MovieChat Forums > 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) Discussion > Ideas on how to improve the ending

Ideas on how to improve the ending

posted 8 years ago by smoko
12 replies | jump to latest

Once Michelle escapes from Howard, the movie's tension is gone, so you've gotta wrap it up fast.

Michelle sees the birds, takes off her mask, breathes in deeply, and we think that everything's fine.

Then she sees an alien ship off in the distance, and some jet fighters fly overhead to bomb it.

She drives off in Leslie's car, turns on the radio and hears the transmission, and makes her decision to help people in Houston. Roll credits.

None of that Molotov cocktail nonsense.

Any other ideas on how you'd improve the ending?

[–] SarahJConnor 8 years ago

her breathing in after removing the mask would've been a great final shot.

but i like finishing her arc with having her decide to head to Houston, so

remove the alien ship altogether. it's completely useless and undermines the film's tone.
she finds out the air is breathable, gets in the car and drives til she gets the radio transmission.

imo

[–] e216 8 years ago

I wish the movie had ended after she removed her gas mask and spotted the ship way off in the distance. It would have made for a hell of a closing shot. I didn't like the action and alien close-ups that came afterwards at all. I can't be the only one who thinks this would have made for a nice ending, right?

[–] smoko 8 years ago

@e216 It's not a bad ending that you've got. The only problem I have is that it doesn't assure us that Michelle will survive, which is why I'd still show her driving to Houston. All I did was replace her fighting the aliens with the deus ex machina of some fighter jets.

But yes, there are plenty of people like you who don't want the ending spoon-fed to them - just not enough to convince the studios to do it.

[–] e216 8 years ago

It's strange. I usually get really upset when movies have open endings but if 10 Cloverfield Lane had ended with her looking at the craft, I would have loved it.

Maybe it's because I didn't care about Michelle's fate as much as I wanted to know what had really happened.

[–] luckiest_strike 8 years ago

Since I was pretty mad about her killing Howard and destroying a possibly invaluable supply of good in the process I lost all interest in her fate at that point. It was also pretty obvious that the air was safe to breathe unless they got to you. I would prefer all endins in this thread over the original one

[–] owlfy 8 years ago

Her pulling off the mask thinking the air was clean, then boom, Howard was right all along, a few seconds later she realizes she made a mistake and it starts destroying her flesh. Roll credits. I think she should have died at the end, that's what I was thinking when she took off the mask and what I was hoping for. Forget the happy ending and the alien garbage.

[–] smoko 8 years ago

@owlfy ...she realizes she made a mistake and it starts destroying her flesh. Roll credits.
Yikes, we're in David Fincher territory there.

[–] Porrohman 8 years ago

The endings fine.

[–] Fluig_2013 8 years ago

Why of course it was: http://i.imgur.com/c4jt321.png

[–] Jimothy3 8 years ago

Yeah I'd have preferred that ending. When she sees that ship in the distance it perked my interest and intrigue without giving too much away. It didn't need to go all Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds on us and hammer home that the aliens are big, bad and want to kill everyone. I guess they wanted it to be known that she now has some sort of combat experience that will be of value in Houston, in which case I'd have scrapped that part from the radio message too.

[–] Sequentialist 7 years ago

The climax and the interaction with the aliens is exactly the same.

But instead of that lame cross roads ending she recovers the bottle and drives for a bit then she gets out to relieve herself and meets some hooligan who appears to harm her but she manages to know him out and with the bottle and takes his stuff.

The world is chaos now but she may survive.

[–] danmax67 7 years ago

It's quite an annoying trope that aliens of unimaginable power and technical advancement are always dispatched rather easily. Typically by methods that would not stop current military let alone super advanced invaders.