Can someone explain the ending of this flick?

I don't think it's clear that the entire crew disappeared. We see the woman fade out, then the Captain looks around, but all we see after the Captain's face is a shot of one seat/acceleration couch empty. I thought that was more his thinking of that seat belonging to the dead crewman. It wasn't an issue at first, because the crewman's death meant he could bring along the woman, but with her gone, they're one man down.

If they had showed the rest of the ship, to show there were no other crew members there, then I would have thought the rest of the crew vanished, but we didn't see enough to make that point.

It really seemed to me the Captain's expression was more puzzled or sad than fearful, but I guess it depends on what you're expecting. It's the Kuleshove effect at work there.

I also thought it was quite unbelievable that he, of all of them, brought her onto the ship.

Just watched this on utube, and the same thing struck me. It was incredibly credible. Sure, they knew the women weren't there, but somehow they wanted to believe.

But you're right about the ending. I think everyone did disappear. The film clearly showed that the crew vanished with the girl.

This, along with the theme music at the end, gave an avant garde impression that he lost all sense of reality. It looks like he blacks out and vanishes, too, but why?

It was strange that the crew let him take the woman on board with so little resistance. It was like they never were really there. Everything they tried to do was a mirage.

And the alien only needed one astronaut to take it back, so the end made it look like the alien succeded. The crew was never there, but the girl vanishing was weird when added with the crew vanishing.

Talk about your open ended ending. I'd like to know what was supposed to really happen, too.


Lets not bicker about who killed whom

The crew wasnt real at that point. the captain was the only real person. the alien was inside him traveling back to earth. this fit perfectly with the story.

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I've been vandalized by Elvis! -Ernest, Ernest Goes to Jail (1990)

YES, THE ALIEN BRAIN did INDEED DIE & EVERYTHING THAT IT ''CREATED'' CEASED TO EXIST. THE CREW HOWEVER DID NOT VANISH, YOU JUST DID NOT SEE THEM IN THE LAST SCENE OF THE FILM. HOWEVER THE BEAUTIFUL WOMAN 'DID' VANISH, AS SHE WAS NOTHING MORE THAN A 'CREATION' OF THE ALIEN. THE REASON THE CAPTAIN LOOKED SO SAD [NOT FEARFUL] WAS BECAUSE SHE WAS HIS 'IDEAL' WOMAN & HE HOPED THAT SHE COULD SOMEHOW RETURN TO EARTH WITH HIM. I FELT HIS SORROW & THE AUDIENCE SHOULDVE TOO AFTER HEARING THAT BEAUTIFUL/HAUNTING SONG AT THE END OF THE FILM.

All the above might be true, but maybe--just maybe--the alien got in one last mind screw and altered everyone's minds so that they only think they got off planet! In reality, they're still trapped there, doomed to die of asphyxiation or hypothermia or hunger, AND THEY DON'T KNOW IT! MWAHAHAHAAA!

Or maybe not, but that would have been a much cooler ending.

You guys are reading too much into this. Jet Jaguar is right, the "woman" disappears but the crew does not. I think he looked at the empty chair because that was the one she had been sitting in, checking to make sure she was really gone. She disappeared because she was tied to the alien and the planet and could not leave it.

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