I love a happy ending. You know, when you have a movie with that tried-and-tested formula: good vs evil, goodies fight baddies, goodies triumph and all live happily ever after. All live happily ever after. Like in Disney fairytales. The prince fights whatever obstacles the evil queen, witch or sea monster throws at him, defeats them and their evil ways, and rescues his princess. Then they kiss and all is well. But movie directors, producers and writers need to give their stories a bit more bite, a bit more edge. They don’t want to be all predictable, using that same old wonderful formula. Oh no. They love killing off a character in there somewhere to make the audience feel something; to make them sad or angry, to make them sympathise with the other characters in their plight. Well I’ve had enough! I’m sick of becoming attached to a character in a movie just to watch them be cruelly killed and watch those around them suffer. I’m tired of movie-makers thinking they have to kill someone we like to make their movie better. And I’ve had enough of trying to quickly wipe away the tears and make myself look fine as the credits begin to roll and the lights get brighter! Titanic immediately springs to mind when thinking of movies in this category. Jack and Rose met and fell in love on board that fateful cruise and they managed to escape the sinking ship. They escaped! And both could have been rescued and lived happily ever after! But alas, he dies mere hours before rescue arrives. At least in Romeo + Juliet both the star-crossed lovers died. Totally tragic and still sad. But not as sad as watching one’s heart try and go on… Pardon that terrible, terrible Celine Dion reference!

As previously mentioned on this website, I am quite the Harry Potter nut. So how do you think I coped when Ms Rowling decides to start needlessly killing characters from book/movie 4 to the end of the series?! Not very well, to say the least. I still can’t believe none of the ink ran from my book pages. In the movies, I know what’s coming, so I start getting teary a good half hour before the death!

Another incident that has always stuck with me, since I love The Matrix, was the totally unnecessary death of Trinity in Matrix Revolutions. Just when you think they are going to go into battle, win and make everything alright again, Trinity gets killed. Just like that. And once Neo defeats all the baddies and enters the ‘new’ world, he has to do it without her. Oh, cruel fate! And the list goes on. There are movies that to this day I refuse to watch, such as The Notebook, because everyone else has told me how emotional it is and how much they cried. I don’t even know if anyone does die in that… anyway, you hopeless romantics get the picture: spare yourself the water works, or prepare well and stock up on tissues. If only all movies could have that Disney touch, right?

Actually, come to think of it, Disney has done it to us as well! Anyone remember a little film called The Lion King?! That stampede, and Mufasa, and Simba crying out for his dad… shame on you, Disney! Sure, the ending was happy enough, but you put us emotional types through the ringer before getting there.

So who’s with me?! Let’s demand justice from those big wigs in Hollywood. Stop killing our characters and give us happy endings! * We want to feel good, not sad; elated, not mad. Every movie should end with ‘And they all lived happily ever after’, and we’d skip out of the cinema on our merry way. Good should win, love should triumph, and everyone should live to see a new day. The end.

Where we all will live happily ever after, of course.

 

 

__________

*Note: This piece was written with my tongue firmly in cheek. Although I do dislike when characters I like die in films (and do cry on occasion… or quite often!), cinema would become a very boring medium if every story had a ‘happily ever after’ ending. Films, like real life, aren’t always going to be cheerful all the time. You do have to have some drama, some suspense, some sadness, and a good film will make us feel a range of emotions, not just make us happy!