Discuss the ending - Here's the topic we all wanted.

Just finished watching this...I thought it was good, but I feel like we were left too open ended. There isn't much in the way of evidence to point to any logical conclusion besides the whole movie was a delusion of his. It seems like the date on the calendar being 2012 points to that. I feel like so many opportunities were presented, the conclusion should at least have been narrowed down. Is it Jack's (Ed's) delusion? Do the conspiracy's exist? As Berger says, are there no conspiracy's? Was Jack this whole time actually Ed after having taking the chance to start over with a new name, face and memories from Berger. This would explain why Jack knows the words he does when typically only the elderly can remember them. But then we're left at an insane asylum and it's 2012 so all that goes out the window. If it's truly 2012 then the futuristic dystopia that includes the genetic alterations and advancements in bio-genetics wouldn't have happened yet.

It's too easy to just shout at the end of a movie, like this script does, "Hah, got you! it was all in his head!"...which is too bad, because the rest of this movie I liked a lot.

My wife and I just saw this movie on Netflix Streaming. Here's my interpretation ...

At the beginning of the movie, Ed was describing the Milgram Experiment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment) in a lot of detail. And, they repeat that scene again, in the last third of the movie. And then, when Jack wakes up in the institution and is discussing his treatment with the doctor, he's following along with the doctor until the doctor mentions this "experiment" and as soon as he says that word, Jack's demeanor changes and he asks the doctor if he knows what Zenith means.

I don't think this is a coincidence!

I think Zenith is an experiment, conducted in 2012, to see how people would react to the coming world. The conspiracy is real (within the context of the movie) and is planning for the eventual day in which society reaches its zenith and begins it's eventual decline. What will people be willing to fight for? To buy, sell, cheat, and steal for? So, they run the simulations. In fact, they may even be recruiting. If so, Ed passed and was given a new identity and Jack failed and was drummed back into the institution.

So, my take on this is that Zenith is an experiment being run in 2012 and he was a part of that, whether he ever volunteered for such a thing or not.

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~runester~

Yet another disappointing copout ending if you ask me. This movie had tons of potential, but the pacing fell flat with a half-hour left, and the ending just screamed "please discuss me with your pretentious friends!". I prefer movies that have the constitution to stand on their own merit. To me, this ending is non-committal, as if afraid to actually interpret itself and take a stance on what it all means. Thanks M. Night for ruining film with your stupid twists.

Am I the only one that noticed that Jack asked the Doctor at the end if he knew what Zenith was, and the doctor never answered. It was a literal question of which the doctor did not know the answer. Thus the conspiracy is real.

I saw it as a Wizard of Oz thing.

He woke up and all the characters in his dreams were aquaintances of his in the hospital.

Why would the old man, who looked young, who wanted to impregnante his own daughter, have her put into a dingy mental hospital with a bunch of kooks?

Clearly Ed/Jack just used people he knew to populate his delusion.


If you want to go so far as to concoct an elaborate point for the movie I would go with the guy up above who said the whole thing was an experiment, in 2012, to gauge Ed/Jack's responses to a possible future.

But really I think it was just another dumb "it's all in his head" movie.

SO how about this for a theory?

The timelines of Ed and Jack are NOT 30 years apart, but running concurrently. Ed is offered the bookstore because they have to fake kill the other guy to lead Jack further down the rabbit hole. The conversations with Berger are just days apart jack is being fed the tapes to white rabbit him through it all. The 'friend' of Ed's who brings him tape #2 (?) doesn't say much on purpose, maybe there just to watch him?
The whole part about keeping family lines pure struck me, they may have wanted Ed and Jack both in on it. The rare form of epilepsy may just be an imbedded response to a preset cue - the strobe lights - to control or ellicit an emotional response from the subjects. In the end he didn't make the 'right' choice so they are sending him through another scenario to see what will happen. Lisa is in on it, and plays his love interest in the scenarios to maintain an emotional connection. Ed made the 'right' choice and is therefore now in on it.

The Milgram experiments never actually hurt anybody, it was just seeing how far people would go before they questioned authority.


"I don't wanna kill you, but I will cuz I don't like you much anyways" - fool

The ending definitely left me guessing in more ways that one. The other posts have summed up most of my thoughts as to the possible endings, however there are two things that weren't mentioned that I was wondering if anyone could lend their thoughts regarding.

1.) When Jack is in the institution in the end and the Doctor tells him he is there because he killed a man. When Jack asks who did I kill the doctor replies, "I don't know some poor guy" and then when Jack says what did you just say the doctor totally ignores him but that comment obviously seemed to have struck a cord with Jack. I want to know what that was all about.

2.) When he is in his room at the very end writing the letter that he will die soon he mentions there is an eleventh tape and that it must be found. What do you all think that tape would contain?

I've concluded that the adventures of Jack were simply a delusion. This is my literal interpretation:

- It was Rudy Berger ("Sid Schleimann") that originated the conspiracy of Zenith. Jack was then fed clues to uncover the mystery by Ed ("Vito"), who was in cooperation with Berger. Rudy had no motivation to suppress Jack's knowledge of Zenith by admitting him into the facility at the end of the film.
- The doctor appears to legitimately dismisses Jack after "Zenith" is revisited.
- After leaving the office, Lisa is shown as another patient in a wheelchair. She played a prominent role in his fantasy which can be rooted by their familiarity in reality.
- The film then ends with Jack stating that he knows the truth and the 11th tape should be sought after. The viewer is led to believe that Ed meets Berger following the 10th tape when Berger's identity is discovered, leading Jack to Berger. This would make an 11th tape irrelevant. The conspiracy exists to lead Jack to Berger.


The Milgram Experiment is a driving theme of the film, but seems to be only pertinent within the fantasy. There is no actual evidence of the conspiracy, information given credence by Jack's father (the authority) and Jack is the experiment participant. One might interpret that the events (fantasy) are discredited by the doctor (the authority) and the viewer is the experiment participant, but I only state this to be the devil's advocate.