ha! you are the only one mara. no one else will go with me after one time. my husband has banned nic comments when i am watching dvds, but my daughter has taken over for me, so there is justice in the end. he "grounded" her from nic for 24 hours because she kept kissing the tv and trying to hug him. since the tv is bigger and heavier, it's a safety issue. wonder where she gets that from... lol!
i agree with meg. like she didn't hear the roar of a diesel engine in the idyllic country she was cycling thru... i always watch his movies alone. of course, as you all know that is directly related to my unfortunate inability to stop yelling inappropriate things at the screen. hehe
Thanks for your answer Meg53... Yeah I know the feeling... it´s a totally different experience when you see a movie alone than when there´s company with you. Other´s POV are enriching, but if you´re in an introspective mood it´s better to be left alone with your own vision right?
Anyway, that careless biker Maggie girl was with her head in the clouds, literally, when she died... She never had raised her gaze so high before. Seth´s influence gave her this sublime moment.
In a movie I saw recently, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, the protagonist dies too in the end... while a voice-over says something along these lines: "The important thing is not how we die, but what we were doing at that very moment. And Madame Michel at that very moment was willing to fall in love". I think that´s just a beautiful way to end the story. Maybe that was on the scriptwriter´s mind too with Maggie. The circle had to be closed you know?
Just my opinion of course.... Of course it´s a bummer Maggie and Seth cannot be together in the end after so much longing... the buckets of tears produced by this movie could probably water Central Park for weeks, LOL!
I would want to change the ending for City Of Angels. I was so disappointed when I first saw it. What the heck was she driving on a winding, mountainous road with her eyes shut for anyway! I thought that was so lame. I really love that movie, it is romantic and Nic is very angelic in it, but I think a happy ending could have been just as effective. They could have gone running into the surf together. Of course, we wouldn't have had the most romantic line ever from a movie, there is that to consider. Forgot about that. Still, I think I would change it.
I watched this movie again not too long ago with my 91 year old mom, She laughed all the way through it and she couldn't get over the ending, She said: 'That's it? She died! What a stupid movie.'
It's been so long since I've dragged out my copy of Windtalkers. Maybe I should put it on my 'to do' list.
In some off the wall way, I can relate to that whole scene which.....I've never seen. And now that I've heard about it.....I gotta say it.....me thinks Joe Enders was an idiot.
Yeah the real tragedy of the character is his inability to overcome his guilt. A pitiable man really. But in the end we discover he "was listening" and maybe could have had his shot at hapiness after all... too late, but still the intention was there somewhere deep inside him. He only had to try a little bit harder though. There´s always hope when you try a little bit harder.
-- Edited by mara on Monday 8th of February 2010 07:40:17 AM
Great ideas for an alternate ending, T.Z.! Your opinion is shared by many who are left begging for more in The Family Man, I´ve read many times the ending spoils the movie a little bit for them... I personally like open endings though, they leave you with the chance to choose for yourself, like the ending in SONNY, which I absolutely loved!
I always think The Family Man shoulda had a better ending. When the movie ended, I was like "OMG that's how it ends? What about the children that Jack and Kate should have had???" I think they could make everything Jack saw and felt, everything, his car, his company, his job, was just a glimpse. Like, when Jack opens his eyes, he sees the younger Kate, and he sees he is at the airport. That is the day he goes to London. Now he has the choices: Still going to London, or staying with Kate. And he decides to stay. Then we see a busy morning of the Campbells: Kate tries to stop little Josh from crying, Jack makes some chocolate milk for Annie.
I really like that ending :). Maybe I've watch 13 going to 30 too many times ;)).
BTW, I haven't seen The Windtalkers, Adaptation, Wild At Heart AWWWW!!!
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"No discussion -- no deals." - Face/Off Script. "You are what you love, not what loves you." - Adaptation. SAY IT LOUD - I'M A NICAHOLIC AND I'M PROUD XD!!!
It's been so long since I've dragged out my copy of Windtalkers. Maybe I should put it on my 'to do' list.
In some off the wall way, I can relate to that whole scene which.....I've never seen. And now that I've heard about it.....I gotta say it.....me thinks Joe Enders was an idiot.
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"Side by side or miles apart, good friends are always close to the heart" ~~~Author Unknown~~~
Thanks dearie but... but you know that title doesn´t belong to me, nosssir.... *wink*
WINDTALKERS SPOILER AHEAD
I just remembered about another great ending (how could I forget about this one?) In the special edition Windtalkers DVD, the director´s cut includes 20 minutes of deleted scenes. In one of these scenes, Joe Enders and the nurse (yep, the one who keeps drooling while she´s tending to him, LOL!) are watching the sunset in a convertible on the beach the night before going into battle.The nurse says it´s a beautiful life after all. And he says "No, it´s not" and rejects her caress with so much brutality that she begins to cry and tells him that she´s sorry for him, meaning he´s denying himself his only chance at happiness (with her) out of guilt about feeling responsible for the deaths of his men. And that she feels more sorry for him than for the casualties, her subtext really meaning that she believes he´s more dead than they are.... She then wants to kiss him, and he ends up kissing her just to make her feel better, but clearly not because he feels like it.
In one of her letters, she writes "Are you there, Joe?" "Are you listening?" If you remember, during the movie Joe gets many letters from her but doesn´t even read them on camera...
Well, at the end of the movie, when Joe has died and his Navajo friend is performing the ritual back in Monument Valley, we can hear Nic´s voice-over over the images. Apparently he wrote her back eventually, because he says: "To answer your question, I´m listening. Your letters are what keep me going here. I remember what you said about the world being a beautiful place. I just need a little help seeing it that way. But I want to go back in that beach with you..."
I loved this ending much much better than the one we saw in theaters...
Hey, if the directors and producers can change the endings to suit their tastes.. why can´t we moviegoers do the same??? At least in our imagination...
-- Edited by mara on Sunday 7th of February 2010 06:14:14 PM
Again.....you boggle the mind with your creativity! I'm gonna have to put my thinking cap on for this one! BTW......I didn't know anything about any of these alternative endings. You are indeed, the number ONE Nicfan in the world!
You Rock Girl!
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"Side by side or miles apart, good friends are always close to the heart" ~~~Author Unknown~~~
AGAIN, THERE ARE HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD... If you haven´t seen Bangkok Dangerous, Wild at Heart, National Treasure, 8MM or Snake Eyes, stop reading right now...
Now the time has arrived! Come on, ladies and gents, let´s liven this up and put our thinking caps on...
Remeber the McKey line in Adaptation? "The ending makes the movie"
Any Nic movie ending you were dissatisfied with? Sometimes there´s an alternative ending that doesn´t make it to the final cut we get to see in theaters... but some other times the ending written in the script gets changed for commercial purposes. Some other times it makes it to the final version of the movie... and well, maybe we didn´t like it so much, huh?
An example of an alternative ending that I liked much better than the one chosen by the producers, was in Bangkok Dangerous. The final movie ended like the original 1999 Bangkok Dangerous, with Joe shooting himself. But the 2004 DVD features an alternative ending with Nic surviving and being helped by the inhabitants of the slums (popular justice of sorts: they were grateful because he had killed the tyrant Surat). IMHO this would have been a bold choice...
An example of an ending written on the original script that was discarded was in 8MM. In the first version of the script, Nic´s character couldn´t live with the memories of his own fall into depravity and killed himself hitting his car against a wall. Again, IMO this suited the tone of the storyline much better. Sometimes you can´t turn a corner.
A very unsuitable ending, again IMHO, was in Snake Eyes. Rick Santoro and the girl are almost drowned by a flooding tunnel in the final scene... but I think I read the director thought this was OTT and re shoot the final scene we can see on the movie. But, they couldn´t edit out Santoro´s line in the farewell scene... when he says "I keep dreaming I´m still on that tunnel. Only in my dream, I drowned"
Another ending they had to reshoot was in the original NT, as you can see in the DVD. The movie was going to end in the National Archives, with Ben joking about looking at the back of the Constitution, and his dad joking about seeking another treasure inmediately after. In this case, I liked the ending of the final version of the movie much better!
In Wild at Heart however, the ending of the book in which the movie is based was much more realistic, and in fact it´s in the movie when Sailor leaves Lula and his son in the car and goes away with his suitcase... but the director, in accordance with the original writer, decided to give the thing a happier turn. Nic is great singing "Love me Tender", but I still think it´s very Sailor-like to leave poor Lula to her own devices.... a selfish/generous deed of sorts.
Well.... and how about chosing your own version of the ending??? Would you rather see any of Nic´s characters end their movies in a different way, and why??? Enquiring minds wanna know!!
-- Edited by mara on Sunday 7th of February 2010 03:35:58 PM
-- Edited by mara on Sunday 7th of February 2010 03:39:15 PM
