Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning - Part One (2023) (1 Viewer)

[Jake Lipson]

I consider the naming important and Part 1 and 2 is different than having 2 names. It means the first movie can't stand on its own and doesn't have a satisfying ending.

From the beginning, when it was announced that 7 and 8 were going to be filmed back-to-back with the same writer/director and cast, they said that the seventh film was going to end on a cliffhanger. This isn't new information. They're simply telling a longer story than can be contained in a single film of reasonable length. I don't consider that to be a problem.

These are the seventh and eighth, probably final, installments of a series that audiences have been investing in since 1996. I think they've earned the right to tell a big story if that's what they want to do.

So people might wait until both are released.

If you want to wait until both are released, that's your prerogative. But there have been plenty of examples of multi-part stories where people didn't wait. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and At World's End, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame and recently Dune all ended the first half with cliffhangers and people still showed up to see them I don't think there will be very many Mission: Impossible fans who will deliberately skip out on seeing #7 in a theater next summer just so that they can watch a Blu-ray back to back with #8 when it hits. Audiences have become accustomed to serialized storytelling and have demonstrated again and again a willingness to show up for this series. The recent films with McQuarrie at the helm both became the biggest-grossing entry in the franchise up to that point domestically. So I don't think Paramount is worried.

 

[JasonRoer]

From the beginning, when it was announced that 7 and 8 were going to be filmed back-to-back with the same writer/director and cast, they said that the seventh film was going to end on a cliffhanger. This isn't new information. They're simply telling a longer story than can be contained in a single film of reasonable length. I don't consider that to be a problem.

These are the seventh and eighth, probably final, installments of a series that audiences have been investing in since 1996. I think they've earned the right to tell a big story if that's what they want to do.


If you want to wait until both are released, that's your prerogative. But there have been plenty of examples of multi-part stories where people didn't wait. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and At World's End, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame and recently Dune all ended the first half with cliffhangers and people still showed up to see them I don't think there will be very many Mission: Impossible fans who will deliberately skip out on seeing #7 in a theater next summer just so that they can watch a Blu-ray back to back with #8 when it hits. Audiences have become accustomed to serialized storytelling and have demonstrated again and again a willingness to show up for this series. The recent films with McQuarrie at the helm both became the biggest-grossing entry in the franchise up to that point domestically. So I don't think Paramount is worried.

There is also that little known film called The Empire Strikes Back.

 

[Edwin-S]

I kind of wish the practice of making two part theatrical releases would end. That stuff belongs on TV where the second part shows up a week later, not 6 months to 2 years later.

 

[Jake Lipson]

There is also that little known film called The Empire Strikes Back.

You're correct that it does end on a cliffhanger. The reason I didn't use Empire as an example because it was produced on its own and then Lucas took another three years to produce Return of the Jedi. Most of the ones I mentioned above were shot at the same time, except for Dune which is still an adaptation of a single book. Their box office successes prove that audiences in general will go along with a split release pattern and still show up for the first half when it is released.

That stuff belongs on TV where the second part shows up a week later, not 6 months to 2 years later.

As long as the audience will show up for it, I don't see a problem with it. I remember in something about the Back to the Future sequels (maybe the Blu-ray commentary for Part II?), Bob Gale said that Universal wanted to market Part II as if it is a complete story. They did not want to tell audiences that there was going to be a cliffhanger on the end. They put the trailer for Part III on the end of it so that people wouldn't be upset. I'm paraphrasing, so it might not be exactly that, but I definitely remember him saying something to that general effect.

Now, it doesn't work like that. The studios are very clear. Now, people have enough information to know when buying a ticket for Mission: Impossible next year that it is part one of a two-part story. People knew that Avengers 4 was coming in 2019 when they bought their tickets for Infinity War in 2018. The studios are being very clear about what these kinds of films are doing. If people don't want to go see them, that's a personal choice. But audiences are going to see them, so the studios will continue doing it.

If Cruise and McQuarrie have a long story that requires two films, I'll go watch two films. They have earned that trust from me because of how great the previous films have been. If other people want to make a different choice, that's fine too. But I don't think most people will have a problem with it.

 

[Osato]

I kind of wish the practice of making two part theatrical releases would end. That stuff belongs on TV where the second part shows up a week later, not 6 months to 2 years later.

Or longer for Airplane 3……

 

[SamT]

There is also that little known film called The Empire Strikes Back.

The original trilogy is a good example with each movie with its own name. The Empire Strikes Back is a perfectly satisfying and complete movie on its own, it stands on its own and you don't need to see Return of the Jedi to enjoy The Empire Strikes Back.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, if Mission 7 is half a movie, then it's perfectly appropriate and honest to name it part 1. The question would be if they should be released separately or together.

 

[TravisR]

The original trilogy is a good example with each movie with its own name. The Empire Strikes Back is a perfectly satisfying and complete movie on its own, it stands on its own and you don't need to see Return of the Jedi to enjoy The Empire Strikes Back.

Respectfully, I think if they weren't using the numbers in the titles, you wouldn't have thought of this as an issue. They're making two movies back to back and I think that it'll be like the last two movies in the Star Wars original trilogy, the last two Back To The Future movies, the Star Wars prequels & sequels, the last two Avengers movies, the last two Halloween movies, etc. where they knew they would tell a larger story over multiple movies and each has a fairly complete story with some necessary dangling threads for the next one. I would be very, very surprised if this movie ends like a TV show where the story just stops dead with no resolution until the next episode.

The question would be if they should be released separately or together.

Considering that both of these movies will probably be about two and a half hours each, I'm all for releasing them as three 90 minute movies.

 

[SamT]

I would be very, very surprised if this movie ends like a TV show where the story just stops dead with no resolution until the next episode.

Well it's possible. Here are the recent examples, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and 2. Dune Part 1 and 2. So it's very possible that the first movie stops with no resolution. Those 2 are appropriately named by the way. So the naming is a huge deal and we will see if Mission 7 is also appropriately named part 1.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Christopher McQuarrie has basically turned it back into a TV series, except one you where have to pay $20 to see each new episode.

Well, really that's most of what plays at the cinema now. They want "episodes" now.

I like the Mission Impossible series and being that it is based on a TV show I am alright with the episodic nature of the whole thing.

The trailer looks decent, very James Bond. Is this two part deal supposed to be the end of the series?

 

[TravisR]

Well it's possible. Here are the recent examples, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and 2. Dune Part 1 and 2. So it's very possible that the first movie stops with no resolution. Those 2 are appropriately named by the way. So the naming is a huge deal and we will see if Mission 7 is also appropriately named part 1.

Honestly, I see zero difference between the ending of Dune or Harry Potter and the ending of the Avengers movie where half the characters died. The only difference is that one calls it Part 1 and the other uses a different subtitle.

 

[TravisR]

The trailer looks decent, very James Bond. Is this two part deal supposed to be the end of the series?

Yeah, it's the end for Cruise's Ethan Hunt character. Though I imagine that Paramount and a business minded guy like Tom Cruise will want to see a spinoff of some kind in the future.

 

[JasonRoer]

The original trilogy is a good example with each movie with its own name. The Empire Strikes Back is a perfectly satisfying and complete movie on its own, it stands on its own and you don't need to see Return of the Jedi to enjoy The Empire Strikes Back.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, if Mission 7 is half a movie, then it's perfectly appropriate and honest to name it part 1. The question would be if they should be released separately or together.

Empire ends with Luke having his hand replaced after losing it in a battle with Vader, not knowing whether Vader really is Luke's father, not knowing the fate of Han Solo, the rebellion in disarray after huge defeats, etc. It is in no way a complete story with that much open at the end of the film. At least, in my opinion. Mind you, it's still my favorite of the Star Wars films despite this.

It does seem that you have more of a problem with the labeling of a film as Part 1, 2, etc, rather than there actually not being a conclusion. Travis named numerous examples of films that with or without a Part 1 or a new name entirely end without a full resolution to the story. I love that some movies are so huge in scope that they simply cannot be told in 1 film. If they had attempted to condense Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows into 1 film, so much would have been missed. Same for Infinity War/End Game, Empire/Return, etc.

Anyway, hopefully Dead Reckoning will end up being so satisfying that we're all happy it took 4+ hours to tell the story.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Honestly, I see zero difference between the ending of Dune or Harry Potter and the ending of the Avengers movie where half the characters died. The only difference is that one calls it Part 1 and the other uses a different subtitle.

It really all depends on how it’s done, and I also think the intent and source material matter.

For Harry Potter, for instance, each of the previous films had a certain pace to them and the only way to tell the last book at the same pacing as the others was to use about four hours of screen time. A four hour film at that budget isn’t financially viable; you’d need to make twice the usual amount of money with half the screenings. The creative team was very transparent about their decision making and the films were released less than a year apart. I feel like they also did a good job of splitting the story in such a way that the first part is a complete film. The core three characters have to set out on their own to complete an impossible task with no knowledge of how to complete it. Nowhere they go is safe. When the film ends, the characters have discovered the means to accomplish their mission and have found a safe haven. I wouldn’t call it an uplifting ending, but it does actually resolve the primary plot and emotional obstacles that the characters are facing.

For Avengers, Infinity War is a complete story - it’s just not an uplifting one. The only way it’s “incomplete” is if the viewer comes to it with the false conception that all such movies must end with the good guys defeating the bad guys and no other resolution is acceptable. But if you look at the film the way it’s makers actually wrote and structured it, it’s specifically the story of the bad guy, Thanos, and his attempt to complete his mission, for which he is ultimately successful. He has more screen time than any other character, and the film begins and ends with him. It’s a complete story - it’s his story. Part of that story is that the damage he brings forth is paradigm shifting - it’s not something that our heroes can neatly fix. That’s the whole point of the story - our heroes fail. It’s telegraphed right at the beginning when Thanos makes a speech to the first hero he defeats about the heroes have never had the soul crushing experience of believing they were right with every fiber of their being and still failing in the end. And the reverberations of that failure are still being felt in stories being told today.

In both of those cases, the two film format honored the literary origins of those stories. Especially so with Avengers, because they were adapting a multi-part story into a multi-part film.

I think an argument could be made that with Mission: Impossible 7 & 8 not being pulled directly from existing source material that the decision to make two films wasn’t done to solve a pre-existing length problem inherent in the source material. An argument could also be made that unlike Harry Potter and Avengers, the Mission Impossible films have never been about character development and despite the fact that the series has been running since 1996, we don’t really know who these people are or share an emotional attachment to them - they’re cyphers, instruments of the plot and audience surrogates.

On the other hand, the TV show that inspired the film had multiple two part episodes and minimal character development, so it could equally be argued that doing a two part film was being faithful to formatting of the series.

It’s really all about how well they execute the idea and what that idea turns out to be.

My only hope for this film, and it’s one I have no expectation will actually be met, is that it discards the plot used in every other Mission film: the IMF has a mole, and Tom Cruise must go rogue and work against his own agency, who believe him to be the bad guy, in order to actually find and defeat the person really pulling the strings. The previous film both repeated that trope while gently mocking it by pointing out that the same thing has happened again and again and again. Given that history, I have little reason to believe it will be any different this time, and for me, that would be the greater creative shortcoming, more so than the length or the film or number of films.

 

[TravisR]

For Avengers, Infinity War is a complete story - it’s just not an uplifting one. The only way it’s “incomplete” is if the viewer comes to it with the false conception that all such movies must end with the good guys defeating the bad guys and no other resolution is acceptable. But if you look at the film the way it’s makers actually wrote and structured it, it’s specifically the story of the bad guy, Thanos, and his attempt to complete his mission, for which he is ultimately successful.

Like I said before, I expect that same kind of thing for Mission: Impossible. There will be a story told but like Avengers, there will be elements that carry over to the next movie. If Tom Cruise has to stop a bomb from detonating and saving a city in the climax, he'll do it and then he'll go get the bad guys in the next movie. I highly doubt that it will end with him going to cut the wire on a bomb and a cut to black and then we have to wait until the next year to see if he stopped the bomb or not.

 

[ScottRE]

I doubt Ethan Hunt will get spin offs, Cruise is getting too old for this stuff. Sure he looks great and is in amazing shape, but how much longer can he do this sort of thing? Especially since he does his own stunts. I just hope they don't go the death route. I hate that. Let Ethan and Ilse retire in The Village or someplace.

 

[Malcolm R]

As Sam said, I think this is a warning to audiences not to expect a real ending in this film that will likely end on a cliffhanger with a plot to be continued in the second film. If they left out the "Part 1", I think audiences would be upset as those that don't follow film production as closely as some of us here are not aware they shot a second film back-to-back.

Dune may not have used "Part I" on posters and in marketing, but I hear it was included in the main titles of the film (I haven't seen it yet) so at least those in the theater would know there's more to come.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Like I said before, I expect that same kind of thing for Mission: Impossible. There will be a story told but like Avengers, there will be elements that carry over to the next movie. If Tom Cruise has to stop a bomb from detonating and saving a city in the climax, he'll do it and then he'll go get the bad guys in the next movie. I highly doubt that it will end with him going to cut the wire on a bomb and a cut to black and then we have to wait until the next year to see if he stopped the bomb or not.

I sincerely hope you’re right. If it’s like one of the two part films where one part just stops, rather than reaching a conclusion of its own, I’d be somewhat disappointed. If it’s “now that X has happened, next year we will set off on Y adventure,” that definitely offers a more satisfying experience.

I doubt Ethan Hunt will get spin offs, Cruise is getting too old for this stuff. Sure he looks great and is in amazing shape, but how much longer can he do this sort of thing? Especially since he does his own stunts. I just hope they don't go the death route. I hate that. Let Ethan and Ilse retire in The Village or someplace.

I think some franchises/characters are better equipped for death scenes than others. If Ethan died, I’d feel nothing - because he’s not really a character in any meaningful sense. We know almost nothing about him, what makes him tick, where his interests lie or anything else. The mission is the movie in these films, not the character. His death would simply be a thing that happened in the plot. For movie deaths to be emotionally resonant, the character needs to have some kind of emotional arc for us to follow, and that’s never been what these films are about.

Who knows, maybe I’m alone in feeling that way. I felt nothing when Alec Baldwin’s character died in the previous film. The film made it seem like it was a moment I should have a reaction to, but Baldwin was only on his second appearance in the series, and in the first appearance, he was the guy to root against, and in the second appearance, he was just the guy spitting out exposition. And that in and of itself was fine but there was no real character there to speak of or feel bad about.

 

[TravisR]

Who knows, maybe I’m alone in feeling that way. I felt nothing when Alec Baldwin’s character died in the previous film. The film made it seem like it was a moment I should have a reaction to, but Baldwin was only on his second appearance in the series, and in the first appearance, he was the guy to root against, and in the second appearance, he was just the guy spitting out exposition. And that in and of itself was fine but there was no real character there to speak of or feel bad about.

Speaking for myself and as much as I like most of these movies, it is the stunts that are the star/what I care about and the legitimate thrill that I get out of seeing them performed rather than any real connection to the characters.

 

[ScottRE]

I always "like" the leads and the good guys. And Ethan does register for me as a character, mostly due to his overall sense of righteousness and the fact that he's an all around good guy. His team likes him and is loyal. He's had legitimate relationships rather than just single film dalliances (well, after Nyah anyway) and, well, he's the hero. He's got as much character as Daniel Craig's 007 (minus the mommy issues) and I hated watching

Spoiler

Bond die

.

As for Baldwin's character, when he got his lethal wound, I legit went "awwww mannnnn" in the theater. I liked him. If the character is sympathetic, nice, or supportive, I feel bad when they're killed. When the lead hero of a series is killed in the final film, it actually colors the previous films for me. But that's just me.

 

[mark brown]

Bring on Mission 8 !