On endings...

POSTED BY: BlackoutNights
UPDATED: Friday, May 20, 2005 17:46
VIEWED: 4323
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BARNEYT

Monday, May 16, 2005 1:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Cybersnark:
Endings are problematical for me.

On one hand, I like a sense of closure, but I also want to retain the possibility of revisiting the world.

Frex, the finale for Deep Space Nine ("The Things You Leave Behind") is my idea of a perfect series finale. It wrapped up the Dominion War, resolved most of the big character arcs, and ended this chapter in the lives of pretty much everyone. But, the Station is still there. Kira's in charge. Cardassia is in need of rebuilding. The Dominion's gonna go through some social revolutions. Worf is stuck playing diplomat. . .

There're more stories to be told; and the novel series that continues past the finale (DS9: Avatar onward) is as close to a series of DS9 movies as I'll need. Unlike the novels that co-exist with the TV show, these ones are under no obligation to keep things static. Folks die, return, change, and evolve. Worf returns to the Enterprise (as seen in Nemesis), O'Brien isn't on Earth anymore, we've visited Andorr and found it completely different from Shran's homeworld in Enterprise.

The Voyager finale, OTOH, ended with the sound of a guillotine. Christie Golden had to spend much of her "reboot" novel (Homecoming) undoing the events of the finale.

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We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

It's the DS9 approach that I like best. A conclusion to the main story at hand, but also a clear sense that we were merely seeing one chapter out of the lives of these people and they continue to live once we've stopped looking.

That's why I like TV series more than movies, you're able to get a much stronger sense of continuity, that there are more stories out there to be told.

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"I think the right place to start is to say, fair is fair. This is who we are. These are our numbers." Mr Willis of Ohio - The West Wing

SERGEANTX

Monday, May 16, 2005 2:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Grounded:
The Quantum Leap ending was beautiful :)

Absolutely. I can't even THINK about that episode without getting choked up.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

BIKISDAD

Monday, May 16, 2005 2:32 PM

Joss basically did the same thing (as DS9) with the Buffy finale. The Scoobies' time in Sunnydale came to a very definite end. However, as we found out in Angel's season five episode, "Damage", they continued on, just doing different things.

Apathy on the Rise. No One Cares.

ANTHONYT

Friday, May 20, 2005 1:46 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by msckaren:
Yes, I want it all. I want a sense of completeness/conslusion when the ending credits start to roll but I like to be able to wonder what our surviving heros, heroines and villians will be up to next.

I'm also cool with ambiguous endings, e.g., my exhusband thought Total Recall had a happy ending. When I told him that Arnie was lost in a dream, he got mad at me. Probably a clue there about OUR ending...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Appears they've canceled the show and we're still here. What does that make us?"
"Big damn junkies, Sir!"
"Ain't we just."

Hello,

One of the things I liked about the Recall ending was that it was purposefully (I thought) ambiguous. He might have been in an artificial reality... or it might have been real. And the fact that you are left to make your own conclusions was grand to me.

(Arguments like that are plenty fun in my book, incidentally.)

--Anthony

"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner

THRAWN

Friday, May 20, 2005 3:06 PM

While we're at it, I'd like to mention Peacekeeper Wars, my personal favorite ending to a TV show of all time. Everything since we met Scorpius at the end of first season had been building to the last moment in that miniseries, and it delivered perfectly, while still leaving many things open (what's Chiana doing, etc). I thought it was absolute perfection.

EMBERS

Friday, May 20, 2005 3:16 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:
Quote:
Originally posted by msckaren:
I'm also cool with ambiguous endings, e.g., my exhusband thought Total Recall had a happy ending. When I told him that Arnie was lost in a dream, he got mad at me. Probably a clue there about OUR ending...

One of the things I liked about the Recall ending was that it was purposefully (I thought) ambiguous. He might have been in an artificial reality... or it might have been real. And the fact that you are left to make your own conclusions was grand to me.

actually the ending of 'Total Recall' was my very favorite part of the movie...
you were left not knowing what was real and what was a dream,
and for me that feeling carried over as I left the theater...
is this a dream? Is it reality? Believe me it is a very Zen question that has been debated by 'Knowers of Reality' for millenia

BATMARLOWE

Friday, May 20, 2005 4:37 PM

I ususally like the definite end. But I don't know how you would bring FIREFLY/SERENITY to a definite end without either killing everybody, or maybe it gets larger and larger in scope and the defeated rebels start a revolution and it's RETURN OF THE BROWNCOATS. Or Mal gets to the point where he settles down somewhere. But none of those feel right for our BDM's. Doesn't feel like SERENITY is pointed in a particular direction. Whereas it felt like BUFFY and ANGEL were headed toward a conclusion we have yet to see.

ZOOT

Friday, May 20, 2005 4:44 PM

I think I'd like a "Still Flying" ending, if ya know what I mean. A definite end to the particular plot line but the general saga still continues - a sense that in some alternate 'Verse Serenity is "still flyin'"....

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Okay, I'm lost, I'm angry, and I'm
armed.

FRECKLE

Friday, May 20, 2005 5:46 PM

i lke there to be two endings in one.The happy all is well ending and the not so well undertones that at anytime could spring up and ruin the fun...does that make sence?
like end of Farscape PK wars... John and Aeryn get married, babies born but D'argo is still dead and we all know that even though the war's over the Peacekeepers still hate JOhn Crichton and will kick his butt first chance they get.

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