MovieChat Forums > Children of the Damned (1964) Discussion > Ending a cop-out?

Ending a cop-out?

posted 16 years ago by Mr_McLaurel
10 replies | jump to latest

Just got done watching this, and although it's as almost as good a thriller as Village, my one complaint would be about the ending. Why have the destruction of the children be an accident? To me, it would have been more powerful to have the military willfully destroy the children, and have the psychologist and Paul's aunt pleading with them to stop. I think the bit with the signal device slipping is a cop-out. Anybody have any feelings on this?

What's the Spanish for drunken bum?

[–] Mister_Anderson 16 years ago

I just watched this movie last night, and I completely agree. The "accident" looked so staged. Was the scientist falling asleep??? Please. It would have been much better if the general gave the order to fire.

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[–] computacoach 15 years ago

Look at the date of the film. 1963; the whole world is living in fear of Mutually Assured Destruction (M.A.D.).

The concept of a destructive accident was highly significant. Indeed, it appears it almost happened on more than one occassion, and not just during the Cuban Missile Crisis and 'Bay of Pigs' posturing. For examples, search 'November 24, 1961: BMEWS Communication Failure' or 'August 23, 1962: B-52 Navigation Error', both of which would have been current news stories when the film was being made.

Unlike the original 'Village of the Damned' (1960), did you not find that it was not clear who the good guys really were. True, the children killed, but only in self defence. The nationalistic tendencies of all governments involved were hardly edifiying. These children were not as blatantly evil as the 'Midwich Cuckoos'.

The film, and the ending in particular, may be viewed as allegorical. It describes Man's inability to accept differences, especially when he feels threatened. Be that by a foreign power, a foreign race, or by people simply holding different views. Nobody wants the outcome (effectively M.A.D.) but a simple accident may cause it.

Also, by the end, it is clear the children realise they are out of place/time. There may be a place for them in the future evolution of humanity, but they cannot live with Man as he currently is. Rather than cause further conflict, they choose to leave - a precursor to Nuclear Arms Non-proliferation?

Of course, it can just be viewed as a thriller, in which case don't forget that Rashid has been dead - who knows if the children will remain that way?

[–] Mr_McLaurel 15 years ago

That's a good point, I hadn't thought of it.

What's the Spanish for drunken bum?

[–] thepixinator 10 years ago

I agree with you. Being a North Carolinian, born in the 1960's, the possibility of my lack of existence would have been very real.

Had the Goldsboro incident resulted in detonation (crash of a B-52 with 2 nuclear warheads, one of which had 6 failsafe mechanisms, 5 of which failed) I wouldn't have been born and most of North Carolina wouldn't exist. The Midatlantic would still be uninhabitable, and God forbid we hadn't known the cause of the crash, we could have lashed out against the Soviets with a strike of our own. You can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash

MAD and the Cold War terrorized people. It's interesting that, as the 'regular' humans are chastising the children un this film for their murderousness, you see that same trait reflected right back in the minds of the 'regulars.' I loved this film.

A life lived in fear is a life half-lived

... Strictly Ballroom

[–] ancamg 8 years ago

After so many years, I read the information from your wikipedia link, and from there I found this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents

Louis Slotin was a Canadian physicist killed after an accident when a screwdriver fell causing prompt critical reaction of a mass of Plutonium. He received a massive irradiation...and died days after the accident. This happened in 1946, but could have inspired the ending with the screw driver that can cause so much damage when men uses it for malefic causes.
Slotin and others who died for this indisputable wrong cause, they were working in experiments for better atomic bombs.

It makes me sad, as some stupid people in N Korea still create and test mass destruction atomic bombs. How plain stupid they can be!

[–] intexor 12 years ago

I can see why people feel that is a cop-out, actually I also was rolling my eyes a bit when that happened. What I like about it though is that just when mankind seems to start to realize why these children are here and how they can be helped by them, they are taken away and mankind is somehow punished for being a menace to a possible ally before.

[–] Clemencedane 10 years ago

The ending wasn't believable to me for the same reasons and because we already know they could either just come back to life or willfully disappear. Something much more interesting could have been done here.

[–] nomad-46 10 years ago

I'm not really sure what you mean by "willfully disappear," since they didn't seem to do that earlier in the movie either. Its not like they could walk through walls or shunt themselves into another dimension. They could compel someone to look away at just the right time ("Look, a noise out the window!") but that only goes so far, and is really more a momentary distraction, affording them just long enough to duck out the door.

As for bringing the one boy back to life... my assumption is that this largely relied on their telepathic abilities. It was also clear it took then some time to get things to the point that they could resurrect him, since, after all, they kept his body around for awhile, even though that lady at one point was telling them that keeping his body around and protected was kind of pointless and they should just let him go.

I'm guessing they first did something to repair the damage done to his body when the soldiers shot him dead, this could perhaps have been done with some bodged-together apparatus (in the same way they bodged together that sound-weapon out of scrounged parts and that church organ), but it could also have been done simply with them, over a period of several hours, telepathically willing his body to repair itself, by them projecting strong impulses into the part of the body that was damaged, making the cells knit back together in there. Or it could have been a combination of the two. And then when that was far enough along, they telepathically reached into his brain and JOLTED him alive again.

BUT, since this relied on their telepathic nature, and was probably only possible with several of them working together on it, all of the means that were used to bring him back to life... died with them later when they were all blown to bits.

So, no, not a chance of bringing them back. Not unless one or more of them didn't quite die in the explosion, and that seems rather unlikely.

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[–] Fattycakes 9 years ago

I thought the ending was excellent. The fact that it was an accident made it even better. They finally came to their senses and were getting a grip on their fear so there seemed to be hope for peaceful co-existance but the irony of if is a mere screwdriver and human error ruins it all. That only underlines the wisdom of the decision by the children to sacrifice themselves as their abilities and powers were too much for humans of this time to handle. Showed that they were one step ahead of the adults again and by this time they had correctly surmised human nature.

[–] 8 years ago

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