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Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Follow The Leader: Episode 43: Twist Endings!
Movies, television, music, bands, characters, comic books, novels, writers, actors, artists, and civilization are all fair game as long as it appeals to our Bronze Age sensibilities.
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18 comments:
Which are the best twist-endings in films, books etc ?
I suppose the most famous twist-ending is Planet Of The Apes but it's never impressed me - it makes Taylor seem a bit dumb for not suspecting he might be on Earth, the apes speaking English would be a clue. And POTA is set just 2,000 years in the future so all the constellations in the northern hemisphere would be the same - Taylor is an astronaut but he didn't notice the stars above his head ? And where was the moon ? When the astronauts are wandering through the Forbidden Zone at the start of the film, Taylor mentions there's no moon but nothing more is said on the subject.
Three years ago I finally got around to reading Pierre Boulle's original novel of Planet Of The Apes (as an e-book) which is set on an alien planet and so avoids all the problems of the film being on Earth which don't make sense. The novel has TWO twist-endings - I already knew the first one but I never saw the second one coming !
The most jaw-dropping twist I ever read in a novel was in Isaac Asimov's "The Gods Themselves", but the twist was at the end of the middle section rather than the end - but the middle section was almost like a separate story so the twist was at the end of that.
Your right about POTA Colin. The thing is, why didn't I figure it out that first time. Guess I was just too young.
A good one is SHUTTER ISLAND, and I'm not talking about the main plot but the last 10 seconds.
My favorite is probably FRAILTY. I won't give anything away but 'tis the season to watch it.
Great Topic!
Twist ending..? I always liked my FF 141 where Reed zaps his son, and ASM 122 was the classic for me. You somehow didn't believe Gwen was dead at the end of ish 121 (or didn't want to believe), but somehow at the end of 122, you knew Gobby was dead.
As for POTA..? Of course you didn't see a moon, it was blasted out of Earth orbit in the year 1999. :)
David, that's the obvious explanation - I'd never thought of it ;)
The one from film that immediately leaped to mind was the end of "Primal Fear," with Richard Gere and Ed Norton. Perhaps not a great movie, but a solid performance by Norton and one of Gere's better roles as well.
The book "Ender's Game." Perhaps it's the second to last chapter when one (and Ender) understands what Ender's actually doing. Movie is faithful to book but a two-hour movie will not have the time to leave same impression as a book that took days.
Perhaps the 5 most shocking words in movie history: "Luke, I am your father!"
Speaking of Edward Norton, when I watched Fight Club the first time, I was honestly pretty surprised by the twist near the end, when the truth about Tyler Durden is revealed.
I was trying to think of twist endings but I could just come up with twists.
Sticking to comics, when the Thunderbolts were revealed as the former Masters Of Evil. That was a pretty cool twist.
Speaking of Thunderbolts, when Hawkeye and Mockingbird were captured and forced to fight each other. To counter the effects of the brainwashing, Hawkeye bit down on one of his sonic arrows. He permanently damaged his hearing. So now, the guy with the best eyesight in Marvel can't hear, while Daredevil, who can't see, has such good hearing he can tell if someone's lying by listening to their heartbeat. I know! Right?
I can't find this story but I know I've read it somewhere. There trying out a new Robot Cop to help the Police. But the Robot Cop is so by the book that he ends up doing more harm than good. He has no "street" sense. They end up stopping the trial and boxing the robot back up. At the end, the cop realizes the guy from the factory is a robot because he still hears the "buzz" that he heard from his "partner". If you've ever seen "Morgan" with Kate Mara, they do the same twist.
In the later run of Fantastic Four, Reed and Victor switch bodies. Sue realizes what happens and as she and Reed try to reverse the switch, a girl travels from the future to stop them. Turns out, she's their "daughter"!!! I know! Right?
(I made a rule about you
I made a plan
For getting my feet back on the ground
Bury my face in clouds
For hours on end
But time only flies when you're around
It was cold and dark, the last time I saw you
Your hair was long and falling in your eyes
You said my hands were worm and that I was special
to you
Valentine
You know that I'm
Fighting this love in vain
The sun's been shining for a week
But it just feels like rain
Valentine
I know that you're not mine
You're somebody elses flame
But when those hearts and flowers fade
Oh my darlin' look my way yeah
You say it's complicated
But baby you're wrong
There nothing more obvious to me
(That) we're on a trip together
33.000 light years long
and I'm, I'm hurting so bad 'cause you don't see
The night you walked me home I gave you a picture
Of Eden's trees falling to the ground
And now I feel
I feel like your perfect stranger
Without You
Valentine
You know that I'm
Fighting for this love in vain
The sun's been shining for a week
But it just feels like rain
Valentine
I know you're not mine
And I don't know why you stay
But when those hearts and flowers fade
Oh my darlin' look my way yeah...)
The robot cop story might be "Brillo" by Ben Bova and Harlan Ellison. It was published in Analog ca. 1970. Bova and Ellison later sued the ABC TV network and won, because the made-for-TV movie/series pilot episode, Future Cop, swiped their idea.
This reminds me of that Robot Chicken episode where M. Night Shamylan keeps saying "What a twist!"
As far as actual twist endings, the first one that came to mind was "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce. And O Henry had lots of ironic endings (e.g. Gift of the Magi) but I'm not sure if those count as twist endings exactly.
First and foremost: Thanks TC!!! I bet that's it. I need to go back through my paperbacks and find that story...
Secondly, I cannot believe I typed "There trying out" instead of the correct "They're trying out". That's just wrong. Wrong, wrong and wronger... really, the wrongest. I impose 48 hours in the penalty box for Prowler. No lyric posting until Thursday 5:15 pm Central. Mea culpa.
Okay, back to the twists:
Can't believe I forgot this one since the movie was on this weekend. "The Crying Game". There was a stem on the apple. Or as the French would say, "La Pomme avec le stem"!!!
Second, this is a twist in my book. Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home, or as Chekov would say, "The Woyage Home". The Enterprise is destroyed at the end of III, The Search For Spock. The crew finds themselves in a Klingon Bird Of Prey. We have a whole Star Trek movie with no Starship Enterprise. There's the carrier Enterprise but no Starship!!! I know! Right?
Those are my other two...
(Empty space. NO Lyrics!!!
Zip, zilch, nada, null, void,
the empty set).
The classic Outer Limits episode by Harlan Ellison “Demo with a Glass Hand” is sorta a progenitor of a lot of these twists endings. Tho Twilight Zone is the unabashed king of the stinger ending.
Yoyo
Perhaps less well-known than some, but the wonderful film "Murder By Death" has a terrific series of twist endings. Great cast, hilarious film. 1978, Perhaps?
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