The Mist (SPOILERS)

Gunslinger

Jameslofton wrote:

Alot of King's fans have a special place for that story, and for it to be altered even slightly does change the dynamics of the emotions created by reading the novella.
Sounds like I'm down on that ending. I'm not, but it definitely changes the desperation and overall malaise(not sure if thats really the right word to use, but you've read it so you know what I mean) of the story.
The new ending does pack a punch and is emotional, but on a different level. I can see why King liked it, but I can also see that he may have had hesitation in allowing it. You'll never be able to read that story again and feel the emotions you used to feel while reading it.

With the exception of the original Shining, there are few times that changes to a King story has worked out well. In fact that is one of the main reasons many of his film adaptions have been less than stellar. However in this case I am intrigued. You and I have very similar tastes (outside of Baz's music ) and I expect I will like it, the question will be whether or not as much as the original ending. For the ending to change the overall flavor of the story means it must be a signficant change. I actually liked the ending in the book so I'll be very interested in the last few minutes of this movie in particular. If everthing works out well I will try and catch this one tonight. As you stated already the timing for this movie to come out was obviously much less than the ideal opportune time so if I don't go now I may have to wait for the dvd releas.

Randall Flagg

I saw The Mist when it came out and was very impressed with the movie as it held true to all Tower Junkies. I was hoping to finish the story before I saw it, but didn't make it. I'm almost done with the book so I'm interested in knwoing the "real" ending. I thought the ending was good, but a bit cliche in the movie.

I'm sure most of you have seen 1408, but I think that movie is amazing. It is the first movie I can say I thought was better than the book. So if you haven't seen 1408, defintely check it out.

Gunslinger

1408 was good but I would still prefer the Mist. Did you notice the "movie poster" for the Dark Tower? I wonder if this is a small hint that we may FINALLY see the Dark Tower on the big screen?

I can't say much about the ending yet as not to run it for DTJ or others who may be watching the Mist this weekend but it was a huge shock. I thought the movie was excellent and the ending (although different than the book) was very powerful. You were right James, no way could you read the novella again without having altered emotions than of those you read before viewing the movie.

Tomorrow we'll discuss this, maybe you could add a "spoiler warning" on the title of the thread just to be safe. Definitely a great movie and a very bold move to go with that ending. Even more impressive that it works. Very hard to alter such a well-known/loved story and have a good outcome but I think the producer managed to do just that. Not saying I prefer it to the novella's ending but I definitely see this new ending as a strong alternative.

DoubleTalkingJive

I watched it, I really liked it, thought it was great until the ending. I won't spoil it for anyone, James knows how I feel as we were speaking on IM. Until we are ready to put up the spoiler alert, I won't explain why.

James

Spoil away. The people in this thread who wanted to watch it have seen it.

James

I can see why people have issues with him killing everybody, especially since at that moment in time they were not in imminent danger. However, they were out of gas and had nowhere to go. It was basically doomsday. Not killing yourselves was just delaying the inevitable. Also, ending it this way was an attempt at keeping the doom and gloom vibe of the novella while trying to wrap up the movie with a real ending. The novella is left open to your imagination. At the end of the novella, you pretty much assume that The Mist is never going away.

DoubleTalkingJive

Okay here it goes

I really liked the movie itself, I thought it was great, took alittle from Alien, had a very Thing like feel. I thought it was well acted and had you on edge the entire time.

The ending I felt was a jip and here's why. There was no respect nor acheivement for any of these characters that fought so hard throughout the movie. Had it ended where he killed everyone and the mist stayed and he was still alive, then it'd be up to you to think what happened to him, or he left the girl and kid alive because she had said how she always wanted kids and they were saved which would have been an achievement for him that he saved his son or had he killed all of them as the monsters were attacking the car and then ultimately he got killed you would have the hero feeling for him and have that he had to do it feeling. To have it where the military who caused the problem, ultimately become the hero....BLOWS, leaves the audience with nothing. I understand it's a doom and gloom, but there are different ways to have ended it then that.

James told me the book ending, that would have been perfect for the movie, then the audience would leave and you would have to think on your own what happened.

Gunslinger

I see the ending differently. I did not feel like it was one of the cliche endings, in fact I hate those sorts. The "shock" ending has been made popular again since the Scream movies...sometimes for the good but more often than not for the bad. An example of the bad is the basic "It was all a dream" ending. To me that just spells the writer got brain-constipation and could not come up with a good ending. (You fellow writers know the ending is the hardest part of writing any fictional story in most cases). An example of a good "shock ending" is the Sixth Sense. The ending is solid and (for the most part) will surprise people in an intellectual way, not a "cheap shot". This ending is more of the "good" shock ending in my opinion. Now for the reasons.

In the novella the male lead character, the woman, the old lady and the boy leave together (I don't remember the elderly man being with them but it's been a decade or better since I read this story) and the situation is pretty much like what happens in the movie (up to the point where they run out of gas). The roads and enviroment are in bad shape and the creatures have seemingly took ownership of the world we know. At some point the man turns on a multiband radio and believes (hopes) he has heard someone speak. This gives him hope others have survived. The frequency had been set to receive from Hartford (I believe) so he plans on driving there the next morning. In the meanwhile he, the boy, the woman and the elderly lady are going to crash at a Hojo's they see at the turnpike. He basically writes down the events that have happened and leaves the written account for someone to find. He then says he is going to go to sleep but first will whisper two words into his son's ears: Hope and Hartford. To me this has a sort of "Hope Springs Eternal" type of ending and leaves the story's ending up to the reader. My imagined ending (the "half full" approach I suppose) was they would find that some people had survived and the creatures had either not found a way to adapt to our planet or we had found a way to stop them. Not a bad ending and still works ok with the story.

The movie ending (though not the "half full" approach) actually fits better. One reason The Mist works is not the just story itself but the sub-stories skillfully weaved into the threads of the novella as a whole. While many human themes are explored (paranoia, pride, delirium, vengeance, etc) the most prominent is that of when man vs life-threatening chaos, man will fail, often fail by his own poor choices. This is evident from the pill-suicide from the one lady in the store, the self-hanging of the two military guys in the back of the storeroom, the teenager's desire to show his "manhood" by going outside when he knew better and, of course, the lead character's decision to take the other's lives by reasoning there was nothing left to do. While we all would probably feel the same way the fact is it was the wrong choice and held true to the Mist's dark themes. For that reason I feel the ending was brilliant. Not one anyone would find "uplifting" by any means but more true to the horror that was the Mist. It simply works.

Best movie this year, hands down.

DoubleTalkingJive

Yeah but in the Sixth Sence, Bruce Willis acheived something, he helped the boy, even tho he was dead, his character was respected, it was dark and was shocking but it left the viewer with something for the character when it ended. This ending left you with nothing for the characters but feeling jipped that he worked so hard only for him to kill them and be left with nothing. The woman that killed herself, you didn't feel for throughtout the movie, these characters you did, to do that to them, all of them, blows.

I have to disagree, I think this movie was a big disappointment because of the ending, I was really enjoying it until that.

James

Well, this story isn't supposed to make you feel good. I wish you could have read the novella before watching the movie. This is a doomsday story. Nothing good is supposed to happen. No explanation, no real purpose. Mankind is thrown into a unexplainable nightmare, and its about how these people in a small town deal with it.

Now I'm starting to wish they had used King's original ending so people who had never read the book could see the original intent of The Mist. Its not supposed to conveniently go away seconds after he kills everyone. The Mist is here to stay.

Slinger, yeah the old man was not in the car with them in the book. He had enough bullets to kill them(including himself) in the book. They added this character in the car so he could kill them all and survive when the world came back to normal.

I completely missed any Dark Tower reference. What part of the film did they show it?

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