Ending? - Circle (2015) Discussion

[–] xxorr 9 years ago

What's not to get ?

The winner gets to live and return to earth.
It was indeed aliens and they were playing in those ships.

I would fancy a sequel where the aliens put the winners to good use :p

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[–] Finkle-is-Einhorn 9 years ago

well there's a lot to get that is unexplained. what do they aliens want. why is the prize getting to live. what was the point.

remember when films had a conclusion to the mysteries they set up

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[–] Ithilfaen 9 years ago

well there's a lot to get that is unexplained. what do they aliens want.

Well if they want to study just how crappy and/or great humanity can be, they have a good plan. Judging from the people who were left looking up at ships, it seems like other groups fared better than the one we followed.

Of course, no need to go to all that trouble if that's all they wanted... they could just come to imdb. Then of course, we'd all be dead.

For every lie I unlearn I learn something new - Ani Difranco

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[–] Dejay 9 years ago

Did you just call all of us *beep*

I say lets all vote for Ithilfaen...

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[–] klauke 8 years ago

I think you kind of made his point, to be honest...

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[–] Dejay 8 years ago

Yeah but hey take it easy. I was just kidding :)

I do think Ithilfaen has a good point. Although the up and downvoting is more like reddit. And message boards are sometimes caustic because of anonymity. The people in the circle could see each other and at the same time didn't know who the others are either. So it's a very interesting comparison.

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[–] OccamsBarber 8 years ago

Same as any other day.

I'm like a rabbit suddenly trapped
In the blinding headlights of vacuous crap.

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[–] Symarip 8 years ago

Remember when people didn't have to have everything spoonfed to them

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[–] marty-130-840283 9 years ago

What's not to get ?

The winner gets to live and return to earth.
It was indeed aliens and they were playing in those ships.

That is NOT an explanation, dumbass.

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[–] aftermik 8 years ago

a sequel where the aliens put the winners to good use :p

I dreamt it right after watching it, it was a crazy dictatorship; better be dead.

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[–] lone-foxx 9 years ago

They helped us solve our world's human population issue which could help resolve other issues as well such as poverty and starvation, with so low numbers everyone can be upper-class and live in a mansion.

However, if every person in the world was involved in these scenarios I have to wonder, what about people like Homer Simpson? Who's going to make sure the Nuclear Plant doesn't melt down? Besides that I liked it.

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[–] Jazz_thieve 9 years ago

"with so low numbers everyone can be upper-class and live in a mansion", you clearly have no idea how an economy works. That's a very ignorant statement.

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[–] lone-foxx 9 years ago

I'm curious why you would exclude the second paragraph where I muse that it may not work out so well without key people in essential positions, also what is your interpretation?

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[–] irvintang 9 years ago

He doesn't have one, he's just one of the dumb ass on imdb that criticize others without making a contribution to the topic of conversation.

My interpretation of it was that the ending was never about the aliens or their intentions, this movie is a psychological thriller, it's about human emotions and psychology. The aliens were just a plot device to setup the whole scenario but was never the moral of the story. Much like the zombies on walking dead or the shinigami in Death Note, they are the setting but not the point of the story.

The guy that made it to the end said "yeah, we're *beep* and that was the ending, that was the moral of the story.

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[–] jonathonwisnoski-856-217430 9 years ago

That is sort of how it works. We took the place of 100 million natives, so even the poorest North American gets to be top 1% global elite. People who could not even feed themselves came to North American can make more an hour than they do a month in other countries. All because the vast, comparative, population shortage.

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[–] Strazdas (2328) 3 years ago

Yeah, does not work like that. Population issues are real issues, but simply cutting the population without cutting down on existing infrastructure and reforming logistic systems would just mean the remaining 2% of population would mostly starve to death. Not to mention most of them are pregnant women so not much for hard labour that the survivers would have to do.

Nuclear plants on the other hand would be just fine. They have automatic shutdown sequences if people dissappear. As long as the aliens havent physically damaged the reactors it wont be an issue.

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[–] jerry-parrott 9 years ago

What if, no one is actually being killed. I mean, all we see is a jolt of electricity and then they immediately got drug out of the room. If it truly was an experiment to see how far someone would go to survive, wouldn't you want to leave the bodies visible in order to press that fear of death home harder?

What if the person that gets sent back to Earth, is the loser, and because of the selfish behavior they demonstrated, they were deemed a lesser being while the rest are being taken to some paradise.

Just something I was thinking might be a possibility. Unless the film makers actually tell us I don't think we'll ever know.

I mean, I like a thought provoking movie and all, but movies are taking it too far too often. Almost as if the writers are getting lazy and just not even caring about an ending.

writer 1
"We have this great story, but we can't agree on an ending."

writer 2
"I know! Let's just not write an ending. Think about it, we can just claim we did it to make people think, and they'll never know it's cause we just didn't want to work anymore!"

writer 1
"Genius! Let's go get drunk and play ping pong!"

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[–] TheBeardedWonder 9 years ago

I wondered the same thing, but the open ending just leaves too many questions unanswered. I like endings where you figure it out yourself, but this seems like the movie makers themselves didn't have an ending in mind and just kind of made one anyway.

-Were those groups others who figured out the game's answer and survived as a whole?

-Are they about to be abducted and he's a plant put there by the aliens?

-Is each group made up of the same types of people (one pregnant, one kid, etc)? If so, why?

-Is the point for everyone to win or lose? Is there even a point?

-Like you said, are those left on earth the 'jerks' of the groups who 'win' and are left behind because of it?

-Is he just a psycho killer who is going to do this over and over and is not affiliated with the aliens in any way?

-Is it just a big experiment and everyone is fine after they get hit with the beam?

-Is it a population control thing?

Like I said, the movie wants to hint at 1000 things and not provide actual evidence of any of them. That's pretty lazy as far as the writing goes.

'Get yourself a real dog. Any dog under 50 lbs is a cat and cats are pointless' - Ron Swanson

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[–] janlind999 9 years ago

If you are looking for an answer about the ending, I think you´re looking at it the wrong way.

This is how I look at it, but I could be wrong of course: This movie is not about aliens OR the ending! What happens in the end doesn´t really mean a thing, only that it gives us another question to think about.
The hole point about the movie is the questions during the hole film.

Its all about making us think about important questions like; racism, money, the hole society and how its formed, people with or without power, how we look at old people and young people, and a lot more(!)...

This movie wants us to start thinking about the interesting life questions!

If, "logically", the young girl or the "soon to be mother"-girl would have survived at the end, the movie should have lost a big point I think; Did the man, who survived at the end, did he do the right thing? He was "smart and clever" (which we often praises nowadays) when he tricked the other two girls - but was it the best choice? What would WE do in the same situation? (Who of us thought in the end that *beep* that was smart! Maybe I would have done the same thing if I hade come up with that "smart move"...? What did You think?)

... would we really do the "right thing" ourselves?

And, what is the right thing?

(the last sentence is the "answer" - that I now tried to explain in this post).

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[–] razvan-rogoz 9 years ago

Actually, these questions are answered either by the plot or common sense.

1) No. They were survivors of other similar games.

2) No. He's a sociopath. 4% of the population has sociopathic tendencies, in theory. In practice, I assume more.

3) It is normal distribution. If you take the population as a whole, statistically you'll get groups with pregnant women and children.

4) It is a morality tale, "inspired" by the concept of "The Shadow" from Jung.

5) No. It showed that others fared better and actually let the women and children survive.

6) Uhm, no, he just wants to survive.

7) Don't know, not relevant to the plot.

8) Don't know, not relevant to the plot.

This entre plot is a symbol of human nature. It is not the first movie nor the last to treat this. Everything from Heart Of Darkness by Conrad to Apocalypse Now inspired by the mentioned book to "The Myst" by Stephen King which is EXTREMELY similar in theme, they deal with the same thing.

People are moral and ethical in controlled environments. As soon as this goes away, as soon as there are no consequences for doing bad things, that bad things are actually rewarded, that it comes between practical and moral, they act in a 100% selfish manner, at least a part of them.

That's the entire damn point of the movie. The back-story doesn't matter. The entire alien spaceship doesn't matter. It was not about these things.

It is about how 50 people are trapped in a room. They want to survive. They create alliances, they lie, they show prejudice, they reveal their true character when placed in this situation. They know the best thing to do, they agree on it yet nobody does it. Even the soldier guy who seemed the most moral out of them all first said that he's going to protect those two and then that he'll go back to his wife and daughter.

That was THE MOST IMPORTANT tell of the entire movie. So in practice, almost anyone, not just guy would have done the same thing in the end. They all wanted to live, no matter what.

Otherwise, they could have all just sacrificed themselves on the spot and leave a survivor. It would be problem solved. Of course, this raises other implications and a huge plot hole.

If the unborn child counted as a player, then all the women in the end who were pregnant wouldn't be there as they would to kill their own baby and I kind of doubt that they've done that. So following the movie's logic, the only one that would have made sense to live was the young little girl. Or any other single person in that group to be honest.

So just see this movie for what it is

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[–] plattfam4-2 9 years ago

these were exactly my thoughts

"What if, no one is actually being killed. I mean, all we see is a jolt of electricity and then they immediately got drug out of the room. If it truly was an experiment to see how far someone would go to survive, wouldn't you want to leave the bodies visible in order to press that fear of death home harder?

What if the person that gets sent back to Earth, is the loser, and because of the selfish behavior they demonstrated, they were deemed a lesser being while the rest are being taken to some paradise."

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[–] BobCH88 9 years ago

What if the person that gets sent back to Earth, is the loser, and because of the selfish behavior they demonstrated, they were deemed a lesser being while the rest are being taken to some paradise

?

There were way bigger a$$holes in that ship that got zapped than the guy who made it off the ship.

The Asian dude who started calling the shots right off the bat? Deciding that the elderly people should be the first ones to go? He was totally worthy of going to paradise.

Or how about the banker? Or the Wall St. dude? Or the gangbanger?

Please.

You made up your own dumb outcomes of what happened to the people in the movie that were never even intended. Did you feel like you used your brains when you thought that?

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[–] LockedHarpie 9 years ago

You're rude, BobCH88.

I can go on and on...But I'm kinda drunk and typing is kinda complicating right now,

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[–] gambledpaintbrush 8 years ago

...but right, so who cares if he was.

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[–] ychild 8 years ago

Decent human beings care.

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[–] syousefnia 8 years ago

With the exception of Paradise thing , the rest could be true , there is no reason to think that they were being killed.

"You made up your own dumb outcomes of what happened to the people in the movie that were never even intended. Did you feel like you used your brains when you thought that? "

That is a VERY RUDE behavior.

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[–] b_paul123 8 years ago

my friend thought that, basically the whole movie wasn't real, I thought it did have something to do with aliens, which would explain the lack of an explanation as to why this was happening.

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[–] iwriteu 8 years ago

There were way bigger a$$holes in that ship that got zapped than the guy who made it off the ship.

Maybe, but he PROVED he was an *beep* by killing a little girl, a pregnant woman and an unborn child, just to save his own skin.

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[–] werecow2003 8 years ago

There were way bigger a$$holes in that ship that got zapped than the guy who made it off the ship.

I don't think that there were, really. He was just a much better manipulator, and much better at disguising his a$$holeness until the right time.

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[–] LockedHarpie 9 years ago

I thought the same, while no one was perfect, the worst of all of them was the loser. They were stuck on Earth while the others experienced a higher form of living elsewhere. Very intriguing idea.

I can go on and on...But I'm kinda drunk and typing is kinda complicating right now,

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[–] Strazdas (2328) 3 years ago

I think they didnt keep the bodies specifically because multiple-day shoots would be hell to organize without bodies being wrong between scenes.

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[–] lunchboxwanderer 9 years ago

Like the movie, it meant nothing.

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[–] tealo1 9 years ago

You right they screwed the ending up, as it's obviously The Zero Sum Game also know as 'The Prisoner Game' The only way to win is not to vote! Only if everyone doesn't vote (Nash Equilibrium) ie Don't Play!
As the experiment (Alien) is no longer valid as there is no experiment if they all refused and mantained it..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game

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[–] lunchboxwanderer 9 years ago

Good point.

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[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] filmbuff1974 9 years ago

I agree. The ending made no sense to me. To have such an engaging movie end on such an open ended manor was just sloppy story telling. But I still gave it a high rating because it was very engaging.

Live Full & Die Empty. Tap Your Potential and Realize Your Dreams!

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[–] Xslayerlive 9 years ago

In my opinion, they're all losers in some way. Either they manipulated and killed their way to victory or they watched as people offed each other to spare children (who undoubtedly will be seriously screwed up).

Then let's say that this took place across the planet, most likely wiping out 95% of the population, leaving roughly 300 million across the planet. They're probably screwed none the less.

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[–] Dajefe70 9 years ago

Also agree the ending was extremely vague. I almost for a second thought that the people were being shocked unconscious, not killed, and the moral people, the self sacrificers, were be taken to an alien paradise, and the immoral people were being left behind on what turned out to be a desolate, dying Earth, since it looked kinda nasty where the last guy woke up.

got blunt?

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[–] estes_madison 9 years ago

Also agree the ending was extremely vague. I almost for a second thought that the people were being shocked unconscious, not killed, and the moral people, the self sacrificers, were be taken to an alien paradise, and the immoral people were being left behind on what turned out to be a desolate, dying Earth, since it looked kinda nasty where the last guy woke up.

I like this ending so much more! I'm going to pretend this is what happened. So the guy bumps into the racist, the homophobe, the guy who wanted to vote against the kid and pregnant woman, and the guy who wanted to kill all the old people and all the other really bad people and then it shows the motherships going to another planet that is like a huge paradise and the kid and pregnant woman are there with the minister and almost everyone else. The people who talked about their families are reunited with them. Yep, that's totally how I'm going to imagine it ended.

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[–] alpha_zero924 8 years ago

since it looked kinda nasty where the last guy woke up.

That's just LA, dude.

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[–] HerrSupahz 8 years ago

>it looked kinda nasty where the last guy woke up.

It's dreary, no doubt... normal LA. I have seen the Los Angeles River scenery in so many movies and shows that I'm surprised you didn't get that straight away.

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[–] jgiglio-37403 9 years ago

I think it's definitely supposed to be a group of the other winners that he joins at the end. There's mostly kids and pregnant women. The implication is that most of the groups turned out like his did, except not all of the groups had a quick witted psychopath like him in them.

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[–] griffon652 8 years ago

Yeah I also thought that the ending alluded that most of the other groups were "good" and voted to save a kid or pregnant woman. However, I replayed that scene and unfortunately most groups had majority of evil people that killed off the kid/pregnant woman.

There were 15 survivors (including the psychopath from our movie) in the final shot of the movie. So that's 15 groups. Out of the 15 groups only 6 saved the kid/pregnant woman. The rest had enough evil bastards to have the majority so they killed off the kid/pregnant woman from their group.

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[–] PiaPuffytail 8 years ago

That's assuming, of course, that there WAS a pregnant woman or kid in every single group.

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