The Mist Blu-ray announced for Sept 16 (1 Viewer)

[Dave Mack]

I hear ya Will. And now with some distance I will be much more objective.
It was weird. After all these years of reading the story, I got to know and like these characters. It just felt like "WHAT?!?!?!? NO!"
And I agree about JAWS, thought the film was a big improvement over the book.

And I did watch the B+W version. Looked great.

 

[Dave Mack]

WARNING! spoliers ahead and don't know how to activate spoiler tags!

















Watched it again with the wife tonite objectively and still think that the ending ruins the story.
These reviewers pretty much sums up my feeling...

http://www.villagevoice.com/2007-11-...sation-nation/

"...All this would be disappointing, but not infuriating, if the film's ending weren't so unforgivably bad. Darabont abruptly abandons his master's text in the movie's final minutes, sending Drayton and his little boy a plot twist that wouldn't be fair to reveal, but which is so distasteful and untrue to all that's come before it as to be a slap in the face to characters and audience alike. The last word in King's story was "hope," and while Darabont certainly has the right to head in the opposite direction—in our own monster-filled world, happy endings are harder than ever to buy—he does so in a manner that's both pretentious and cruel. The Mist made me want to scream, but for all the wrong reasons."


Cruel, pretentious ending ruins King creature-feature. :: The Memphis Flyer :: Film Reviews :: Film

"Unsatisfied with King's open-ended conclusion, The Mist tacks on an extreme ending (which I won't give away, though I'm tempted), more worthy of an ironic Eli Roth horror movie than the middling creature-feature The Mist actually is. There's something smug, pretentious, and self-congratulatory about the utter pessimism and cruelty of the ending. It might have worked in a better, more severe movie, but it angered me here because I didn't think the movie earned it. Or maybe even because the movie — or at least its actors — actually earned better..."

Interesting in the choice of language in the second review that was exactly the same as mine. It didn't "earn" the ending. And forgetting the "cruelty" of the ending, what about the plausibility?

I'll try to explain. If you knew you were running out of gas, wouldn't you look for some possible shelter? Some place to at least TRY to bolt to from the car to get some sanctuary? A motel? A gas station? A house? Something? You would just run out of gas in the middle of the road with absoluetly nothing around? (Yes, I know the mist itself makes things tricky to see but come ON...)
Secondly, after the gas runs out, you and three other adults would take just one minute to make and accept this monumental decision? One minute? The human instinct for survival is much greater than that IMHO. How did they know that in 6 or 8 hours, something wouldn't have changed? Maybe the mist would have cleared, (like it miraculously did 2 minutes later in what would have been a ridiculous deus ex machina) or some help would have come by. Wouldn't you have waited a little while? A few hours if not a day or so?
If the father really wanted to be a hero, he would have left the gun with the others and tried to make a run for it, to find ANYTHING that could help them with perhaps explicit orders that if he didn't make it back to maybe continue with their one minute of consideration decision.
And then when the decision is reached and the kid wakes up and stares directly at the father, he continues?!?!?!? What are you kidding me?!?!? Nominate the dad for the worst and cruelest dad of the year award. The last thing your son sees on earth is his father pointing a gun at him?!?!? (Now, my wife argued that maybe this was to show that the father and the people in the car weren't much different, better than the Ms. Carmody flock in the market.) Fine. But to properly do that, you should show the father's weaknesses and moral whatevers EARLIER in the film. In the novella, the father sleeps with the woman because he thinks he'll never see his wife again so it gives him a wee bit of a shade of grey, (also makes the line that Marcia Gay says, "Get the whore too!" make some sense) but the father was depicted as a straight up, natural leader, heroic even. Admirable.

ummm, didn't buy the ending being at ALL plausible. Neither did the wife who had no faithfulness to the novella the way I did. And then the pretentious "Baraka" music, (yes, same piece and similar slo-mo footage IS in "Baraka") to underline the IRONY and HEAVINESS of what happens. Ugh. Sorry. JUST imho. It's a terrible ending. A downer ending is one thing. Hell, I loved "Requiem For a dream". But this just did not fit, was unrealistic and then on top of all of that, the suddenly hollywood slo-mo, wailing middle eastern woman singing artsy pretentious garbage music video style switch. You could just watch the scene in "Baraka". It's practically the same. The kind of scene South Park would gleefully mock.

You know what WOULD have made the ending work? If it had taken longer to arrive at that point. If say, they were out of water and after seven or eight hours without water they are so parched that they pull over at a gas station and have one of them, (the blonde woman, say) risk a quick run to an outdoor soda machine to try and get some beverages and try to break it open, say with a crowbar and attract the boogies and die horribly in front of them. To actually show a character die onscreen that the audience invested some time and emotion in unlike the more stock characters in the market. THAT would really underscore the hopelessness and make the decision more plausible. As it plays now, it's like "Whoops! Crap. Out of gas. Nice knowing y'all. pow."

Also, why adapt a novella if you are going to completely change the ending? In the OPPOSITE way. In the book, they hear 2 words over the radio through The Mist. One is I believe, "Portland" (or another Maine city, skeleton Crew book is in storage at the moment) the second word is "hope..." leading the reader to believe that although we don't know the fate of the people in the car, it ends on more of an optimistic note. To change that and simply have the father very unrealistically do what he did and then tack on the ironic ending just to hammer home the heaviness of his decision and the irony, (oooh, if he had just waited 2 more minutes!!!!!) is just change for change's sake IMHO and adds nothing to the story. It basically negates the previous 2 hours. A very poor and unrealistic attempt at a "Twilight Zone" type ending.
Anyways, loved 98% of it though...


JUST imho.

 

[RickER]

I love the movie, dispite the ending. I have 2 kids, and I couldnt give up as easy, after making it so far!
Course if it was me, i would have died in the first 5 minutes!

 

[Mark_TB]

Has anyone else had trouble playing back the video-based extras? I just received my copy from
Amazon and the feature plays fine on both discs, but all of the the interviews and documentaries have playback issues. The movement is jittery, almost like two "frames" are constantly overlapping. I haven't seen any similar comments anywhere online, so I'm wondering if it's an equipment compatibility issue. (I have a Panasonic BD-35 connected to a Sony 34XBR960.)

- Mark