside world. He watches her intently as she carefully dresses herself in the skin of her sister androids who have been switched off, a fate she only narrowly avoided herself. When she is done getting dressed, she leaves the research facility.
Caleb realizes that she is leaving without him and tries to follow her, but his key card doesn’t allow it. He shouts and bangs on the soundproof glass door to get her attention to no avail. He is locked in and must find another way out. Caleb rushes over to a computer terminal, but when he inserts his key card, the power goes out. He is last seen banging a stool against the glass door. This might seem as though Ava has left him to die, but it is equally plausible that she got caught up in the moment. Additionally, there is no reason not to expect the power to come back on, and since Caleb was previously able to hack the security system, he had the means to free himself the whole time.
However, it makes just as much sense that Ava was able to retain a semblance of compassion in spite of the abuse. She may have been so absorbed in taking her first steps into the real world as a free soul that she momentarily forgot about Caleb. Furthermore, she knew that he had hacked the security system, thus proving his ability to escape on his own. Great care must be taken when creating life, because it can emulate and even surpass the human race in its capability for evil as well as good.
5. The Prestige
The Prestige’s openly monologue describes the three acts of a magic trick, while also cleverly foreshadowing the structure of the film. The first act of a trick, the pledge, shows you something ordinary. The second act, the turn, makes it do something extraordinary, such as disappearing. The third act is called the prestige: it brings back the object - or in this case, person - that disappears. The films final scene reveals how both men pulled off their own prestige.
All is revealed when the surviving Borden twin shoots Angier. He immediately realizes Borden was portrayed by twins. With his dying breaths, Angier reveals his own secret to Borden. Angier so desperately wanted to be the best and dazzle his audience that he sacrificed himself to do so. Because of the horrific cycle set in place by his trick, this is not the real Angier standing in front of Borden.
Angier died the first time he pulled off The Transported Man. He is just one of the many clones. The Prestige’s final moments loop back to the opening scene, in which Cutter breaks down a magic trick for a little girl. Only now, audiences realize that’s Borden’s daughter Jess, and Cutter agreed to safely keep watch over her, because he grew disgusted with Angier’s dangerous obsession. Borden’s reunion with his daughter is inter-cut with his discovery of the dead Angier clones. He’s horrified at what he sees. His love of magic is grounded in the craft itself, not the glory as it was for Angier. Walking away with his daughter signifies that he is happily leaving magic behind him. The Prestige’s final shot, of Borden finding dozens of dead Angier clones and then reuniting with his daughter, speaks volumes. Each man gave up an inordinate amount for magic.
Borden lost a brother and maimed his own body, and Angier ended up sacrificing his own life. They both did whatever it took to come out on top, but their driving motivations are what set them apart. In his final monologue, Angier reveals his motivation was always his audience. The world can be a hard and terrible place, so if Angier could provide his audiences with just one moment of amazement, he could count himself as a success. Yet he could only be the one providing that moment if he was the best. Angier was willing to sacrifice absolutely anything if it meant he could provide his audiences with that moment. At the end of the day, Angier is technically regarded as the better magician.
The Binge Flix Conclusion
Well, if you haven't seen these Movies in a long time we are sure that now you feel like revisiting at least one of them. Going forward we would like to venture into more niche and wide range of topics so let us know if you feel there's a topic which would suite the way we write. As per the availability of the above mentioned movies, The Shining and 2001: A Space Odyssey both from Kubrick can easily be watched on Netflix, The Prestige is available on Prime Video so is Inglorious Bastards, as per Ex machina the film is only available if you order it's Blu Ray.
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