The Ending of this flick... (SPOILER ALERT!)
Was the ending reminiscent of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid? In other words, both movies left the viewers wondering if they got away.
shareIs this a joke? The ending in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid couldn't possibly have been any clearer. In this movie the result of the last brawl is entirely open.
shareNo, it's not a joke. And, I disagree with your assertion concerning Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. So there!
shareI'm still wondering if you're joking and I'm not really getting the joke. The ending in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a joke. They are in such an impossible situation that when the movie ends in a clichéed premature ending, this is actually a funny ending since the movie is telling you that it's not over, although it really is. It wouldn't be any fun to just see them get shot.
When it comes to the ending in Stand Up Guys, I think that they ended it unsettled because the result of the battle is not what really mattered. It's the fact that they went there to try instead of just killing Val that mattered.
You must be one of the ten people that don't believe they were killed in the end. I honestly believed as a child that they got away until my brother ruined it for me. But seriously, there's no open ended question at the end, they ran out to die fighting and quickly. Perhaps their deaths are why there's wasn't a sequel to this immensely popular movie.
sharesmcbee27 I'm guessing that since you refer to thinking that they got away until your brother ruined it for you that you're referring to Butch & Sundance rather than Stand Up Guys since the latter came out so recently that you'd hardly have time to grow up in the interim. That being said what nobody mentions here is the biggest difference between the two endings, the true ending of Butch & Sundance while shot the same as Stand Up Guys CAN be definitely known unlike Stand Up Guys because Butch & Sundance was about real life characters & those characters DID die in a shootout with police in Bolivia just like was seen in that classic film, that's why they ended it there because anyone who knows any history at all about them knows that they died there so we don't have to see them dying to know that they did. Stand Up Guys features two fictional characters so we have nothing but the movie to go on as to what their ultimate fates were. You could argue for them living or dying either one unlike similar endings to films like "The Wrestler" & "Thelma & Louise" which while not spelling it out for the viewer by showing the last gasp of the characters definitely implied strongly that they had met their demises.
"Be nice until it's time to NOT be nice."
Tiberius, I did indeed forget to mention I was talking about Butch Cassidy. I believe my failure came from my not understanding why you were referring to the ending being a joke and cliché. Granted I saw it in it's original run and was very young at the time but I thought it was an excellent ending, especially for that time in movie making. So I don't understand your two descriptions of the end (of Butch Cassidy) but neither do I understand a person of age believing that they survived somehow. You're point of history vs. fiction is well made and was missed by me as a great reference point to why the did in fact die and should not be viewed as "open ended". I realize a lot of people won't allow the belief that famous people die in the same situations as normal people do. Drug overdoses, drunk driving accidents, etc can and do happen to anyone regardless of their "importance" in our world. Believing, like some do, that Butch and Sundance (or one but not the other) survived the Bolivian army is as bad as people who believe that Anastasia survived the Russian revolution and the firing squad that killed the whole family. Just b/c I thought it as a young child doesn't mean people of age and experience should perceive it that way now. As you said, a quick Google check would've told them all they needed to know about the end for these 2 men if they weren't familiar with the history. My comment was truthfully poorly written and I am amazed someone could understand what I was attempting to say. Plus I should've put it under the OP comments not necessarily yours. Under yours I should ask you to elaborate on your meaning of cliché and a joke. I still would like to hear you go further and explain why you feel that way. I do appreciate your post.
Btw, my brother was Butch Cassidy and I was Sundance and he'd never let me switch. Lol
I'm all about elaboration (I'm only quiet to people without senses of humor or around those who I'm not familiar with at all, in short complete strangers & after hearing me talk their ears off I'm sure that at least one of my friends has in fact at some point envied that aspect of strangers. :D ) BUT I believe that you might be confusing me with thomasnj-2 who has posted in this thread several times. This reply that you're reading now is only the second time that I've written on this thread & the first was just to clarify the difference between the endings of "Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid" & "Stand Up Guys" nowhere calling either a joke or a cliche. In fact I consider such endings somewhat poetic. I agree with you about the extreme proliferation of people finding reasons to believe that those who have died somehow NOT having died (Although FULL DISCLOSURE I do believe after studying both cases for years that there's a better than average chance that either Elvis Presley or Andy Kaufman hoaxed their death. Both of them having done so is I admit the most remote of possibilities & I also admit that Elvis being my favorite singer & Kaufman being my favorite comedian may very well have robbed me of complete objectivity on this issue but feel free to look into the strangeness surrounding both men's alleged demises & tell me what you think. I'd love to hear your opinion.) & as you have alluded to even with the case of Butch & Sundance I've seen reports that alleged that Butch survived the Bolivian shootout to secretly live out a life of seclusion. Similar theories are out there regarding (To name but a few) Joan of Arc, Jesse James, Billy The Kid (The beginning of "Young Guns 2" played with this one by having their Billy, Emilio Estevez under old age make-up in the fifties as "Brushy Bill Roberts" who had claimed to have once been Billy The Kid. Unfortunately years after his death D.N.A. testing refuted that claim.) Anastasia Romonov (Who D.N.A. testing similarly put back in the grave after a woman had claimed to be the long lost heir to the Russian royal family for years) as you mentioned, John Wilkes Booth, John Dillinger, Adolph Hitler, Jim Jones, Judge Crater, James Dean, Jimmy Hoffa, Jim Morrison (Who interestingly Malcolm Forbes said he'd found more evidence suggestive of a death hoax than any of the other celebrities alleged to have faked their deaths in his fascinating book "They went that-a-way" although I'd disagree with him on that point. As far as enough evidence to prove a death hoax in a courtroom setting you don't find more evidence of a death hoax & a bigger lack of death confirmation via post mortem pictures & what not than you find with Elvis Presley), & these days the subject can't even be brought up without someone mentioning Tupac Shakur. Psychologically I can completely understand people not wanting to believe their heroes dead & it really taps into mythology as well I believe. We desperately want our heroes to live forever & sometimes it's just not enough for them to live forever by their legacies or in our hearts so we try to find information to justify them having somehow lucked into a death hoax scenario (That they themselves didn't create) OR having had the wherewithal to have gotten out while the getting was good (in which they DID generate the death hoax of their own volition) by putting the lie to that old truism "No one gets out of life alive" & giving themselves a more calm and peaceful second chapter to their lives where they've learned the lessons of the prior one & can have their cake & eat it too by getting to be normal again after having swung with the stars & cemented their place with the gods of Olympus. It's a pleasant & comforting thought & one that I'd like to believe could have been true if only for a few.
"Be nice until it's time to NOT be nice."
I sincerely apologize Tiberius, once again you pointed out my mistake and I thank you. Nothing worse than debating the wrong person! Lol. I am FAR from shy and I talk so much people even my mum will say "well, I just called to check on you." when I called her!
I do agree with most of your post regarding our inability to believe famous people die normal ways or, as you pointed at, if at all. I live in the Hound Dogs city my entire life. Even grew up in the same neighborhood as him. I don't think he could let his grandchildren be born and not contact them. But too many paparazzi thought the same so it would've been uncovered. He died just as Phillip Seamore Hoffman (sp?) did recently and my best friends dad at 31 back in the 70's bevause a lot of heart attacks feel like a bathroom issue, and from experience at 21 yrs old, makes you vomit and sweat. A lot. It unfortunately just happens. The Grim Reaper doesn't skip over the rich and famous. We simply hear about it more than any other. I think the one that gets to me the most is all the people who believed Fyiad's conspiracy theory b/c Dodo and Diana were having a baby! Even her best friends say she wasn't even in love with him. But still Prince Phillip, a 92 year old man gets chopped up for it daily online and likely elsewhere. Part of the problem is when someone dies you forget the bad and you glorify and hang on to the good while amplifying it everyday until that person had no problems in life and was a saint. I see it all too often. Why is it hard to believe that Tupok (sp?) who lived a gang associated life before and after his fame and had been shot numerous times was really not killed!?! I believe there was a police cover up but he's sadly dead. As I've had to face many near death experiences having SLE I realize no one is dead "before their time". It's obviously their time. Are they gone sooner they we wish? Absolutely! Do some die when young? Sadly, yes. But "death waits for no one". I'm certainly not a fatalist. And I've wondered so many times "why them and not me?" They were giving the world something! But then I realize we all do. Some in bigger, more majestic ways but we all touch the world- good ways and bad. The lesson for that is simply to be grateful each morning you wake and get on with your life b/c you never know which day will cause you not to wake again. Now get out there and talk to a few strangers, if you can. You sound intelligent, friendly and you obviously are easy going. Just look how you've treated me with my two silly mistakes! You deserve to enjoy each day and the others deserve to meet you. Keep adding to the world, my friend.
Thanks for the encouragement my friend & I'm really sorry to hear about your SLE, truth to tell I had never heard of it & had to google it to find out what it was but a challenge like that must be hard to go through, it proves how much of a survivor you are! I take from your remark that you grew up in the hound dog's city to mean that you're from either Tupelo Miss (Where Elvis was originally from) or Memphis, Tn (Where his family moved when he was young.)& if it's the latter I recall talking to another resident of that city online who told me that it was a well known fact but a firmly held secret among the city's black population that Elvis had faked his death. Far from the divisiveness of some like Ray Charles & Little Richard who accused Elvis of stealing the blues from them (As if a kind of music COULD be stolen) many like Isaac Hayes, Sammi Davis Jr, Redd Foxx & others had nothing but love him & I'd thank anyone who wanted to accuse the King of Rock & Roll of stealing anything from black people to remember that when he became famous in 1955-1956 racism was extremely rampant & a white man singing music in the form or style of many black artists definitely would NOT have been a good way to go for a white man trying to get famous or to achieve mainstream success because it caused racist whites to look down on Elvis. Elvis created rock & roll in general & his style in particular as an amalgamation of everything that he had heard before & yes the blues WERE a part of that but only a part. I suppose what bothers me even more than the unfair charges of racism on Elvis's part is the implication that he just got lucky & that his fame was due to that fictional thievery. If anyone else could have done what he did then they would have & the fact that they didn't proves that it was Elvis & Elvis ALONE who could do & achieve what he did & no amount of jealousy or bitterness will ever change that fact. Back to him possibly hoaxing his death, all things being equal I'd agree with you that Elvis would in no way have wanted to or have even been able to stay away from his family. His dad & his daughter especially were far too important to him for him to stay away from forever & he wouldn't have put them through the anguish of believing him dead if he wasn't but the mistake is thinking that in order to fake his death he would have had to lie or hide from those closest to him like Lisa Marie or his father. I 100% believe that IF Elvis faked his death then he absolutely positively would have told Vernon (His father), Lisa Marie (His daughter), probably Priscilla (His ex wife, the mother of Lisa Marie & the inheritor of the Presley estate after Vernon's death) & small handful of others who would have helped him to accomplish the death hoax by acting like he was dead to the public. It really is fascinating if you watch interviews with Priscilla by Larry King where she constantly refers to Elvis in the present tense (Just like Joe Esposito, an old army buddy who became a member of Elvis's "Memphis Mafia") & that Lisa Marie won't discuss the circumstances surrounding his death even to this day. Plus there's been all kinds of contradictory stuff about that death, Elvis's own signature is on his death certificate (Along with his weight being listed as 75 pounds lighter than he was in 1977) & the only post-mortem picture (In a world where morbid fascination has created quite a market for pictures of dead celebrities) that's supposed to show a dead Elvis shows us what looks like Elvis in the fifties rather than Elvis in the seventies. Elvis's cousin Billy Smith said that the knuckles on the body that was supposed to be Elvis weren't scarred & gnarled like Elvis's were after years of Karate board breaking & that the sideburns were glued on & kept falling off during the visitation. The theory that fits the facts is that the body was in fact a wax mannequin which had had an air conditioning unit placed beneath it in the coffin (Which would also explain the INCREDIBLE weight of the coffin which the pallbearers attested to) that had been custom made in advance of the death hoax execution(Elvis would no doubt have had personal approval of it & the fact that it looked like him 20 years & 100 pounds ago attests to a tad bit of vanity on his part & it also explains the curious comment that he repeated to several people at different times to the effect that "I may not look good now, but I sure will look good in my coffin." IF he faked it then Elvis would have known that the idealized portrait of him in the form of that mannequin would be the last look that fans might ever have of him))& kept in a freezer until it was needed which combined with the heat of that August day had produced a condensation effect on the mannequin which many described as "beads of sweat" on the supposed corpse. What I've described here is only a fraction of the evidence that supports Elvis having faked his death & obviously I can't prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt but truth & reality mean a lot to me & whenever things in a certain situation don't add up like is the case with Elvis's "death" it's usually because we're looking at it wrong & misunderstanding the actual reality. I'm not a betting man but if I was I'd bet heavily on Elvis having faked his death knowing that he could stay in touch with his family & loved ones while exiting from the fishbowl existence that he had lived in for 20 years. Paparazzi as we have come to know them weren't around back then like they are now & sadly they just like many others consider a celebrity faking his death as tabloid fodder & never pursue what they consider to be an unlikely scenario & a waste of their valuable & expensive time but in all humility if I could hire a group of them for about two months & tell them where to look I'm fully convinced that I could prove that Elvis Presley is alive & well to this day unless he has quietly & secretly passed on in the last few years. Dead or alive, dead AND alive much like Schrodinger's cat, he remains as mythic in the twilight of his life/death as he was while he knowingly walked among us.
"Be nice until it's time to NOT be nice."