The perplexity of endings

Endings. I've been thinking about this a lot recently, in the wake of the recent demise of LOST and the more distant last episode of ER, after 11 years, some sort of prime time record.

I am not a LOST fan. I was cured of the "mysterious" in TV series in the 90s when I sat through a couple of seasons of the "X Files" which promised "the truth was out there" until I discovered it wasn't and gave up. So with LOST I watched a couple of the first episodes, then whenever I caught up it was so incomprehensible, I couldn't be bothered. However, after reading a magazine article about the difficulties of ending a long running, and very popular TV series, I watched the final episode of LOST and was intrigued by the old cliches that it relied on to tie up what was obviously a very complicated saga.

What we got was essentially the "happy ever after in heaven" thing - which was probably very annoying for the sci fi freaks who were addicted to the thing and wouldn't embrace visions of heaven if paid to. For myself, of course, the heaven depicted was so unlike the real thing I'm not offended, just perplexed. Why do such a cliched thing? I'm left wondering if the whole series was Jack's hallucination as he lay dying. What was the point, really?

But beyond LOST, the article I read spoke about endings in general, and I realised that almost every ending I can remember, of a long term story, has been disappointing. When I say long term, I mean a long term TV series or a movie franchise that includes some sense of ongoing story.

I have noted here before that I dislike the third Lord of the Rings movie because (although the books actually end OK, because they were conceived as one book) Peter Jackson did not honour the whole story of all his characters. Specifically, he left Eowyn and Faramir dangling. He spent time on their stories and their triumphing over their individual struggles, but he did not give them enough screen time to triumph. In the book they fall in love. Even in the extended DVD version he gives them a brief incomprehesible head-leaning scene.

The Matrix trilogy is my favourite example of a trilogy that should have remained one movie. The Matrix is a brilliant sci fi story channeling Alice in Wonderland and the Gospel (oh yes, forget that the film makers are very woolly about this). The second and third movies are muddled rubbish. I don't even remember them that well. Too much money spent on too little imagination.

Star Wars, alas, is probably the highest profile and most expensive example of this phenomenon. The first Star Wars movie was brilliant, ground breaking (name a block buster from before?????) fun. Number two was great (movie geek types say it's the best, I like the sheer romance of the first better), number 3 was stupid, but it finished the story. The last three Lucas made were .... execrable rubbish. Wish he hadn't bothered.

I could go on and on. Especially film makers, but I regret to say book writers also often, fall prey to the impulse to try and end things off, and relapse into silliness, triteness, or sheer craziness. Mostly things should be left in mid air. Real life endings are messy. Let's not bother with them in our made up stories! (Books that end badly - Twilight. First book - fantastic teen romance with added vampires, book 4 - yeech! Harry Potter - actually book 7 is OK, despite or perhaps because of trite happy ending - but some of the in between volumes (no 5????) forget it!)

So why am I writing a sequel to ASKAR? I hope I'm writing a Godfather II and not a Godfather III - that's why.