That ending - fair or unfair? Spoiler warning

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Soapstone

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Jul 13, 2015
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there is the one ending where he shoots everyone but himself only to have the army show up killing monsters and the mist clearing, the other one i believe is him and the others driving off into the mist, looking for a place of salvation, to see if the mist is not everywhere, i think the mist essentially covers the whole earth in that ending and we are literally screwed.
 

Steffen

Well-Known Member
Aug 9, 2015
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12,800
there is the one ending where he shoots everyone but himself only to have the army show up killing monsters and the mist clearing, the other one i believe is him and the others driving off into the mist, looking for a place of salvation, to see if the mist is not everywhere, i think the mist essentially covers the whole earth in that ending and we are literally screwed.


Pretty nice endings. Thanks for posting it, man!
 

Ebdim9th

Dressing the Gothic interval in tritones
Jul 1, 2009
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22,104
I don't buy either end of the movie... the whole point to the snippet of radio broadcast 'Hartford' and 'hope' is to indicate just that, that there is a chance of some kind of escape. In the filmed ending all these people on the backs of trucks managed to survive until the military showed up, why not our crew? I think they should have just kept going, hopping from motel, to shopping center, to house, trading out cars for as long as they could.
 

Ebdim9th

Dressing the Gothic interval in tritones
Jul 1, 2009
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The Mist has always been one of my all-time favorite stories, it's nearly the length of a novel, and I've read it over and over again. Amazing how much I reread SK's stories... The Mist could easily have been the length of the Stand... and maybe it should've, I think the Stand started as a short story anyway.... at least there's one related to it, enough so you can picture the larger concept expanding...
 
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Pucker

We all have it coming, kid
May 9, 2010
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The Mist has always been one of my all-time favorite stories, it's nearly the length of a novel, and I've read it over and over again. Amazing how much I reread SK's stories... The Mist could easily have been the length of the Stand... and maybe it should've, I think the Stand started as a short story anyway.... at least there's one related to it, enough so you can picture the larger concept expanding...

I'm almost certain I've heard King say something like "all stories want to be novels, and all novels want to be epic."

People ask "Where do you get your ideas?" and authors groan.

I don't want to know where the ideas come from. I'm interested in the process of containing them (if, indeed, that is possible).
 

Senor_Biggles

Well-Known Member
Sep 13, 2015
188
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The ending was a gut punch. I thought it was brave and that it worked. Thomas Jane deserves a lot of credit for that, I think he's very underrated as an actor.

For me if I read the book first it colours the movie, and if I see the movie first it colours the book. I hadn't read The Mist in a long time when I saw the movie, but my recollection was that it had ended somewhat ambiguously. The surprising (maybe shocking?) ending actually elevated the movie for me.

With note perfect adaptations you run the risk of rendering the movie redundant for those that are familiar with the source material. The Gone Girl movie is a recent example of this. It's an excellent adaptation of an excellent book and because of that I can't excatly say that I found it disappointing, but I was unmoved by it.
 

Ebdim9th

Dressing the Gothic interval in tritones
Jul 1, 2009
6,137
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Even the movie's ending wasn't a final ending. Can you imagine the army waging war against gargantuan monstrosities like the one that crossed the road? That battle, if there were enough of those things, could still be lost, dispelling the mist or not...
 

Sunlight Gardener

Well-Known Member
Jul 22, 2013
375
1,273
Thank you Soapstone for that Alt Ending. Now THAT is an ending and that monster was as awesome as I imagined in the book. If it would have ended like that, The Mist would have instantly become one of my favorite SK adaptations. Unfortunately I don't have the desire to watch it again because I know what's coming. Makes the preceding 90 minutes of the movie totally pointless. I can't get invested in something that ends like that.
 
Mar 12, 2010
6,538
29,004
Texas
I'd still like to see the tall monster, with some of it's friends in tow, come back for that army convoy...

Me too! The Mist's ending was very much like the beginnings of a few zombie movies/series. I'd for sure watch a series. I would love to see how humans survive a Lovecraftian monster appocalypse :) I'm getting a bit tired of zombies... Bring on the monsters! :)
 

M_Parabola

Well-Known Member
Jan 27, 2016
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Outside NYC
I would say fair, considering where the short story left off it could have gone in either direction. With them making it to safety, or with the scenario that happened in the movie. I actually was impressed the movie decided to end it that way (did any of you notice the woman from the beginning who left for her two children was safely on the truck? I didn't notice until my second watch-through. She actually plays Carol in The Walking Dead, great actress!). Not enough movies, or stories for that matter, end with a negative ending. I think it has become universal to expect a happy ending, but sometimes reality hits you that much harder. It IS a plausible scenario, and in his mind he was only trying to do right by the people he cared for. One of the best movie endings I have seen in a long, long time. Nothing prepares you for those screams at the end, it chills you straight through.